Thomas Otway
Encyclopedia
Thomas Otway was an English
dramatist of the Restoration
period, best known for Venice Preserv'd
, or A Plot Discover'd (1682).
, the parish of which his father, Humphrey Otway, was at that time curate. Humphrey later became rector of Woolbeding , a neighbouring parish, where Thomas Otway was brought up. He was educated at Winchester College
, and in 1669 entered Christ Church, Oxford
, as a commoner, but left the university without a degree in the autumn of 1672. At Oxford he made the acquaintance of Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland, through whom, he says in the dedication to Caius Marius, he first learned to love books. In London
he made acquaintance with Aphra Behn
, who in 1672 cast him as the old king in her play, Forc'd Marriage, or The Jealous Bridegroom, at the Dorset Garden Theatre
. However, he had a bad attack of stage fright
, and never made a second appearance.
Meanwhile he had fallen in love with Mrs Barry, who played many of the leading parts in his plays. Six letters to her survive, the last of them referring to a broken appointment in the Mall. Mrs Barry seems to have flirted with Otway, but had no intention of permanently offending Rochester. In 1678, driven to desperation by her, Otway obtained a commission through Charles, Earl of Plymouth
, a natural son of Charles II
, in a regiment serving in the Netherlands
. The English troops were disbanded in 1679, but were left to find their way home as best they could. They were paid with depreciated paper, and Otway arrived in London
late in the year, ragged and dirty, a circumstance utilized by Elkanah Settle in his Sessions of the Poets.
He apparently ceased to struggle against his poverty and misfortunes. The generally accepted story regarding the manner of his death was first given in Theophilus Cibber
's Lives of the Poets. He is said to have emerged from his retreat at the Bull on Tower Hill to beg for bread. A passer-by, learning who he was, gave him a guinea, with which Otway hastened to a baker's shop. He ate too hastily, and choked on the first mouthful . Whether this account of his death be true or not, it is certain that he died in the utmost poverty, and was buried on 16 April 1685 in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes.
produced, at the Dorset Garden Theatre
, Otway's first play, Alcibiades
, which was printed in the same year. It is a tragedy
, written in heroic verse, saved from absolute failure only by the actors. Elizabeth Barry
took the part of Draxilla, and her lover, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
, recommended Otway to the Duke of York (later King James II
). He made a great improvement in Don Carlos, Prince of Spain (licensed 15 June 1676). The material for this rhymed tragedy came from the novel of the same name, written in 1672 by the Abbé de Saint-Real
, the source from which Friedrich Schiller
also drew his tragedy of Don Carlos. In it the two characters familiar throughout his plays make their appearance. Don Carlos is the impetuous, unstable youth, who seems to be drawn from Otway himself, while the queen's part is the gentle pathetic character repeated in his more celebrated heroines, Monimia and Belvidera. It got more money, says John Downes
(Roscius Anglicanus, 1708) of this play, than any preceding modern tragedy.
In 1677 Betterton produced two adaptations from the French by Otway, Titus and Berenice (from Racine
's Bérénice), and the Cheats of Scapin (from Molière
's Fourberies de Scapin). These were printed together, with a dedication to Rochester. In 1678 he produced an original comedy
, Friendship in Fashion, which was very successful.
In February 1680, the first of Otway's two tragic masterpieces, The Orphan
, or The Unhappy Marriage, was produced at the Dorset Garden, Mrs Barry playing the part of Monimia. Written in blank verse
, modelled on that of Shakespeare
, its success was due to the tragic pathos, of which Otway was a master, in the characters of Castalio and Monimia. The History and Fall of Caius Marius, produced in the same year, and printed in 1692, is a curious grafting of Shakespeare
's Romeo and Juliet
on the story of Marius as related in Plutarch
's Lives.
In 1680 Otway also published The Poets Complaint of his Muse, or A Satyr against Libells, in which he retaliated on his literary enemies. An indifferent comedy, The Soldier's Fortune (1681), was followed in February 1682 by Venice Preserv'd
, or A Plot Discover'd. The story is founded on the Histoire de la conjuration des Espagnols contre la Venise en 1618, also by the Abbé de Saint-Real
, but Otway modified the story considerably. The character of Belvidera is his own, and the leading part in the conspiracy, taken by Bedamor, the Spanish ambassador, is given in the play to the historically insignificant Pierre and Jaffeir. The piece has a political meaning, enforced in the prologue. The Popish Plot was in Otway's mind, and Anthony, 1st earl of Shaftesbury, is caricatured in Antonio. There is an allusion to Shaftesbury in the play's "Prologue", in the following lines:
"Poland, Poland! Had it been thy Lot,
T'have heard in time of this Venetian Plot;
Thou surely chosen hadst one King from thence,
And honour'd them as thou hast England since."
The allusion is to rumours current at the time that Shaftesbury had planned to make himself King of Poland. Because of this, and the silver pipe John Locke had inserted into him to drain an abscess, he was popularly referred to as "Count Tapski".
Venice Preserv'd also contains an allusion to Rochester's famous deathbed conversion, as reported in Gilbert Burnet's Some Passages of the Life and Death of.. Rochester (1680). The conversion was doubted by many, and Otway is obviously sceptical, for when Pierre is on the scaffold, attended by a priest, he is made to say the following to his executioner (Act V, scene ii): "Captain, I'd have hereafter / This fellow write no Lies of my Conversion."
The play won instant success. It was translated into almost every modern European language, and even Dryden
said of it: "Nature is there, which is the greatest beauty."
The Orphan
and Venice Preserved remained stock pieces on the stage until the 19th century, and the leading actresses of the period played Monimia and Belvidera. His last and most obscure play is The Atheist (1684), although many see it as a way to cash in on his previous comic success with The Soldier's Fortune, some see it not as a weak sequel but as a "brilliant experiment." One of the aims of the play is to show what happens after the wedding as sentimental conclusion in plays of the period through the figures of Courtine and Sylvia. The bleakness of their relations taint those of Beauregard and Porcia. The complexity of the plot, some of which derives from the "Invisible Mistress," the first interpolated story in Paul Scarron
's Roman comique, speak of the maze of human life, a meaningless world left for the audience to decipher. One or two prefaces, and two posthumous pieces, a poem, Windsor Castle (1685), a panegyric
of Charles II, and a History of the Triumvirates (1686), translated from the French
, complete the list of Otway's works. A tragedy entitled Heroick Friendship was printed in 1686 as Otway's work, but the ascription is unlikely.
The Works of Mr Thomas Otway with some account of his life and writings, published in 1712, was followed by other editions (1757, 1768, 1812). The standard edition is that by T Thornton (1813).
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
dramatist of the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
period, best known for Venice Preserv'd
Venice Preserv'd
Venice Preserv'd is an English Restoration play written by Thomas Otway, and the most significant tragedy of the English stage in the 1680s. It was staged first in 1682, with Thomas Betterton as Jaffeir and Elizabeth Barry as Belvidera...
, or A Plot Discover'd (1682).
Life
Otway was born at Trotton near MidhurstMidhurst
Midhurst is a market town and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England, with a population of 4,889 in 2001. The town is situated on the River Rother and is home to the ruin of the Tudor Cowdray House and the stately Victorian Cowdray Park...
, the parish of which his father, Humphrey Otway, was at that time curate. Humphrey later became rector of Woolbeding , a neighbouring parish, where Thomas Otway was brought up. He was educated at Winchester College
Winchester College
Winchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...
, and in 1669 entered Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
, as a commoner, but left the university without a degree in the autumn of 1672. At Oxford he made the acquaintance of Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland, through whom, he says in the dedication to Caius Marius, he first learned to love books. In London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
he made acquaintance with Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...
, who in 1672 cast him as the old king in her play, Forc'd Marriage, or The Jealous Bridegroom, at the Dorset Garden Theatre
Dorset Garden Theatre
The Dorset Garden Theatre in London, built in 1671, was in its early years also known as the Duke of York's Theatre, or the Duke's Theatre. In 1685, King Charles II died and his brother, the Duke of York, was crowned as James II. When the Duke became King, the theatre became the Queen's Theatre in...
. However, he had a bad attack of stage fright
Glossophobia
Glossophobia or speech anxiety is the fear of public speaking. The word glossophobia comes from the Greek glōssa, meaning tongue, and φόβος phobos, fear or dread...
, and never made a second appearance.
Meanwhile he had fallen in love with Mrs Barry, who played many of the leading parts in his plays. Six letters to her survive, the last of them referring to a broken appointment in the Mall. Mrs Barry seems to have flirted with Otway, but had no intention of permanently offending Rochester. In 1678, driven to desperation by her, Otway obtained a commission through Charles, Earl of Plymouth
Charles FitzCharles, 1st Earl of Plymouth
Charles FitzCharles, 1st Earl of Plymouth was the illegitimate son of King Charles II of England, by Catherine Pegge. He had a sister called Catherine FitzCharles who became a nun. His mother went on to marry Sir Edward Greene of Samford in Essex, but they had no further children...
, a natural son of Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
, in a regiment serving in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. The English troops were disbanded in 1679, but were left to find their way home as best they could. They were paid with depreciated paper, and Otway arrived in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
late in the year, ragged and dirty, a circumstance utilized by Elkanah Settle in his Sessions of the Poets.
He apparently ceased to struggle against his poverty and misfortunes. The generally accepted story regarding the manner of his death was first given in Theophilus Cibber
Theophilus Cibber
Theophilus Cibber was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager Colley Cibber.He began acting at an early age, and followed his father into theatrical management. In 1727, Alexander Pope satirized Theophilus Cibber in his Dunciad as a youth who "thrusts his person full...
's Lives of the Poets. He is said to have emerged from his retreat at the Bull on Tower Hill to beg for bread. A passer-by, learning who he was, gave him a guinea, with which Otway hastened to a baker's shop. He ate too hastily, and choked on the first mouthful . Whether this account of his death be true or not, it is certain that he died in the utmost poverty, and was buried on 16 April 1685 in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes.
Writing career
In 1675 Thomas BettertonThomas Betterton
Thomas Patrick Betterton , English actor, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London.-Apprentice and actor:...
produced, at the Dorset Garden Theatre
Dorset Garden Theatre
The Dorset Garden Theatre in London, built in 1671, was in its early years also known as the Duke of York's Theatre, or the Duke's Theatre. In 1685, King Charles II died and his brother, the Duke of York, was crowned as James II. When the Duke became King, the theatre became the Queen's Theatre in...
, Otway's first play, Alcibiades
Alcibiades
Alcibiades, son of Clinias, from the deme of Scambonidae , was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general. He was the last famous member of his mother's aristocratic family, the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War...
, which was printed in the same year. It is a tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
, written in heroic verse, saved from absolute failure only by the actors. Elizabeth Barry
Elizabeth Barry
Elizabeth Barry was an English actress of the Restoration period.She worked in big, prestigious London theatre companies throughout her successful career: from 1675 in the Duke's Company, 1682 – 1695 in the monopoly United Company, and from 1695 onwards as a member of the actors' cooperative...
took the part of Draxilla, and her lover, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester , styled Viscount Wilmot between 1652 and 1658, was an English Libertine poet, a friend of King Charles II, and the writer of much satirical and bawdy poetry. He was the toast of the Restoration court and a patron of the arts...
, recommended Otway to the Duke of York (later King James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
). He made a great improvement in Don Carlos, Prince of Spain (licensed 15 June 1676). The material for this rhymed tragedy came from the novel of the same name, written in 1672 by the Abbé de Saint-Real
César Vichard de Saint-Réal
César Vichard de Saint-Réal was a French polygraph.He was born in Chambéry, Savoy, but educated in Lyon by the Jesuits. He used to work in the royal library with Antoine Varillas. This French historiographer influenced the way Saint-Réal wrote history...
, the source from which Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
also drew his tragedy of Don Carlos. In it the two characters familiar throughout his plays make their appearance. Don Carlos is the impetuous, unstable youth, who seems to be drawn from Otway himself, while the queen's part is the gentle pathetic character repeated in his more celebrated heroines, Monimia and Belvidera. It got more money, says John Downes
John Downes (17th-century prompter)
John Downes worked as a prompter at the Duke's Company, and later the United Company, for most of the Restoration period 1660—1700...
(Roscius Anglicanus, 1708) of this play, than any preceding modern tragedy.
In 1677 Betterton produced two adaptations from the French by Otway, Titus and Berenice (from Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
's Bérénice), and the Cheats of Scapin (from Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's Fourberies de Scapin). These were printed together, with a dedication to Rochester. In 1678 he produced an original comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
, Friendship in Fashion, which was very successful.
In February 1680, the first of Otway's two tragic masterpieces, The Orphan
The Orphan
This article is about the play. For the 2009 horror film, see Orphan .The Orphan, or The Unhappy Marriage is a domestic tragedy, written by Thomas Otway in 1680. It was first produced at the Dorset Garden Theatre, and starred Mrs. Barry as Monimia, Thomas Betterton as Castalio and Mr. Jo. Williams...
, or The Unhappy Marriage, was produced at the Dorset Garden, Mrs Barry playing the part of Monimia. Written in blank verse
Blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
, modelled on that of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, its success was due to the tragic pathos, of which Otway was a master, in the characters of Castalio and Monimia. The History and Fall of Caius Marius, produced in the same year, and printed in 1692, is a curious grafting of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
on the story of Marius as related in Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
's Lives.
In 1680 Otway also published The Poets Complaint of his Muse, or A Satyr against Libells, in which he retaliated on his literary enemies. An indifferent comedy, The Soldier's Fortune (1681), was followed in February 1682 by Venice Preserv'd
Venice Preserv'd
Venice Preserv'd is an English Restoration play written by Thomas Otway, and the most significant tragedy of the English stage in the 1680s. It was staged first in 1682, with Thomas Betterton as Jaffeir and Elizabeth Barry as Belvidera...
, or A Plot Discover'd. The story is founded on the Histoire de la conjuration des Espagnols contre la Venise en 1618, also by the Abbé de Saint-Real
César Vichard de Saint-Réal
César Vichard de Saint-Réal was a French polygraph.He was born in Chambéry, Savoy, but educated in Lyon by the Jesuits. He used to work in the royal library with Antoine Varillas. This French historiographer influenced the way Saint-Réal wrote history...
, but Otway modified the story considerably. The character of Belvidera is his own, and the leading part in the conspiracy, taken by Bedamor, the Spanish ambassador, is given in the play to the historically insignificant Pierre and Jaffeir. The piece has a political meaning, enforced in the prologue. The Popish Plot was in Otway's mind, and Anthony, 1st earl of Shaftesbury, is caricatured in Antonio. There is an allusion to Shaftesbury in the play's "Prologue", in the following lines:
"Poland, Poland! Had it been thy Lot,
T'have heard in time of this Venetian Plot;
Thou surely chosen hadst one King from thence,
And honour'd them as thou hast England since."
The allusion is to rumours current at the time that Shaftesbury had planned to make himself King of Poland. Because of this, and the silver pipe John Locke had inserted into him to drain an abscess, he was popularly referred to as "Count Tapski".
Venice Preserv'd also contains an allusion to Rochester's famous deathbed conversion, as reported in Gilbert Burnet's Some Passages of the Life and Death of.. Rochester (1680). The conversion was doubted by many, and Otway is obviously sceptical, for when Pierre is on the scaffold, attended by a priest, he is made to say the following to his executioner (Act V, scene ii): "Captain, I'd have hereafter / This fellow write no Lies of my Conversion."
The play won instant success. It was translated into almost every modern European language, and even Dryden
John Dryden
John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
said of it: "Nature is there, which is the greatest beauty."
The Orphan
The Orphan
This article is about the play. For the 2009 horror film, see Orphan .The Orphan, or The Unhappy Marriage is a domestic tragedy, written by Thomas Otway in 1680. It was first produced at the Dorset Garden Theatre, and starred Mrs. Barry as Monimia, Thomas Betterton as Castalio and Mr. Jo. Williams...
and Venice Preserved remained stock pieces on the stage until the 19th century, and the leading actresses of the period played Monimia and Belvidera. His last and most obscure play is The Atheist (1684), although many see it as a way to cash in on his previous comic success with The Soldier's Fortune, some see it not as a weak sequel but as a "brilliant experiment." One of the aims of the play is to show what happens after the wedding as sentimental conclusion in plays of the period through the figures of Courtine and Sylvia. The bleakness of their relations taint those of Beauregard and Porcia. The complexity of the plot, some of which derives from the "Invisible Mistress," the first interpolated story in Paul Scarron
Paul Scarron
Paul Scarron was a French poet, dramatist, and novelist. His precise birthdate is unknown, but he was baptized on July 4, 1610...
's Roman comique, speak of the maze of human life, a meaningless world left for the audience to decipher. One or two prefaces, and two posthumous pieces, a poem, Windsor Castle (1685), a panegyric
Panegyric
A panegyric is a formal public speech, or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing, a generally highly studied and discriminating eulogy, not expected to be critical. It is derived from the Greek πανηγυρικός meaning "a speech fit for a general assembly"...
of Charles II, and a History of the Triumvirates (1686), translated from the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, complete the list of Otway's works. A tragedy entitled Heroick Friendship was printed in 1686 as Otway's work, but the ascription is unlikely.
The Works of Mr Thomas Otway with some account of his life and writings, published in 1712, was followed by other editions (1757, 1768, 1812). The standard edition is that by T Thornton (1813).
External links
- Works by Thomas Otway at Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...