Thomas Otway

Thomas Otway (1652-1685). Courtesy Otway.com.

Thomas Otway (3 March 1652 - 14 April 1685) was an English playwright of the Restoration period.

Life

Overview

Otway, son of a clergyman, was born near Midhurst, Sussex, and educated at Oxford, which he left without graduating. His short life, like those of many of his fellows, was marked by poverty and misery, and he appears to have died practically of starvation. Having failed as an actor, he took to writing for the stage, and produced various plays, among which Don Carlos, Prince of Spain (1676), was a great success, and brought him page 292some money. Those by which he is best remembered, however, are The Orphan (1680), and Venice Preserved (1682), both of which have been frequently revived. Otway made many adaptations from the French, and in his tragedy of Caius Marius incorporated large parts of Romeo and Juliet. He has been called "the most pathetic and tear-drawing of all our dramatists," and he excelled in delineating the stronger passions. The grossness of his comedies has banished them from the stage.

Youth

Otway was born at Trotton near Midhurst, Sussex, on 3 March 1652. His father, Humphrey Otway, was at that time curate of Trotton, but Otway’s childhood was spent at Woolbeding, a parish 3 miles distant of which his father had become rector.

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 1st learned to love books.

Career

In London he made the acquaintance of Aphra Behn, who in 1672 cast him for the part of the old king in her play, Forc'd Marriage; or, The jealous bridegroom, at the Dorset Garden Theatre, but he had a bad attack of stage fright, and never made a 2nd appearance.

In 1675 Thomas Betterton produced, at the same theater, Otway's 1st dramatic attempt, Alcibiades, which was printed in the same year. Mrs. Barry took the part of Draxilla, and her lover, the earl of Rochester, recommended the author of the piece to the notice of the duke of York.

He made a great advance on the earlier work in Don Carlos: Prince of Spain (licensed June 15, 1676; an updated edition probably belongs to the same year). "It got more money," says John Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, 1708) of this play, "than any preceding modern tragedy."

In 1677 Betterton produced 2 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 Lord Rochester. In 1678 he produced an original comedy, Friendship in Fashion, popular at the moment, though it was hissed off the stage for its gross indecency when it was revived at Drury Lane in 1749.

Meanwhile he had conceived an overwhelming passion for Mrs. Barry, who filled many of the leading parts in his plays. 6 of his letters to her survive, the last of them referring to a broken appointment in the Mall. Mrs Barry seems to have coquetted with Otway, but she had no intention of permanently offending Rochester.

In 1678, driven to desperation by Mrs. Barry, 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 also paid with depreciated paper, and Otway arrived in London late in the year, ragged and dirty, a circumstance utilized by Rochester in his Sessions of the Poets, which contains a scurrilous attack on his former protégé.

Early in the next year (February 1680) was produced at Dorset Garden the 1st of Otway's 2 tragic masterpieces, The Orphan; or, The unhappy marriage, Mrs. Barry playing the part of Monimia. The History and Fall of Caius Marius was produced in the same year, and printed in 1692, 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 Preserved; or, A plot discover'd. The latter 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.

A few prefaces, another weak comedy, The Atheist (1684), and 2 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.

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 began too hastily to satisfy his ravenous hunger, and choked with the 1st 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

Otway's 1st dramatic attempt, Alcibiades (1678), is a poor tragedy, written in heroic verse, but was saved from absolute failure by the actors. He made a great advance on the earlier work in Don Carlos: Prince of Spain (1676). The material for this rhymed tragedy Otway took from the novel of the same name, written in 1672 by the Abbé de Saint-Réal, the source from which Schiller also drew his tragedy of Don Carlos. In it the 2 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.

The Orphan; or, The unhappy marriage (1680) was written in blank verse, which shows a study 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 (1680) is a curious grafting of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet on the story of Marius as related in Plutarch's Lives.

The story of Venice Preserved; or, A plot discover'd. is founded on the Histoire de la conjuration des Espagnols contre la Venise en 1618, also by the Abbé de Saint-Réal, 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.

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). A selection of his plays was edited for the Mermaid series (1891 and 1903) by Roden Noel.

Critical introduction

by Edmund Gosse

This is not the place to dwell on the splendid tragic genius of Otway, or to discuss his abject failure as a comedian. He claims our attention here on the score of 2 slender quartos of nondramatic verse, The Poet’s Complaint of his Muse, 1680, and Windsor Castle, 1685. The latter is a political and descriptive piece in the heroic measure; it is modelled on Denham’s Cooper’s Hill, and betrays, notwithstanding some felicitous passages, the fatigue which was stealing over the dying author.

The Poet’s Complaint of his Muse is a much more original and powerful poem; it is written in the irregular measure called Pindaric, and contains a satirical portrait of the poet and of his times, drawn without charm or colour, but in firm, bold lines, like a harsh engraving. Otway displays more observation of nature than most of his contemporaries; but when he draws the world we live in, he is a draughtsman even sterner than Crabbe.

It should be remarked that Otway was absolutely unable to write even a fairly good song.

Recognition

His poem "The Enchantment" was included in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900.

Publications

Poetry

• The Poet's Complaint of His Muse; or, A satyr against libells. London: Thomas Norman, 1680.
• Windsor Castle: In a monument to our late-sovereign K. Charles II of ever blessed memory: A poem. London: Charles Brome, 1685.
• Poetical Works. London: C. Cooke, 1797.

Plays

• The Orphan; or, The unhappy marriage: A tragedy. London: R. Bentley & M. Magnes, 1680.
• Venice Preserv'd; or, A plot discover'd: A tragedy. London: Jos. Hindmarsh, 1682
  • (edited by M.M. Kensall). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1969.
• The Soldiers Fortune: A comedy. London: R. Bentley & S. Magnes, 1687.
• Plays. London: J. & R. Tonson, W. Feales, G. Strahan, B. Motte, D. Brown et al, 1736.

Collected editions

• Works. London: Richard Bentley, 1691.
• Works (2 volumes), London: Jacob Tonson, 1712 Volume I, Volume II
• Works. (3 volumes), London: C. Hitch & L. Hawes, D. Browne, H. Lintot, J. & R. Tonson, J. Hodges et al, 1757
• Works: Consisting of his plays, poems, and letters (edited by Thomas Thornton). (2 volumes), London: T. Turner, 1812. Volume II
  • (3 volumes), London: T. Turner, 1813. Volume I
• Complete Works (edited by Montague Summers). Bloomsbury [London]: Nonesuch Press, 1926.
• Works: Plays, poems, and love-letters (edited by Jyotish Chandra Ghosh). (2 volumes), Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1932.

Except where noted, bibliographical informtion courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights

External links

Poems

• "The Enchantment"
• Otway in The English Poets: An anthology: Extract from The Poet’s Complaint of His Muse
• Thomas Otway at Poetry Nook (2 poems)

Books

• Works by Thomas Otway at Project Gutenberg
• Thomas Otway at Amazon.com

About

• Thomas Otway 1652-1685 at Otway.com
• Thomas Otway in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Thomas Otway at NNDB
• Otway, Thomas (1652-1685) in the Dictionary of National Biography

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Original article is at Otway, Thomas