Otway, Lee and the Restoration History Play

Abstract

Of all Restoration dramatists, Thomas Otway and Nathaniel Lee are the two leading writers of topical and partisan history plays. This chapter looks at most of Otway's and Lee's dramatic output. It focuses on their rhymed heroic dramas and blank verse tragedies founded on history. By situating these plays in their politico-historical contexts, the chapter explores the uses they made of the past. It starts by considering how Otway and Lee appropriated episodes from the history of ancient Rome and early modern Spain, Italy and France. How Lee depicts Roman, Italian and French history, and in what ways his depictions resemble or depart from those of pre-Civil War history plays, is one theme of this chapter. Another is Otway's figuration of history, ranging from the politically neutral depiction of the past in Alcibiades and Don Carlos to the complex and equivocal topicality of Caius Marius and Venice Preserv'd.

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