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Let me begin with three common observations about 1678 of Dryden and Lee. First, more than their predecessor versions by Sophocles, Seneca, and Corneille, Restoration playwrights emphasize erotic nature of incestuous relationship between and Jocasta. (1) Second, Creon is transformed from relatively ambitionless playboy prince of Sophocles' original to physically and morally twisted precipitator of crisis, analogous to the figure of Shaftesbury royalist eyes and representations (Novak, Commentary to Oedipus 462). (2) Third, as previous suggests, Dryden and Lee's play, while offering no strict allegory, has relevance to contemporary events--the Popish Plot and gathering Exclusion Crisis--not least in that, with its added subplot, their version focuses more than others on issues of legitimacy and succession. (3) My focus here is link between first observation--the exaggerated eroticism of play--and others, a link that exists since a patriarchal, monarchical society transmits its power and property body of a woman. That eroticism has usually been attributed to Lee's tendencies toward sensationalistic, by contrast to Dryden's judicial and metaphysical emphases. (4) Insofar as that may be true, and I will severely qualify its applicability, I would argue that in collaboration, especially in depiction of Jocasta, if these are Lee's means, they nevertheless serve--in a complex way--Dryden's ends. I We should begin by placing composition of Dryden and Lee's in its historical context. Max Novak has written that in 1678 the political theater of Popish Plot [had] ... distracted ... theatergoers from beauties of stage (Commentary to Troilus and 497). The Popish Plot, of course, was a series of alleged Catholic-backed plots that involved planned assassination of Charles II by Jesuits, installation of James on throne, and a Catholic invasion. The Earl of Shaftesbury led Whigs in exploiting supposed danger by pressing for exclusion of James from succession and legitimization of Duke of Monmouth, Charles's bastard--and Protestant--son. The larger issue, of course, was a Parliamentary struggle to reverse flow of power, to restructure both constitutional laws and historic notions of kingship, which was accomplished, finally, with Glorious Revolution. But Novak's term legitimate stage posits a drama untainted by politics--arguably untrue of all theater, as indeed of all art. A most explicitly political work is Dryden's own Absalom and Achitophel, published in 1681during Shaftesbury's trial, climax of Plot. Dryden first published it anonymously--a transparent attempt at distancing himself from his argument, but an attempt all same. The relation of to contemporary events is more oblique. In choosing to adapt so well known a play, Dryden and Lee could do implicitly what Dryden later did explicitly in later political crisis, Glorious Revolution, when he claimed, somewhat disingenuously, that his plays were not political commentaries but plain stor[ies] (Cleomenes 79). Dramatically, collaborators would wait until 1683, with The Duke of Guise and its Vindication, to make contemporary relevance more plain. Yet does have at least broad relevance to Popish Plot in that guilt is unexpectedly uncovered and innocence falsely accused. (It may be telling, too, that Dryden's next play, Troilus and Cressida [1679], is subtitled The Truth Found Too Late.) Since Dryden, according to his own declaration, composed whole design of as well as writing Acts I and III (Vindication 344), it is worthwhile to review his personal involvement in contemporary events. In 1681, he claimed that he had seen through Plot from start (Winn 317). Be that as it may, as early as 1677, Dryden would have been aware and personally concerned with its developing implications. …
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