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Mthaniel Lee «S Ri7al Queens MTHANIEL LEE «S RI7AL QUEENS: A STUDY OF DRAMATIC TASTE AND TECHNIQUE IN THE RESTORATION DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State U niversity By NANCY ELOISE LE^S, A.B., M.A. The Ohio State U niversity 1957 Approved by: Department of English TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I INTRODUCTION.......... ......................................................................... 1 II ALEXANDI-R AS H E R O ................................................................... 13 III Tr^ RIVAL QUEENS AS T R A G E D Y .......................................... kS n Ç E RIVAL QUEENS ON THE BOARDS............................................ 86 V n&&^IIC]3FLm#K% OF THE RIVAL QUEENS . 128 BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................... 158 XI CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In the annals of English drama, the period of the Restoration is labeled chiefly as the age of the comedy of manners, the witty, sophis­ ticated, amoral society comedy written primarily for the pleasure of the audience of nobility and gentry that attended the theatres duiring the reign of Charles II. Critical studies devoted to this genre have been numerous; the plays of Etherege, t^cherley, and Congreve, as w ell as those of their lesser contemporaries in this field, have been examined in d ivid u ally and c o lle c tiv e ly by scholars of several genera­ tions. Aesthetically, such attention seems justified. Restoration plays which have survived their age are, for the most part, ccmedies. Dryden’s All for Love is the only notable exception. The serious drama of the Restoration is just as representative of the age, notwithstanding its limitations as lasting literature; indeed, Allardyce Nicoll calls heroic tragedy "that most characteristic of all the Restoration theatrical species."^ Thus it cannot be ignored in any 1. Allardyce Nicoll, Restoration Drama I660-I700, l^th ed, (Cam­ bridge, 1952), p. 8U. conçlete study of the dramatic literature of the period. Certain parts of it have not been slighted. There are several adequate treatments of the rhymed heroic tragedy or heroic play, lAich flourished mainly from 2 l66U to 1677 , and of Dryden’s serious dramas. Except, however, for a relatively few studies of individual playwri^ts, most of which are in­ adequate, other Restoration tragedy, especially that which succeeded the vogue of the rhymed play, has been examined only casually. Certain isolated plays have received scholarly attention, yet more often than not they have been examined in the light of a particular subject (i.e ., the political implications of Otway’s Venice Preserv’d or Rochester's Valentinian, Dryden’s adaptation of Shakespeare in All for Love, anti- Catholic sentiment in S e t tle ’s The Female Prelate or Crowne’s Henry the Sixth) rather than as examples of the dramatic taste and technique of their age. Therefore since knowledge of all types of drama in vogue dur­ ing any period is needed to determine its dramatic characteristics, and since adequate material on Restoration tragedy is lacking, an examination of this genre seems justified. During the period from 1660 to 1700 some two hundred and f i f t y serious plays were presented or published. Obviously many of these dramas are not worth the attention of the student because of their brief 2. Representative studies of this genre are as follows: Lewis N. Chase, The English Heroic Play (New York, 1903) J B. J. Pendlebury, Dryden’ 3 Heroic Plays (London, 1923); Bonamy Dobr^e, Restoration Tragedy 1660-1720 (Oxford, 1929); Cecil V. Deane, Dramatic Tteqi^ and the Rhymed Heroic Play (London, 1931); Allardyce Nicoll, Restoration Drama 166Ô- 1700, htfa ed. (Cambridge, 1952). existence on the stage and in print, their apparent lack of influence on other plays and playwrights, or the absence of dramatic or literary merit. Some are not extant, being known solely by entries in the Term Catalogues, commentaries in contemporary criticism , or notations in diaries or memoirs. Even after elimination of these categories of plays, there s till remains such a large number that there is evident need for a focal point from which one can study varying aspects of Restoration trag­ edy and, at the same time, bring a many-faceted subject into shaiper focus. Nathaniel Lee’s The Rival Queens; or The Death of Alexander the Great, performed first in March, I676 / 7 , at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, with Charles Hart, leading actor of the King’s Theatre, playing Alexander, seems an eminently suitable choice for such a purpose. In the first place, Nat Lee, by the latter part of 16?6, had already won atten­ tion as a writer of tragedies. Three of his plays had been produced at Drury Lane theatre: The Tragedy of Nero, Emperour of Rcrnie in May, 67I U; Sophonisba, or Hannibal’s Overthrow in April, 1675; and Gloriana, or the Court of Augustus Caesar in January, 1675/6.^ He had apparently at­ tracted the a tten tion of the Duke of Buckingham, ^ o had been Chancellor of Cambridge when Lee was in attendance at T rinity College and who may have introduced him to London before the Duke's in te r e st wandered from il the young playwright. Lee dedicated Nero to the Earl of Rochester, 3 . Nicoll, p. iil9. U. Thomas B. Stroup and Arthur L. Cooke, eds. The Works of Nathaniel Lee (New Brunswick, N. J ., 195U), I, 11. Roswell G. Ham in Otway and Lee: Biography from a Baroque Age (New Haven, 1931), p. 26, also mentions Buckingham as the person who supplied the necessary introduction by a noble or recognized wit to the world of the theatre. Ham cites no source for the statement. imploring his protection and favor, probably largely be ause of hostile attacks of the critics after the presentation of the play. Such a dedi­ cation does not, of course, constitute evidence that Rochester became Lee's patron. By the end of l6?6 the group of young nobles known as the Court vrits attacked Lee in "A Session of the Poets" (ca. December, l6 ? 6 ), a poem written probably as a group enterprise of the Wits, although it has been labeled anonymous and variou sly attributed to Buckingham and Rochester,^ A derisive attack on a young playwright's work — this time on Sophonisba — by men of importance in the theatrical world indicates that the man had at least made himself known to the play-going public. Three-quarters of a century earlier, it will be recalled, Robert Greene singled out a "Young upstart crow" for similar attention. Moreover, even if the noble critics despised the characters in Sophonisba, there is evidence that the play made a great hit with the ladies, especially with the powerful Duchess of Portsmouth, to whm Lee dedicated the printed version, recalling with pride the "largess of glory" the Duchess had bestowed upon him. The popularity of Sophonisba was apparently not maintained by Gloriana, if one accepts Lee's reference in the dedication of the tragedy (a second dedication to the Duchess of Portsmouth) to his blasted hopes as evidence of a cool reception accorded the play, Sophonisba, however, had the distinction of being presented at Court in 1676 ,^ It seems clear that by the end of l6?6 the name of Nat Lee was 5» John Harold Wilson, The Court Wits of the Restoration (Prince­ ton, 19U8), pp, 180-81, 6. Eleanore Boswell, %e Restoration Court Stage (1660-1702) (Cambridge, Mass,, 1932), p. 109, w ell known in the somei&at circumscribed world of the theatre; and whether his tragedies brought forth praise or scorn, the fact that they elicited a response is significant. A second ju stific a tio n for the choice of The Rival Queens as a representative Restoration tragedy is the popularity of the play itself. It is listed among the plays performed by the Theatre Royal Company be­ fore royalty, with a warrant for ten pounds being dated March 17, 7 1676 / 7 . Apparently the play was presented twice at Courtt on Novem­ ber 1$, 1681 , by the King's Players at the Theatre in Whitehall, and on 8 October 27, I 686 , by the United Company in the same Hall Theatre. On December 19, 1685, an order was issued to pay Betterton twenty pounds for "the King & Queenes Maties Seeing the Play ca lled Alexander at the Theatre Royall." On January 16, 1689/90, another warrant was issued for a payment of fifte e n pounds fo r a box for the Queen and a box for the Maids of Honor for the Alexander play.^^ The Rival Queens went through six editions during the seventeenth century, quartos appearing in 1677, I68 I;, I69O, two in l69ii, and 1699.^^ 7. Nicoll, p. 3li6. 8. Boswell, pp. 288, 290. 9 . Frcm the Lord Chamberlain's warrant books in the Public Record Office, L. C. 5/lii7, p. 52, quoted by Nicoll, p. 386. 10. Nicoll, p. 352. 11. As a point of comparison, one notes that The Rehearsal, the clever burlesque by Buckingham and his collaborators, which was known to be a great success on the Restoration stage, likewise went through six editions between its first appearance in quarto in 1672 and the end of the century. Five more editions appeared during the early part of the eighteenth century* The play, dedicated to the Earl of Mulgrave, was embellished by two noteworthy names: Dryden wrote commendatory verses for i t and Sir Car Scroop contiibuted the prologue. Furthermore, the dedication to Mulgrave makes i t clear that th is was no merely hopeful gesture tossed at an important but unconcerned nobleman. Mulgrave was inter­ ested enough in Lee and his play to "read it over.
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