3 Tragedy

Dr. Md Monirul Islam

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  1. Introduction
  1. Origin of English Drama
  1. University Wits: Marlowe and Kyd
  1. Shakespearean Tragedy
  1. Domestic Tragedy of the late Elizabethan and Jacobean Period
  1. Civil War, Restoration and the Heroic Tragedy
  1. Decline of Tragedy in the Eighteenth Century
  1. Conclusion

 

1. Introduction

 

As the title indicates the purpose of this module is to introduce the students to the development of English Tragedy between 1590 and 1798. In terms of the history of English literature the module takes as its beginning the last years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign (1558– 1603) and ends with the commencement of the Romantic period with publication of the Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Apart from the Elizabethan period the other phases of English literature that falls within the two hundred and eight years covered in this module are the Jacobean period (1603–25), Caroline Period (1625-49), Puritan Interregnum (1649-60), Restoration Period (1660-1700) and the Eighteenth Century, variously referred to as the Augustan Age or the Age of Prose and Reason or the Neoclassical period. Tragedy as a dramatic form saw many changes over this period of time. English Tragedy that originated in the 1550s reached a great height in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period, but steadily declined thereafter. This module, therefore, would start with a discussion of the emergence of English tragedy and its growth and development in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period, and would discuss different forms of tragic drama that developed between 1590 and 1642. It will be followed by a discussion on the Heroic tragedy of the Restoration period. Finally, there will be a discussion on the tragedies written in the eighteenth century and the decline of the tragic drama during the Neoclassical Period.

2. Origin of English Drama

 

Ancient Europe had a very strong dramatic tradition, but the classical drama completely lost its sway by the Middle Ages. The emergence of the dramatic forms in medieval England was a native phenomenon. The English drama emerged out of the rituals of the English church. The earliest dramatic form known as the liturgical drama was the chanted dialogue between the cleric and the Mass. From eleventh century onwards such dramatic practices are recorded by the Church. Out of the liturgical drama grew the Mystery and Miracle Plays. Mystery plays dealt with stories of Creation, Fall and Redemption. Like the liturgical dramas these plays were written in Latin and performed during festivals like Easter and Christmas by the clergies. Miracle plays dramatised lives of the saints and stories of miraculous intervention by Virgin Mary. As the plays were immensely popular, by twelfth century their performances moved out of the courtyard of the church to the market place. Once in the market place English started replacing Latin as medium and the Church lost its control over them. Cycles of Miracle plays exist from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

 

The Miracles and Mysteries were followed by the emergence of the Morality play in the latter half of the fifteenth century. Morality plays allegorized the battle with the human soul between good and the evil; vices and virtue were allegorically represented on the stage. A considerable development of the dramatic form took place in the middle of the sixteenth century with the emergence of the Interludes, which, with its more secular themes formed the link between the medieval religious drama and the psychological plays of the Tudor period. Interludes introduced real characters in place of the allegorical figures. By this time a strong impact of the Renaissance started to be felt in England and English drama received its proper form by combining the classical, especially Roman, influence with the native tradition. Therefore, the first comedies and tragedies came to be written by men of learning having knowledge of classical drama.

 

Ralph Roister Doister (1551) considered being the first comedy was written by Nicholas Udall, a schoolmaster was influenced by the Roman dramatists Plautus and Terence and the first tragedy, Gorboduc (1562), was written in imitation of the revenge plays of Seneca by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville. These early attempts matured into distinctive form of comic and tragic plays in the last two decades of the sixteenth century in the hands of the University Wits. Young men like John Lyly (c.1554–1606), George Peele (1556–? 97), Thomas Kyd (1558–94), Christopher Marlowe (1564–93) and Christopher Marlowe (1564– 93), who studied at Oxford or Cambridge, moved to London and took up writing professionally. They took a leading role in the development of English drama. The last years of the sixteenth century also saw the construction of a number of theatre houses on the south bank of the Thames: the Rose was built in 1587, the Swan in 1595, the Globe in 1599 and the Hope in 1613.

3. University Wits: Marlowe and Kyd

 

Among the University Wits it was Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd who had major contribution to the development of the English tragedy. Marlowe’s notable tragedies are Tamburlaine the Great (published in 1590), The Jew of Malta (performed in1592, published in 1623), Doctor Faustus (performed in the 1590s, and published in1604), and Edward II (published in 1592). Striking the dominant note for the Elizabethan tragedy Marlowe wrote on heroic themes and used blank verse. Influenced by Renaissance humanism Marlowe created ambitious heroes with strong individual desires. Most of Marlowe’s heroes are low born Machiavellian figures, iconoclastic in nature and are ambitious having a desire for power and glory. They speak in a high declamatory manner. The plots of Marlowe’s plays are not well constructed, though follows a five act structure. Doctor Faustus with its very episodic plot and a lot of comic scenes in the in the third and the fourth act deals with the fate of Faustus who was born in humble family, became a great scholar in divinity, but falls to death because he wanted to become as powerful as the a gods through the practice of black magic. The two parts of Tamburlaine deal with the titanic ambition and fall of the historical Tamburlaine who rose to great power from a humble shepherd boy.

 

In The Jew of Malta Barabas is a cunningly Machievellian and ambitious rogue who overreaches himself and is overthrown by a more cunning villain, Ferneze. Marlowe’s historical tragedy Edward II puts on the stage the life and death of King Edward II, who was the king of England from 1307 to his death in 1327. The conflict between the personal and the political brings about the downfall of the king. Edward gives more importance to his love for Gaveston than his duty to look after the affairs of the state. Marlowe’s plays with their deft use of blank verse and well developed characters of the heroes and villains, though weak in plot construction, foreshadowed much of what is seen in Shakespearean tragedies.

 

Thomas Kyd was another very talented dramatist. Kyd is said to have written a number of plays but his reputation as a dramatist today rests on The Spanish Tragedy; or, Hieronimo is Mad Again. It was presented in the Rose theatre in 1592. The play is significant in firmly establishing the revenge conventions on English stage. Almost all the conventional elements of revenge tragedy—ghost, madness, suicidal tendency of the hero, delay in the act of revenge, a play-within-the-play, murder, bloodshed and horror—are used by Kyd in the play. It tells the story of Hieronimo’s revenge forthe death of his son, Horatio, who is murdered by Lorenzo and Balthazer. When Hieronimo discovers the murder he apparently plunges into madness, but feigning madness Hieronimo wants to discover the identity of the murderers and to exact vengeance. However, even when he has knowledge of the murderers his act of revenge is delayed because his enemies are men in power. Hieronimo arranges a play-within-the play where all the important characters including Horatio’s murderers will act and plans to kill Lorenzo and Balthazer in the course of it. With the help of Horatio’s beloved Bel-imeria, Hieronimo able to take revenge as the illusion of murder within the play turns out to be real. All this action of murder and bloodshed is overseen from hell by Revenge and the Ghost of Andrea who was earlier killed byBalthazar in a combat.

 

The revenge convention established by Kyd was followed by a number of Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists. Among the Shakespearean tragedies Hamlet is a complete revenge play. Hamlet’s father is secretly murdered by his uncle Claudius. The Ghost of Hamlet’s father directs Hamlet to avenge the deed. His revenge is delayed as he has some initial doubts about the words of the Ghost. To ascertain his uncle’s act of betrayal he feigns madness and the play-within-the play scene confirms Claudius’s guilt. Hamlet suffers form much dilemma and finally he takes his revenge, but also dies in the process.

 

The revenge convention was carried forward in the Jacobean period by a number of dramatists and a key figure among them was John Webster(c. 1580 – c. 1634). Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi (c. 1613) is a significant revenge play, which, in contrast to the earlier revenge plays where the protagonist exacts revenge upon the villains, shows the innocent widowed Duchess being tortured and murdered by her Machiavellian brothers, Ferdinand and the Cardinal. The two brothers are assisted by the malcontent Bosola. The reason behind the torture meted out to her seems to be her remarriage. She secretly marries her steward Antonio against the will of her brothers. However, there is a second revenge thread, in which Bosola exacts revenge upon the two brothers, when he fails to get the reward for what he has done for them. The play has its share bloodshed and horror and keeping with the revenge convention all the major characters perish in the play. Webster’s The White Devil (c.1609-12) set in Italy like the earlier play, once gain deals with the issue of retribution and revenge employing standard revenge elements of murder, bloodshed, madness (feigned), and scenes of horrible torture etc.

 

The decadent social and moral order of the time is well captured in Webster’s tragedies. As a prolific writer of the time Webster collaborated with several contemporary dramatists: with Dekker he wrote Westward Hoe (1604) and Northward Hoe (1605), with William Rowley and others in Keep the Widow Waking (1624); worked with Thomas Middleton in Anything for a Quite Life (written in c. 1620) and with John Fletcher in The Fair Maid of the Inn (1625). He also helped expanding The Malcontent of John Marston. Apart from Webster’s plays, the other notable revenge plays from the Jacobean period include George Chapman’s (c.1559-1634) Bussy’ the Amboise and The Revenge of Bussy’ the Amboise (printed in 1613) , John Marston’s(1576-1634) Antonio’s Revenge (printed in 1602) , Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy (printed in 1607) and The Atheist’s Tragedy (printed in 1611) etc. Middleton comments on the morality of revenge and it is advocated that justice should be left for God to deliver. In fact, unlike Seneca’s plays, revenge as a form of justice is never fully endorsed in English revenge tragedies and the revenging hero invariably dies with the object of revenge.

4. Shakespearean Tragedy

 

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) brought perfection to the English dramatic literature. He wrote thirty seven plays that includes history plays, tragedies, comedies, and tragi-comedies. Written between 1590 and 1610, Titus Andronicus(c.1587), Romeo and Juliet(c. 1594-93), Julius Caesar(c.1599), Hamlet(c.1599-1601), Othello(1604), King Lear(c.1605), Macbeth(c.1606), Antony and Cleopatra(c. 1606-07) and Coriolanus (c.1608) are considered to form the core group of tragedies. Like Marlowe, Shakespeare was greatly influenced by the ideals of Renaissance humanism and most of his tragedies depend on the strong individual heroes who bring about their own downfall. Unlike the classical tragedy where fate plays a crucial role in the downfall of the hero, these are tragedies wrought by character. In Shakespeare tragic conflict is often internal and it is played within the mind of the hero. Macbeth brings about his own downfall by ambitiously going after the crown, but suffers from intense dilemma before choosing the path of evil. Hamlet is paralysed by the quarrel that goes on within his mind.

 

King Lear is psychologically tormented once he realises his foolishness in dividing his kingdom between Goneril and Regan depriving Cordelia of it. Othello is torn between belief and disbelief before being overrun by his jealousy and strangulating his beloved wife to death. Though fate is not a crucial element in Shakespeare, supernatural elements are not absent from his plays. Ghosts and witches and popular superstitions are used by Shakespeare in a psychologically convincing manner (e.g. the three Witches in Macbeth, the Ghost of Hamlet’s father). The plot of a Shakespearean tragedy is well constructed and hardly breaks the principles of necessity and probability. He, however, does not adhere to the principle of three unities as advocated by the classicists. Shakespeare also drops in occasional comic episodes (e. g. the Porter scene in Macbeth, the grave diggers in Hamlet or the Fool in King Lear) in his plays contrary to the spirit of classical theory of tragedy. Shakespeare’s contemporary and classicist Ben Jonson followed the classical model in his Sejanus his Fall (1603) and Catiline his Conspiracy (1611), but these plays were not as successful on stage as Shakespearean tragedies.

 

In terms of subject matter of the tragedies Shakespeare’s range is very wide in spite of the fact that he did not care for originality of the story and generously borrowed from earlier plays, histories, chronicles and popular tales. He could treat love as matter of tragedy as well as of comedy. Destruction of life and love due to family feud between Montagues and Capulets is represented in Romeo and Juliet. Here the family issues are not related to larger issues of state and society and sate, but in Othello, Macbeth and King Lear, Shakespeare explores how the disorder within the individual is symptomatic of the chaos and disorder within the family, the state and the universe. Anything happening at the microcosmic level relates to the macrocosm.

 

Among his Roman tragedies Titus Andronicus falls within the category of revenge tragedy, where Titus dies in the process of completing his revenge. Julius Caesar deal with the problem in the body politic. Brutus’s love for Rome leads him to kill his friend Caesar and another friend Antony wants to avenge Caesar’s death, which leads to civil war. In Antony and Cleopatra the personal and the political are pitted against each other. Antony is torn between his love for the Cleopatra and his love for his country. In Coriolanus divided loyalty becomes the cause of the eponymous hero’s death. Martius/Coriolanus’s is torn between a sense of personal honour and his loyalty to the country. The source of the Roman tragedies was Plutarch’s Lives and they fuse together history and tragedy as Marlowe did in Edward II. In writing historical tragedies Shakespeare improved on Marlowe in representing history in a condensed and convincing form of tragedy by leaving out details and inventing wherever necessary. The tragedies based on English histories like Richard III and Richard II also succeeded in doing so.

5. Domestic Tragedy of the Elizabethan and Jacobean Period

 

The concern of much of Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedies was the fate of noble men, emperors, kings and princes. Even when the dramatists present lowborn heroes they are shown achieving nobility and grandeur. However, a group of plays were written during late Elizabethan and Jacobean period with their focus on domestic life of the English middleclass men and women. These tragedies specially focussed on the troubled relationship between the husbands and wives. These works with their domestic setting probably were influenced by the religious Morality plays. Thematically most of these plays were centred on the debauchery of women leading to their tragic end. Two such anonymous plays from the 1590s are The Tragedy of Mr Arden of Feversham (printed in 1592) and A Warning to Fair Women (printed in 1599). Another anonymous play of this genre, A Yorkshire Tragedy was printed in 1609. These plays were based on real incidents of murders of the husbands committed by adulterous and treacherous wives. The story of Mistress Arden’s repeated attempt to murder her husband with the help of her lover Mosbie told in The Tragedy of Mr Arden of Feversham, for example, was based on the murder of Thomas Arden, a country gentleman in 1551.

 

Similarly, A Warning to Fair Women puts on the stage the1773 actual incident of murder of George Sanders, a London merchant. The most celebrated writer of the domestic tragedy is Thomas Heywood (c.1574-164) and his best work in the genre is A Woman Killed with Kindness (printed in 1607). The plot concerns the adultery of John Frankford’s wife Anne Frankford and Mr. Wendoll. When John discovers the adulterous relationship between the two, he banishes his wife to the country side where she dies repentant and forgiven by her husband. Heywood’s The English Traveller (c.1625) once again focuses on adultery and uses the elements of domestic tragedy, but it is a tragic-comic play. Contrary to the antipathy shown towards women in the earlier plays The English Traveller, The Fair Maid of the West (in two parts) presents an intelligent, resourceful and generous heroine in Bess Bridges, a tanner’s daughter. Another important example of the domestic tragedy is Francis Beaumont’s (c. 1584-1616) and John Fletcher’s (1579-1625) collaborative fruit, The Maid’s Tragedy (c. 1610), though the focus of this play is not the middleclass life. It tells the story of two women Evadne and Aspatia. Evadne is married to Amintor, who is loved by Aspatia, but their marriage is not consummated as Evadne being the king’s mistress refuses to sleep with Amintor on the night of their marriage. In the course of the play Aspatia in the disguise of her brother is fatally wounded in a duel by Amintor. Evadne, on the other hand, kills the king. After killing king Evadne commits suicide when Amintor refuses to accept her. The play ends with Aspatia’s death and Amintor killing himself to be united with her in death. Thomas Middleton’s Women beware Women (c.1621).

 

With its two parallel plots woven together in a very complex manner, the play deals with the themes of woman’s capacity for evil and destructive nature of sexual immorality. The Changeling (1622) is another play to focus on sexual passion and corruption of women represented in the play by Beatrice-Joanna. In writing The Changeling Middleton collaborated with Thomas Rowley (c.1585 –1626). Right into the Caroline period we find James Shirley (1596-1666) and John Ford (1586-1639) writing plays focused on immorality of woman using the conventions of revenge tragedy in The Broken Heart and’Tis Pity She is A Whore. Both of these plays were printed in 1633. An eighteenth century example of the domestic tragedy is George Lillo’s The London Merchant (1731).

6. Civil War, Restoration and the Heroic Tragedy

 

The life of the Jacobean tragedy was cut short by the civil war during the reign of Charles I. James Shirley’s The Traitor (1631) and The Cardinal (1641) are later examples of the genre of Jacobean revenge tragedy. The entire reign of Charles was fraught with problems. The quarrel between the king and his opponents led by Oliver Cromwell resulted in considerable hostilities in 1642 leading to a civil war. The first war was settled with Oliver Cromwell’s victory for Parliamentary forces in the 1645 Battle of Naseby. The second phase of war ended with Charles’s defeat at the Battle of Preston and his subsequent execution in 1649. Cromwell ruled England until monarchy was restored in 1660. Theatre bore the burnt during these years of turmoil. On the September 6, 1642 the theatres were closed by ordinance as it was considered unseemly to indulge in theatrical diversions in times of trouble. A further order was issued in 1647 prohibiting any dramatic performance. However, after the restoration, Charles II re-opened the theatre houses and the two types of plays that took hold of the British stage were the Comedy of Manners and Heroic Tragedy.

 

John Dryden (1631-1700) in the preface to the Conquest of Granada commenting on the theme and style of the heroic drama observed that “an heroic play ought to be an imitation, in little, of an heroic poem; and, consequently, that love and valour ought to be the subject of it.” The heroic drama borrowed from the ancient and modern epics, Italian and French prose romances. Most of these plays were written in rhyming pentameter couplets, i.e. the heroic metre, but blank verse was also used. To accompany the declamatory passages highly artificial and spectacular operatic style of staging was the custom. Naturally, these plays presented characters of superhuman stature. The plays predominantly deal with high ideals of love, honour, and courage. Love and honour is often shown in conflict as the hero invariably finds himself fighting against side to his beloved. Faced with a dilemma the hero either will have to renounce his love and see her slain or letting his enemy go.

 

An early exponent of the heroic drama was Sir William Devenant, who inaugurated the genre with The Siege of the Rhodes (1556) and The Spaniards in Peru (1558). Dryden was the most prolific writer of the heroic tragedy. His most celebrated play in this genre is All for Love, or The World well Lost (1678). It is based on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and concentres on the last hours of their life. The play deploys almost every element of the heroic tragedy, but it is written in blank verse. Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada (in two parts, 1669 and 1670) written in rhyming couplet depict the troubled love between noble Almanzor and the beautiful moor woman Almahide. The play does not have customary tragic ending and the lovers are fortunate to be happily united. Dryden’s Aureng-Zebe (1675) was based on contemporary Indian history of how the hero wrested power from his rivals. Following the heroic tradition, the hero is presented as a figure of exemplary virtue and rationality.

 

Dryden wrote a number of other heroic plays, such as The Indian Emperor (1665). Tyrannick Love (1669) and collaborated with Robert Howard in writing The Indian Queen (1665). Apart from Dryden, Thomas Otway (1651-85), Nathaniel Lee (1653-92), Elkanah Settle (1648-1724), John Crowne (c. 1640-1703) and Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718) wrote in this form. Otway’s masterpiece, Venice Preserved (1682) deals with the life, love and tragic death of Jaffeir, a Venetian youth and his wife Belvidera, the daughter of his enemy. Otway treats the conflict between twin brothers, Castalio and Polydore for their love of the orphan girl Monimia in The Orphan (1680). Lee’s Sophonisba (1676) and The Rival Queens (1677) are best known plays. Lee uses rhyme in the first one, but blank verse is used in the second. Settle made his name with The Empress of Morocco (1673), but it is considered to be a poor example of heroic tragedy. Crowne’s best-known work in the genre is of Caligula (1698). Rowe wrote heroic plays like Tamerlane (1702), The Fair Penitent (1703), and Jane Shore (1714) was the poet laureate from1715 to 1718.

7. Decline of Tragedy in the Eighteenth Century

 

The eighteenth century saw a steep decline of dramatic literature, especially of tragic drama. The Restoration Comedy of Manners was criticised by puritanical groups as immoral and as a reaction to the Manners comedy the Sentimental comedy, sometimes called ‘bastard tragedy,’ were popular on the stage. In the latter half of the eighteenth century comic drama was revived by R. B. Sheridan 1751 –1816) and Oliver Goldsmith (1728 –1774) in their Anti-sentimental comedies. But no such revival could happen in case of the tragedy. It has been argued that the neo-classical emphasis on the instructive role of literature was a prime reason behind decline of the tragic drama, because the tragic form could not be conveniently used for moral instructions. Satire in verse and prose with its didactic tone was most popular genre during this period. Another argument proffered to explain the failure of tragedy is that neo-classicism with its blind adherence to the classical rules choked the creativity of the writers.

 

Shakespearean tragedies were still adapted in the eighteenth century English stage and some of the late productions of domestic tragedy and heroic tragedy were performed. John Crwone’s Jane Shore (1714) was based on the life of Elizabeth Jane Shore (c.1445 – c.1527), who was one of the mistresses of King Edward IV. The play uses the form of the heroic tragedy embedding within it elements from the domestic tragedy. Rowe depicts Jane as developing an affair with king’s friend Hastings and encouraging him to oppose Richard’s usurpation of power. She is shown being punished by Richard in revenge for conspiring against him. George Lillo’s domestic tragedy The London Merchant or, the history of George Barnwell (1731) was acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. The story of Barnwell’s betrayal of his master Thorowgood under the influence of the seductive London prostitute, Sarah Millwood was very popular among the theatregoers. Another very popular neoclassical tragedy, Joseph Addison’s (1672 –1719) Cato was produced in1713. It is a regular neoclassical tragedy dealing with the life of republican Cato who commits suicide unwilling to submit to the dictatorship of Caesar. Unlike Addison’s play, Dr. Samuel Johnson’s (1709–1784) blank verse tragedy Irene (1716) did not achieve much success when it was performed in 1749 by David Garrick under the title Mahomet and Irene. The story is taken from Richard Knolle’s Generall Historie of the Turkes (1603). It represents the tragic fate of the Greek slave Irene who is loved by sultan Mahomet.

 

The influence of neoclassicism started ebbing towards the end of the eighteenth century and the first Romantic impetus started to be felt in the theatre of the Sturm und Drang (translated as ‘storm and stress’). The leading works of the movement, Goethe’s play Götz Von Berlichingen (1773), his novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1773), and Schiller’s play Die Räuber (1781) were translated into English and influenced the British theatre of the Romantic period. Gregory Lewis’s gothic play The Castle Spectre (1797), S.T. Coleridge’s tragedy Osorio (1797), which was revised and performed as Remorse in 1813, and Joana Baillie’s first volume of Plays on the Passions that included Count Basil, a tragedy on love and De Monfort, a tragedy on hatred, were influenced by the sturm und drang’s revolt against literary conventions of neoclassicism. Romantic revolt against neoclassicism, however, took a lyrical turn and dramatic literature did not have a good life during the Romantic period.

8. Conclusion

 

The English tragic drama between 1590 and 1798 had its highs and lows. It had its golden time during the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. Though there was a decline of the tragedy during the late Jacobean era, tragedies continued to be written and staged until the theatre houses were closed in 1642. The Restoration tragedy took a different form becoming more like a heroic poem in its theme and style. The eighteenth century saw an over emphasis on instructive function of literature and on classical rules leading to further decline of the tragic drama. In the last decades of the eighteenth century there was a resurgence of passion in dramatic literature. The plays written during this period, however, never achieved the greatness of the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.

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