Free English Literature Dissertations - Politically Speaking, Dryden’s Play Is Perceived As Offering A Sympathetic
Politically speaking, Dryden’s play is perceived as offering a sympathetic view of Charles’ relationship with his mistress, the French Duchess of Portsmouth, which had caused a public outcry, reflected in the relationship of Antony and Cleopatra. It is in artistic terms, however, that the play is most telling. Unlike Shakespeare’s play, Dryden’s is strict in its confining its action to one location and a short time-span. In its adherence to the Aristotelian ‘Unities of Time, Place and Action’ (in Clark p.191 Preface) and its linear nature, devoid of ‘Underplot, with every Scene in the Tragedy conducing to the main Design’ (ibid.), it is an excellent example of neo-classical tragedy and an attempt to justify Dryden’s criticism in An Essay of Dramatick Poesy of ‘the Historical Playes of Shakespeare’ (in Scott vol. XVII p.47) in which the action takes
forty years, crampt into a representation of two hours and a half, which is not to imitate or paint Nature, but rather to draw herinfinitely more imperfect than the life: thisrenders it ridiculous.
(ibid.).
In All For Love, Dryden’s emphasis on dialogue and discourse suggests a drama of pure debate, since the play is largely static and action is confined to the past. Whilst employing blank verse ‘to imitate the Divine Shakespeare’ (in Clark p.199 Preface), Dryden’s language is more figurative, employing alliteration and simile, a position he defends in his Heads of an Answer to Rymer (1677) where he aligns himself with Shakespeare in asserting that style is more crucial than plot in constructing a tragedy:
‘tis not the admirable Intrigue, the suprizing Events, and extraordinary Incidents that make the Beauty of a Tragedy, but the Discourses, when they are Natural and PassionateSo are Shakespear’s.
(in Scott vol. XVII p.193)
This is very close to the modern idea of plot being character-driven, rather than relying on melodramatic event.
For a play with an unusual identity itself a Shakespearean adaptation that is not truly a Shakespearean adaptation All For Love has an almost reflexive preoccupation with identity which, it could be argued, is a reflection of the socially and politically unstable period in which it emerged. Characters seem fragmented or transformed: Antony casts himself and his title aside ‘Lye there thou Shadow of an Emperor’ (in Clark p.212 Act I Scene I l.216) and confuses his identities as soldier and lover ‘Caesar shall know what ‘tis to force a Lover / From all he holds most dear’ (in Clark p.219 Act I Scene I l.434-435). Identities are confused: the dominant Katherine Corey was cast as the usually passive Octavia with the diminutive Elizabeth Bowtell as Cleopatra. A new set of social and sexual roles seem to be created with Antony a masculine soldier able to weep, and the usually sphingine Cleopatra a virtuous mistress who wishes for wifely legitimacy.
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