Dryden: Crimes of Love

Essay # 58117

Drama and Theater > English
Literature > English

A look at John Dryden's restoration play, "All for Love," and an analysis of Dryden's 'Anthony' character.

1,400 words () | 4 sources | MLA | 2004 United States

Paper Summary:

When the Restoration occurred in England, there were virtually no new stage plays. The writers went back to old works, such as Anthony and Cleopatra. The paper shows how Dryden's "All for Love" returns to analyzing the romantic hero. This essay explicates Dryden's character, Anthony, and shows his strengths and weaknesses.

From the Paper:

"The drama of the Restoration was marked by a return to classical conventions. Settings, stories, characters, and time unity were predicated on dramatic elements drawn from ancient Greece and Rome. Restoration authors drew their inspiration from those dramatic elements, but unlike the English playwrights from earlier eras, they "wrote for a new age with values quite unlike those of the Elizabethans" (Wilson 170). One of these Restoration ideals was the romantic hero. John Wilson describes this hero as "mighty in war but helpless before their mistresses, true 'slaves of love' in the tradition of pastoral and romantic romance" (xii). An example of this romantic hero is John Dryden's Marc Antony."