THE COMPLEMENTARY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMIC AND ...

THE COMPLEMENTARY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMIC AND SERIOUS PLOTS IN DRYDEN'S TRAGICOMEDIES

A Thesis

Presented to

the Graduate Faculty of the Department of English

University of Houston

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

byBunny Jones

August, 1972

FOREWORD

For the genesis of this thesis, the author wishes to thank

Professor William Wright, who aided substantially in every stage

of the writing process (even suggesting the topic), and whose

seminars in Dryden and Restoration drama provided most of the

insights necessary for this study.

THE COMPLEMENTARY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMIC AND SERIOUS PLOTSIN DRYDEN'S TRAGICOMEDIES

An Abstract of a Thesis

Presented to

the Graduate Faculty of the Department of English

University of Houston

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

byBunny Jones

August, 1972

THE C0I4PLEMENTARY RELATIONSHIP BETVffiEN COMIC AND SERIOUS PLOTSIN DRYDEN'S TRAGICOMEDIES

Dryden constructed his tragicomedies by weaving together

two distinct plots, one in the heroic-romantic mode and one pat

terned after the Restoration comedy of wit. The values and

emotional tone of these two modes are antithetical: heroic char

acters view love as a spiritual bond which inspires eternal

fidelity and violent passion; comic lovers manipulate one an

other as objects of sexual gratification, cynically doubting

the possibility of fidelity and avoiding any deep emotional com

mitments. Because these two plots exhibit antithetical attitudes

toward the man / woman relationship, many critics believe that

they cannot be successfully combined in the same play. Yet

this juxtaposition of opposites creates a unique irony. By

blending the heroic and comic philosophies of life in alter

nating scenes, Dryden contrasts two visions of mankind, the

idealistic and the cynical. A study of three representative

tragicomedies demonstrates that in each play Dryden manipulates

the contrasts in a slightly different manner. Sometimes he

balances the comic and heroic viewpoints without deciding for

either; at other times he ridicules the heroic values. In

each play the unique combination of elements achieves a special

effect; as he manipulates the tragicomic formula in different

v

ways, Dryden is like a baroque musician, constructing the

varied counterpoints of his fugue on the pattern of one sim

ple, lovely melody.

CONTENTS

Page

FOREWORD............................................ iii

I. DRYDEN'S TRAGICOMEDIES: "ALL, ALL OF A PIECE THROUGHOUT" ............. 1

II. DRYDEN'S CRITICAL VIEWS ON TRAGICOMEDY . 10

III. CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE TWO PLOTS OF SECRET LOVE.................... 30

IV. CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE TWO PLOTS OF MARRIAGE A LA MODE . . . ........ 54

V. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO PLOTS OF THE SPANISH FRIAR ’............... 91

EPILOGUE . . ................. 120

BIBLIOGRAPHY 124

vii

ABBREVIATIONS

Ker

Scott-Saintsbury

California

Essays of John Dryden, ed. W. P. Ker, 2 vols. 1900; rpt. New York: Russell and Russell, 1961.

The Works of John Dryden, ed. Sir Walter Scott and George Saintsbury, 18 vols. Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1882-93.

The Works of John Dryden, ed. H. T. Swedenberg, Jr. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1956--. s,

viii

I. DRYDEN'S TRAGICOMEDIES: "ALL, ALL OF A PIECE THROUGHOUT"

Dryden constructed his tragicomedies by interweaving

two seemingly unrelated plots: one a versified drama in the

heroic-romantic vein; the other, a naturalistic, prose comedy

of wit. Frequently critics distrust such an amalgamation of

opposites, and when they are not questioning Dryden's judgment

for attempting such a mixed form, they are dissecting the sup

posed errors in its plot construction. One common complaint

is that the plots do not share enough common incidents or

characters to unite them. George Saintsbury offers a typical

criticism when he complains, "The two strands are rarely interwoven with much art";l Frank Ristine agrees, "The two plots

are but indifferently united."2 Even Ned Bliss Allen, who

seems aware of important thematic parallels between the two

plots of the tragicomedies, is disturbed that "the serious and

comic characters have nothing to do with each other until the

last act, when the latter help the former recover or defend

their thrones. Except for this they might be characters in

1George Saintsbury, "Introduction," Dryden: Three Plays, A Mermaid Dramabook (New York: Hill and Wang, 1957), p, xix.

2Frank Humphrey Ristine,x English Tragicomedy,^ Its- Origin and History (1910; rpt. New York: Russell & Russell,' Inc,, 1963), p7 172. ’ . •

1

2

different plays.”3 But Anne Righter offers an even more

serious objection to Dryden’s tragicomedies than his failure

to connect the action of the plots. She questions the ulti

mate possibility of ever successfully joining a heroic plot

and comedy of wit in one play, for these two modes are so

contradictory that combining them causes a play to "split

down the centre, resolving into two separate and mutually ex

clusive halves." If this dramatic disaster does not occur,

there is one equally as serious, according to Righter: the

rakes in the comic plot attack and destroy the high-minded values propounded by the heroic characters.^ Sarup Singh

agrees:

The question of contrast or relief does not arise in this case. Nor does that of any affinity between the two moods. The Restoration age had destroyed all chances of the tragic and the comic coming together by removing the tragic from the plane of reality altogether. . . . Neander himself had insisted that the ’under-plot’ should be ’only different, not contrary’ to the main plot. The Conquest of Granada and The Man of Mode are not only 1 contrary’: they are mutually exclusive, and it is these two plots, these two ’worlds’, which the Restoration tragedy tries to combine. It naturally fails because the comic element is the complete negation of all that

3 Ned Bliss Allen, The Sources of John Dryden’s Comedies (.1935; rpt. New York: The Gordian Press, Inc,, 1967), p, 74,

4 Anne Righter, "Heroic Tragedy," Restoration Theatre,ed. John Russell Brown and Bernard Harris (1965; rpt. New York: Capricorn Books,’ 1967), p. 138, , ' <

3

the serious action really stands for.5

Perhaps this difficulty occurred to eighteenth century actor

Colley Cibber as well, for he produced the comic parts of

Secret Love and Marriage a la Mode together as one play, cut

ting out the heroic scenes entirely as if they did not quite

belong. Later directors must have approved of his judgment,

for this bizarrely reassembled comedy was performed until the end of the eighteenth century.®

Undoubtedly the heroic drama and wit comedy present op

posing visions of life. Their emotional tones are antithetical

to one another. In Etherege’s The Man of Mode (1676), often

cited as a representative Restoration comedy, the only sin is

a violation of decorum, and characters who go to extremes are

held up to ridicule: Sir Fopling Flutter, with his extrava

gant speech and fashions; Mrs. Loveit, with her jealous rages.

The norm of correct behavior is Dorimant, who spends all his

time avoiding emotional entanglements and even when in love

retains his pose of cool, ironic wit. But in heroic drama the

extreme is the norm; heroes who fall in love are expected to

tear their hair and rant in a swelling wave of bombast. In

Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada (1670, 1671) the mighty war

rior Almanzor, upon glimpsing the beautiful Almahide, clutches

5sarup Singh, The Theory of Drama in the Restoration Period (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1963), p. 155.

®Allen, p. 74, n. 2.

4

his breast and howls a long tirade ended by the melodramatic diagnosis, "I fear it is the lethargy of love!"?

There is an equally great contrast in value systems be

tween the two modes. Dorimant and his witty peers are willing

to tumble into bed with any female passer-by, but heroic char

acters like Almanzor and Almahide valiantly resist their pas

sions (or may even seem unaware that bodies exist). Wits like

Dorimant exemplify Hobbes’s theory of appetites, cynically

manipulating others for their own personal pleasure; heroic

characters are always sacrificing themselves for a king, hus

band, father, or lover. A lady in a comedy who harps on her

’’virtue” is sure to be sleeping with everyone else in the play;

a lady like Almahide speaking of virtue sincerely believes in

it.

But Dryden’s critics fail to recognize that he might have

had a serious artistic purpose in joining the antithetical

heroic and comic modes. From their juxtaposition he could

achieve a subtle irony impossible to attain in either type sepa

rately, Robert Hogan and Sven Eric Molin recognize the method

whereby tragicomedy uses the juxtaposition of opposites to

create a unique effect:

7John Dryden,' The Conquest of Granada, Part I,- The Works of John Dryden, ed. Sir Walter" Scott and’ George Saintsbury,' IV (Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1883), 71, All further references to this edition will be cited parenthetically in the text by the words "Scott<-Saintsbury," the volume, and page number.

5

One scene in tragicomedy [will] ironically modify the effect of another by showing a different viewpoint of the same situation. Often one action, while casually unconnected to another which occurs at about the same time, will actually be a commentary on it. Often verbal echoes of a character on one side of the stage will comment upon what an unconnected character on the other side is doing. The effect of tragicomedy is mixed, alternating, and ironic. A good way to think of it is by Sean O’Casey’s image of the varied colors and intensities of light as it is reflected from the prisms of a moving kaleidoscope.®

In fact, the method which Hogan and Molin here describe is the

one used by Dryden in his double-plot tragicomedies. The two

prisms of the kaleidoscope are the heroic and the comic worlds:

as the play progresses, the light shifts from one to the other

in alternating regularity. But the actions of the two plots

are not separate and exclusive. Quite often a scene in one

will comment ironically on a following scene in the other. A

heroic character, orating on the beauty of virtue, will sacri

fice his crown or life for a loved one; when the scene changes,

a rake will enter, plotting a deception or seduction while he

cynically philosophizes that man lives by self interest. Scenes

of Platonic love, built on endless rhymed debates between sweet

hearts who barely touch, are followed by double-entendre repar

tee and bedroom combat between "gay couples." There are pos

sibilities for splendid irony in the juxtaposition of two such

contradictory ways of viewing reality, and Dryden carefully

manipulates the contrast scene by scene in his tragicomedies.

SRobert Hogan and Sven Eric Molin, eds«,' Drama: ' The Major Genres (New York, Toronto: Dodd, Mead & Company,'1'962)p’, 537.

6

But where do his sympathies lie--with the heroic char

acters r or the wits? Ned Bliss Allen thinks that the comic

plot serves as a foil to the more important serious action

much as Shakespeare uses "comic relief" in some of his

tragedies. Yet other critics believe that the lively comic

plot is the focal point of audience and author sympathy. For

example, George Saintsbury calls the heroic plot of Marriage

a la Mode "very ridiculous," adding that the play’s "main interest, and certainly its main value, is comic."10 One may even

say that Dryden is partial to neither side, that he merely enjoys

balancing opposing points of view against each other without

deciding for either. Louis I. Bredvold has pointed out this

tendency of Dryden’s in An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) and

The Hind and the Panther (1687), concluding that Dryden was a Pyrrhonist.H Sarah Susan Staves, undoubtedly thinking of Bred

vold *s findings, argues that Dryden never shows a preference for

either set of characters in his tragicomedies: "Dryden plays

the values of the heroic or romantic characters off against

9 Allen, p. 100.

10 George Saintsbury, .Dryden, The Gale Letters: British Writers Series (1881; rpt. search Company, 1968), p. 54.

Library of Lives and Detroit: Gale Re-

Louis I. Bredvold, Ann Arbor Paperbacks (1934 Michigan Press, 1956), pp.

The Intellectual Milieu of John DrydenAnn ^bor: The University of

7

the scepticism of the characters in the lower plot, but the

juxtaposition of two opposed value systems never leads to a

decision for one or the other, , . .Dryden tends to juxtapose

two different sets of values, letting each one undercut the other, but not deciding between them.”-*-2

Yet Phillip Harth has discovered that Dryden's "habit

of juxtaposing positions which are contrary to one another"

is not "the confirmed sceptic's penchant for balancing con

flicting opinions," but a clever debating technique in which

the other side is presented only to be refuted. Seemingly

balanced discourses like those in An Essay of Dramatic Poesy .

are actually structured, in length and position of speeches, 1 3 to show a preference for Dryden's point of view.

Are the tragicomedies like balanced discourses, in which

Dryden juxtaposes opposite points of view for the sheer delight

of contrast? Or are they cleverly weighted arguments structured

to support one set of values?

An examination of three representative tragicomedies inti

mates that Dryden changes the relative weighting of the plots

in every play. In Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen (1667) he

balances the comic and heroic viewpoints, without displaying

any overt sympathy for either set of values. In Marriage a la

12 Sarah Susan Staves, "Studies in the Comedy of John Dryden" (Diss. Virginia, 1967), pp. 3-4.

13 Phillip Harth, Contexts of Dryden's Thought (Chicaao: University of Chicago Press, 1968?, pp. 1, 3-3'-37.—

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Mode (1671) he ridicules the heroic characters, thus showing

a decided preference for the comic point of view. In The

Spanish Friar (1680) the relationship between the two view

points is more complex. The two plots no longer represent

antithetical poles; Dryden deliberately links them at several

crucial points. Consequently, the play demonstrates neither

a balancing of opposite viewpoints nor a surrender to one

set of values; it synthesizes the comic and heroic viewpoints,

demonstrating that many similarities can exist between them.

Thus the unity of Dryden’s tragicomedies becomes more

evident. The two plots have not been thrown together hap

hazardly but carefully joined to illuminate the contrast be

tween two separate philosophies of life. Whether Dryden is

balancing the conic and heroic viewpoints as in Secret Love

or attempting to synthesize them as in The Spanish Friar,

the gulf between the two visions of life remains. What Cyrus

Hoy says about Euripides’ plays would apply very well to

Dryden’s tragicomedies: "Ideals—of truth, of innocence, of

beauty and love and trust—are invoked in the very teeth of

circumstances which give them the lie, and the jarring dis

cords which this makes for in the tone of some of the plays

. . .are precisely calculated to point up the discrepancy be

tween the way things are when man has done his worst, and the

9

way things are when his most glamorous fancies . . . are allowed to soar."14

An analysis of Dryden's views on tragicomedy will ex-V

plain why he might have chosen to write plays that embody

two opposing philosophies. Then an examination of three

tragicomedies—Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen (1667),

Marriage a la Mode (1671), and The Spanish Friar, or the

Double Discovery (1680)—will demonstrate how Dryden con

ceived three different adaptations of the two-plot structure.

14 Cyrus Hoy, The Hyacinth Room: An Investigation into The Nature of Comedy, Tragedy, & Tragicomedy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964), p. 51.

II. DRYDEN’S CRITICAL VIEWS ON TRAGICOMEDY

Dryden’s literary criticism appears in scattered prefaces

and essays written for specific occasions. Each work manifests

a response to a particular situation, with the author attempt

ing to introduce a new play, defend a cherished theory, or

answer an attack. Thus Dryden’s comments on the nature of lit

erature often differ from one essay to the next as his purposes

for writing change. When propagandizing for the merits of a

new play, he may eagerly overstate his approval of certain ele

ments contained in it; when answering an attack on his work,

he may refute his opponent’s position more vigorously than he

would have in objective discussion.

But his views on tragicomedy are actually consistent through-,

out the years. He continuously demonstrates an ambivalent atti

tude toward the genre, realizing that it defies the strictest

rules of dramatic composition, yet employing it because it

delights the audience. Sarup Singh explains why the critics

and audience disagreed about Restoration tragicomedy: "Theo

retically, the age is conscious of the rigid conception of ’kinds’

which demands of every dramatic species the pleasure proper to

it. From the point of view of practical theater, however, it

is tempted to follow the example of the masters of the former

a,ger'^that ’Gyant race, before the Flood’—who had permanently

10

11

fixed the mixed play in the affections of the English audience. "1 Thus the audience preferred a play which offered

both mirth and sadness, as the Elizabethan theater had done;

but theoreticians, anxious to follow what they assumed to

be the dictates of Aristotle, urged the necessity of sepa

rating tragedy and comedy and of imitating a single unified

action. They argued that when mixed, comedy and tragedy

would destroy each other and confuse the audience with a be

wildering change of moods.

This theoretical distrust of tragicomedy appears re

peatedly in Restoration criticism. Sir Robert Howard, Dryden’s

brother-in-law, explains his distaste for "mingling and inter

weaving Mirth and Sadness" in his "Preface to Four New Plays"

(1665); "I confess I am now convinc'd in my own Judgment,

That it is most proper to keep the Audience in one entire

disposition both of Concern and Attention; for when Scenes of

so different Natures immediately succeed one another, 'tis

probable the Audience may not so suddenly recollect themselves

as to start into an enjoyment of the Mirth or into a concern

for the Sadness." Howard's complaint is the most common objec

tion to tragicomedy: an audience cannot alter its moods as

quickly as the type demands. Another serious criticism of the

form is its artlessness. After admitting that "the variety

of this World" mingles mirth and sadness in everyday life,

1 Sarup Singh, The Theory of Drama in the Restoration Period (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1963)", pp. 14^-44.

12

Howard concludes that such changes "though possible in them

selves to be, they may not be so proper to be Presented,—an

entire Connexion being the natural Beauty of all Plays, and

Language the Ornament to dress them in, which in serious

Subjects ought to be great and easie, like a high-born Person

that expresses Greatness without pride or affectation; the

easier dictates of Nature ought to flow in Comedy.The

business of plays is not to copy life with complete accuracy,

for some things are not "proper to be Presented" when they

spoil the "entire Connexion" or artistic unity of the work.

All authors recognize that writing must be a selection process

in which only certain incidents or themes are portrayed. But

the "entire Connexion" for Howard means something more than

thematic unity; it means that the raw experience of life has

been filtered through the conventions of one specific genre

to make it "proper to be Presented." Life in itself is dis

orderly and unpatterned, but art refines the raw materials by

adapting them to certain well established forms such as tragedy

or comedy. Thus, when tragedy and comedy are mixed, the play

may indeed be closer to the clutter and disorganization of

actual life, but such a work is not real art.

2 Sir Robert Howard, "Preface to Four New Plays" (1665), Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, ed. J. E. Spingarn (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1957), II, 100-101.

13

The idea that art brings order to chaotic life is a com

mon assumption in Restoration and early eighteenth century

criticism, Richard Flecknoe (not one of Dryden’s favorite

artists) reveals a typical belief about the regular, ordered

symmetry of good art when he says in 1664 that "A good Play

shu’d be like a good stuff, closely and evenly wrought, with

out any breakes, thrums, or loose ends in ’urn, or like a good * QPicture well painted and designed.John Dennis, writing

after Dryden’s death in 1704, expresses an idea very congenial

to Flecknoe’s: "The great Design of Arts is to restore the

Decays that happen’d to human Nature by the Fall, by restoring

Order, . , . But how should these Arts re-establish Order, unless they themselves were regular?"^ Life is a patchwork

of strange and incongruous incidents—some obscene, some triv

ial and dull—with many happenings not fit to be presented on

stage. It is the business of art to order this raw experience

into various kinds or genres, each with its appropriate dic

tion or emotional effect. When the kinds are mixed as in

tragicomedy, confusion results—a confusion perhaps like life

itself, but certainly not effective as literature.

3 Richard Flecknoe, "A Short Discourse of the English Stage” (1664), Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, ed. J. E. Spingarn (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1957), II, 93.

4 John Dennis, "The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry" (1704), The Critical Works of John Dennis, ed. Edward Niles Hooker (Baltimore: The JoKns Hopkins Press, 1943), I, 336.

14

According to Howard, tragicomedy also strains decorum,

which demands distinctive language as the appropriate dress

for individual characters and plays. The language of "serious.

Subjects ought to be great and easie," but "the easier dic

tates of Nature ought to flow in Comedy," and these two

entirely separate kinds of diction ought to be used in sepa

rate plays, for since they are utterly different, they do not

mix well. What Howard means by the language of "serious Sub

jects" as opposed to "the easier dictates of Nature" may be

imagined by glancing at the conventional language of Restora

tion tragedy and comedy. The tragic diction involves highly

ornamented, artificial, and formalized speeches. The comic

diction, on the other hand, follows more closely the rhythms

of conversational speech. It uses prose, and its metaphors

are drawn from the home and barnyard; it may even employ "clown"

characters who speak in a rough dialect, but if not, the witty

characters give the impression of using ordinary speech which

has been only slightly polished.

To one conscious of strict decorum, the clash of orna

mented verse and naturalistic prose in the same play might

indeed seem to be a jarring mixture. Yet Dryden skillfully

manipulates the two widely different kinds of diction to set

up an ironic contrast between the heroic and comic modes. He

achieves this result by keeping the comic and "serious" char

acters in separate scenes so that the different types of

language do not jar against one another. The heroic characters

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behave nobly and recite ornamented verse; then the stage

clears and the wits enter, railing in prose against all

that their noble predecessors have held sacred. The result

is a special kind of harmony in which the two visions of

life contrast, with one scene ironically commenting on the

other. If one considers the value of this special artistic

purpose, Howard's objections about genre and decorum become

less important. The scenes themselves are unified and deco

rous, and each plot forms a coherent pattern by itself.

Some of the attacks on tragicomedy are more violent

than Howard's. Edward Phillips in his "Preface to Theatrum

Poetarum" (1675) reduces his comments to a snarl about "that

Linsie-wodlsie intermixture of Comic mirth with Tragic seri

ousness, which being so frequently in use, no wonder if the

name of Play be apply'd without distinction as well to Tragedy as Comedy."5 The key to his objection rests in tragicomedy's

"intermixture of Comic mirth with Tragic seriousness," or its

mingling of genres and moods, a point also noted by Howard.

Addison argues the same objection as late as 1711 in Number

40 of The Spectator: "The Tragi-Comedy, which is the Product

of the English Theatre, is one of the most monstrous Inventions

that ever enter'd into a Poet's Thoughts. An Author might as

5 Edward Phillips, "Preface to Theatrum Poetarum" (1675), Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Cerituty, ed'.’ J. E. Spingarn (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1957), II, 270.

16

well think of weaving the Adventures of AEneas and Hudibras

into one Poem, as of writing such a motly Piece of Mirth and Sorrow.”6 Here is the protest, once again, that tragi

comedy joins two modes which are completely unalike, thus

causing a "motly" or mixed form disturbing the doctrines of

genre and decorum. Like Howard or Phillips, Addison is

unaware that this new type of play, far from being a disor

ganized patchwork, can express its own unique structure and

purpose by blending opposites to create an ironic harmony.

Tragicomedy was unacceptable because it was a new "mixed"

form not endorsed by the ancients; as Edward Niles Hooker

points out, to a Neoclassical critic a genre was not legiti

mate until it had stood the test of time and produced master

pieces.

Besides the argument that tragicomedy mixes genres or

destroys decorum, there is another theoretical objection to

the form. It violates the unity of action, which requires

that a play use but one plot. Thomas Rymer endorses this

idea in recommending that dramatists employ a single line of

action: "If the English Theatre requires more intrigue, an

Author may multiply the Incidents, may add Episods, and thicken

the Plot, as he sees occasion; provided that all the lines tend

® Joseph Addison, "Number 40, April 16, 1711," The Spectator, ed. Donald F. Bond (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), I, 170.

7 Edward Niles Hooker, "Introduction," The Critical Works of John Dennis (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins TTess,.1943), tl,

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to the same center: more of a main Plot, Virgil requir’d

not for his Epic poem.” When there is a double plot line,

all is confusion: "Where there seem two centers, neither

can be right; and the lines leading towards them must be all false and confus’d."® Like other critics so conscious'

of the patterns described by Horace and Aristotle, Rymer

fails to grasp the value of a new form—or the notion that

a dramatist could have a serious artistic purpose in joining

two different plots.

Since Dryden as an educated man was obviously aware of

these objections to tragicomedy, how did he react to them?

Did he agree with the theoreticians, and if so, why did he

continue to use the form at all? His critical remarks indi

cate that in theory he accepted the arguments against tragi

comedy, but as a practicing dramatist he had to give the public

what it wanted—the variety of double plots and changing moods.

Repeatedly he expresses this conflict between the demands of

critics and approval of the audience. Sometimes he defends

his plays vigorously, arguing that audience approval counteracts

all the claims of theory. At other times, bitter or ashamed

of catering to public taste, he readily admits the importance

® Thomas Rymer, "The Tragedies of the Last Age Consider’d and Examin'd by the Practice of the Ancients, and by the Common Sense of All Ages, in a Letter to Fleetwood Shepheard, Esq." (1677), The Critical Works of Thomas Rymer, ed. Curt A. Zimansky (New Haven: Yale University Press, ld56), pp. 26, 61.

18

of the rules he has broken. But the conflict between audience

and critics is always implied when he writes about tragicomedy.'

In his most important critical work, Of Dramatic Poesy:

An' Essay (1668) , he stresses the significance of audience

pleasure and minimizes the value of theory. He first gives

careful consideration to the theoretical objections by having

Lisideius praise French plots for the unity that those in

English lack:

The Unity of Action in all [French] plays is yet more conspicuous; for they do not burden them with underplots, as the English do: which is the reason why many scenes of our tragicomedies carry on a design that is nothing of kin to the main plot; and that we see two distinct webs in a play, like those in ill-wrought stuffs; and two actions, that is, two plays, carried on together, to the confounding of the audience; who, before they are warm in their concernments for one part, are diverted to another; and by that means espouse the interest of neither. From hence likewise it arises, that the one half of our actors are not known to the other. They keep their distances, as if they were Mountagues and Capulets, and seldom begin an acquaint* ance till the last scene of the fifth act, when they are all to meet upon the stage. There is no theatre in the world has any thing so absurd as the English tragi-comedy; 1tis a drama of our own invention, and the fashion of it is enough to proclaim it so; here a course of mirth, there another of sadness and passion, a third of honour, and fourth a duel: thus, in two hours and a half, we run through all the fits of Bedlam. . . . The end of tragedies or serious plays, says Aristotle, is to beget admiration, compassion, or concernment; but are not mirth and compassion things incompatible? and is it not evident that the poet must of necessity destroy the former by intermingling of the latter?9

9 John Dryden, Of Dramatic Poesy: An Essay, in Essays of John Dryden, ed. W. P. Ker (1900; rpt. New York: Russell & Russell, 19*61), I, 57-58. All further references to this edition will be cited parenthetically in the text with the notation "Ker" and the volume and page number.

19

In this passage Dryden has skillfully mimicked the arguments

and even some of the phraseology used by contemporary critics.

The fastidious remark about ”ill-wrought stuffs” sounds much

like Flecknoe’s "A good Play shu’d be like a good stuff”; the

comment about two plots distracting the audience reproduces

Howard’s argument that ”the Audience may not so suddenly

recollect themselves as to start into an enjoyment of the

Mirth or a concern for the Sadness"; and the allusion to

"Unity of Action" sounds like Rymer’s insistence on a single

plot. But Dryden answers these arguments with the reply of

Neander, the character who is generally assumed to represent

the author himself. In a refutation which has been called

"the first real defense of tragicomedy in English criticism,

he dispenses with the criticism that mirth and sadness destroy

one another:

He jLisideius] tells us, we cannot so speedily recollect ourselves after a scene of great passion and concernment, as to pass to another of mirth and humour,. and to enjoy it with any relish: but why should he imagine the soul of man more heavy than his senses? Does not the eye pass from an unpleasant object to a pleasant in a much shorter time than is required to this? and does not the unpleasantness of the first commend the beauty of the latter? The old rule of logic might have convinced him, that contraries, when placed near, set off each other. A continued gravity keeps the spirit too much bent; we must refresh it sometimes, as we bait in a journey, that we may go on with greater ease. (Ker, I, 69-70)

"A continued gravity" tires the audience by playing too long

on the same emotions, but an alteration of mirth and sadness

10 Frank Humphrey Ristine, English Tragicomedy, Its Origin and History (1910; rpt. New York: Russell & Russell, 1^63), p. 169.

20

delights them because of its variety. This defense of tragi

comedy is the main one that Dryden offers throughout his

entire career. But he makes another point just as important:

the special pleasure of tragicomedy lies in the rule that

"contraries, when placed near, set off each other." He is

not only saying that the opposites of seriousness and gaiety

cause a pleasing contrast when included in the same play. He

believes that these contrasts operate to maximtun advantage when

one scene is "placed near" its direct opposite, with the dif

ferences heightened as much as possible. Thus if Torrismond

in The Spanish Friar has been ranting that he will love only

one woman the rest of his days, Lorenzo must next come onto

the stage chuckling that one woman will <io as well as another.

In this way the second scene makes an ironic comment on the ,

first, so that one character may "set off" the other, and the

particular harmony of tragicomedy results—that shifting kalei

doscope with its alternating yet complementary colors. Conse

quently, despite what Lisideius and his real-life counterparts

believe, the comic and heroic modes reinforce each other simply

because the differences have been developed so artfully and

deliberately.

Besides - this important pronouncement on contrast, Dryden

makes another significant point in his defense of tragicomedy.

Lisideius has praised the French for the unity of their plots,

but Meander explains that a single action is barren and dull.

21

whereas the underplots of the English stage provide "variety

and copiousness." He boasts about the construction of these

English double plots and in so doing reveals Dryden's method

of composition again:

Our plays, besides the main design, have under-plots or by-concernments, of less considerable persons and intrigues, which are carried on with the motion of the main plot; just as they say the orb of the fixed stars, and those of the planets, though they have motions of their own, are whirled about by the motion of the Primum Mobile, in which they are contained. That similitude expresses much of the English stage; for if contrary motions may be found in nature to agree; if a planet can go east and west at the same time, one way by virtue of his own motion, the other by the force of the First Mover, it will not be difficult to imagine how the under-plot, which is only different, not contrary to the great design, may naturally be conducted along with it. (Ker, I, 70-71)

Commenting on this passage, Sarup Singh argues that by Dryden's

own standards here tragicomedy "fails" since the underplot must

be"only different, not contrary" to the main plot; and as

written in the Restoration, tragicomedy joins "The Conquest of

Granada and The Man of Mode," which are "not only 'contrary'"

but "mutually exclusive.However, the passage itself answers

Singh's objections. A play may like a planet "go east and west

at the same time," or include the seemingly irreconcilable modes

of wit comedy and the heroic play, yet still maintain its own

unity through other similarities. In Dryden's tragicomedies

the two plots usually turn on the same situations'or themes;

only the comic or heroic treatment makes the actions so vastly

different. In The Spanish Friar, for example, both plots deal

11 Singh, p. 155. The passage is quoted fully in this text on pp. 4-5.

22

with the problem of untrustworthy advisors; 12 |3Ut

questionable advice given to Elvira endorses the promiscuous

values of Restoration rakes, whereas the evil counsel given

to Leonora results in the typical love / honor conflict of the

heroic play. In all of the tragicomedies such differences

ofstreatment and similarities of theme blend together in a

subtle harmony so that their "contrary motions may be found .

. . . to agree."

Thus in 1663 Dryden enthusiastically defends tragi

comedy by emphasizing the pleasure and variety it affords.

But in 1679 he seems to have changed his mind. In "The

Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy" prefixed to Troilus and

Cressida, he clearly points out that "two different independ

ent actions distract the attention and concernment of the

audience, and consequently destroy the intention of the poet;

if his business be to move terror and pity, and one of his

actions be comical, the other tragical, the former will divert

the people, and utterly make void his greater purpose" (Ker,

I, 208). Apparently here he is repudiating his practice and

declaring for Lisideius' side, expounding the theory that

mirth and sadness cancel one another—a position he had re

futed eleven years earlier. But a close look at this comment

will show that Dryden is not discussing tragicomedy at all.

He is discussing pure tragedy, the kind of play in which the

•*■2 Sarah Susan Staves, "Studies in the Comedy of John Dryden" , (Diss. Virginia, 1967), p. 238.

23

author’s "business" or main purpose is "to move terror and

pity." But tragicomedy is much closer to comedy than it is to

tragedy, Madeleine Doran suggests in her explanation of Guarini’s

Compendio: "The proper end of tragedy is to purge pity and terror,

the proper end of comedy is to purge sadness. . . . tragi-comedy

has the same aim as comedy, to purge melancholy, hence to de

light. But since the makers of tragi-comedy wish to elevate it

above the tedium and triviality of much contemporary comedy—fol

lowing the footsteps of Menander and Terence, who sought to raise

the dignity of comedy—they have undertaken to mingle with pleas

ing things those parts of tragedy which can go with the comic

. . . they temper comedy with tragic gravity."13 Thus according

to Doran, tragicomedy is a variation on the comic pattern.

Other authorities agree that this two-plot structure is a comic

one. The title page of Marriage a la Mode bears the identifying

note "a comedy," and this classification of the play is kept up .

in a 1745 account from the Gentleman’s Magazine. Besides quoting

these two references in his edition of Dryden’s plays, Sir

Walter Scott himself calls the play "one of Dryden’s most suc

cessful comedies" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 247, 249). Yet Mar

riage a la Mode consists of a comic plot and a heroic plot with

two separate groups of characters—the pattern commonly called

"tragicomedy" in the Restoration. Perhaps Dryden, writing on

"The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy," spoke out against a

comic underplot because he was not thinking of tragicomedy at

13 Madeleine Doran, Endeavors of Art: A Study of Form in Elizabethan Drama (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,T954), p. 205.

24

all. This theory explains why in the same paragraph he approves

of double plots in Terence "to give us the pleasure of variety";

in comedy the author’s "business" is not "to move terror and

pity," so double plots may be allowed for the "pleasure of variety"

they afford the audience. If Qryden had explored this idea in his

criticism, he could have formulated a theoretical defense of tragi

comedy to answer critics like Rymer,' explaining that the unity of

action required in tragedy was unnecessary to a newly developed

variation of comedy. But sj.nce he never did so, one can only

speculate that this idea might have been in his mind when he

dealt with tragedy and Terence in the same paragraph.

In the 1681 "Dedication of The Spanish Friar" Dryden again

defends his habit of writing tragicomedy. He alludes to the

importance of pleasing the audience, but as if impatient of

justifying his practice again, he also attributes the double

plot line of The Spanish Friar to his own "humour":

There are evidently two actions in it; but it will be clear to any judicious man, that with half the pains I could have raised a play from either of them; for this time I satisfied my own humour, which was to tack two plays together; and to break a rule for the pleasure of variety. The truth is, the audience are grown weary of continued melancholy scenes; and I dare ventrue to prophesy, that few tragedies except those in verse shall succeed in this age, if they are not lightened with a. 1course of mirth. For the feast is too dull and solemn without the fiddles. (Ker, I, 249).

He is still conscious of the theoretical objections to tragi

comedy, as evidenced by his realization that he must "break a

25

rule" in writing double plots (presumably unity of action,

although perhaps the doctrine of genres). But he brushes

these objections aside because the success of the play is

more important, and "the audience are grown weary of contin

ued melancholy scenes." Apparently the audience for which he

is writing will not accept pure, serious tragedy, for accord

ing to Dryden, they must have either a comic underplot or verse

to maintain their interest. Thus for the most practical of

reasons, he has written a play with a double plot; he knows

what will succeed, and he would be foolish to write anything

else, since he is making his living from the theater. But

after stern necessity has dictated his choice of a genre, he

must endure the blame heaped upon him by neo-Aristotelian

critics. Thus, as Arthur C. Kirsch points out, Dryden's criticism is often "occupied with self-justification,"14 finding

reasons to defend a play after he has already written it.

In "A Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of

Satire" (1692), he reconsiders a point introduced earlier in

An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, namely that a play may have two

plots as long as they are not "contrary" to one another: "In

. . . a tragicomedy, there is to be but one main design; and

though there be an underplot, or second walk of comical charac

ters and adventures, yet they are subservient to the chief fable

carried along under it, and helping to it; so that the drama

14 Arthur C. Kirsch, Dryden's Heroic Drama (Princeton: University Press, 1965), p. 3.

26

may not seem a monster with two heads" (Ker, II, 102-03).

This remark attempts to answer the theoretical critics on

their own terms. A play need not have unity of action or

even of tone to coalesce into "one main design." Sufficient

unity results when the "second walk of comical characters"

act in some way as "subservient to the chief fable." Thus

a dramatist may join two diverse plots, one in the mode of

heroic drama and the other patterned after wit comedy, yet

still provide a unified impression.

Probably the simplest and most accurate statement of

his critical position on tragicomedy appears in the letter to

William Walsh written December 12, 1693. Speaking of his

"Irregular way, of Tragicomedies," he confesses, "I will never

defend that practice: for I know it distracts the Hearers.

But I know, withall, that it has hitherto pleasd them, for the

sake of variety; & for the particular tast, which they have to

low Comedy."15 This comment is a good synthesis of his position,

for he acknowledges the importance of theory yet explains why

he must depart from it in practice. As Howard has objected

earlier, tragicomedy "distracts the Hearers," who nevertheless

demand it, partially for the "variety" of alternating moods

I5 John Dryden, "Letter to William Walsh, December 12, 1693," The Letters of John Dryden, with Letters Addressed to Him, ed. Charles E. Ward^ (chapel Hill, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1942), p. 62.

27

and plots, and partially for "the particular tast, which they

have to low Comedy." The reference to "low comedy" is an

interesting novelty in his remarks about tragicomedy. Pre

sumably he means that the audience enjoys farce like the last

scene of The Spanish Friar, in which the concealed Lorenzo

keeps shaking his fist at the friar as the good father is about

to testify against him. By this time the middle class was be

ginning to assert its tastes in the theater, and they would

have appreciated this kind of comedy more than they did the

sparkling wit enjoyed by Charles Il's court. Dryden catered

to these new tastes with a different kind of comic plot, using

more realistic, middle-class characters like Elvira and Lorenzo

to replace the earlier "gay couples" who had bantered wittily

in the courts of Secret Love and Marriage a la Mode.

In "A Parallel of Poetry and Painting" (1695), Dryden more

completely endorses the theories against tragicomedy than in

previous essays. He condemns the mixture of moods in The

Spanish Friar: "for though the comical parts are diverting,

and the serious moving, yet they are of an unnatural mingle:

for mirth and gravity destroy each other, and are no more to

be allowed for decent than a gay widow laughing in a mourning

habit" (Ker, II, 147). Lisideius made this same point in 1668

when he called "mirth and compassion things incompatible" (Ker,

I, 58). Yet even when Dryden grants so much importance to the

theoretical position against tragicomedy, he wistfully admits

28

that he is nevertheless "fond of" The Spanish Friar. He is still

aware that a play can please even if it breaks the rules.

Dryden's critical position has been accurately described

by Cecil Victor Deane. He knows that double plots are inde-

fensible theoretically, yet he wants to please the audience.xo

The critics demand unity of action; adherence to classical, un

mixed genres like pure tragedy or comedy; one style of language

throughout the play; one limited range of moods, either serious

or comic. The public, on the other hand, wants variety of

scenes, characters, language, and moods. A dramatist like

Dryden probably felt that he had to choose between theoretical

correctness and financial solvency. But faced with satisfying

both extremes, the critics and the public, Dryden evolved a form

of tragicomedy which has its own unity. He interwove the two

plots scene by scene to exploit the ironic contrast between

comic and heroic values. There are even a few hints about this

practice in his criticism. An Essay of Dramatic Poesy stresses )

that "contraries, when placed near, set off each other"—almost

a deliberate statement revealing Dryden's method of juxtaposing

a comic scene against a heroic one. "A Discourse concerning the

Original and Progress of Satire" argues that tragicomedy can

have unity if the underplot supports the main one in some way.

Thus Dryden can give his spectators a double plot but also a

Cecil Victor Deane, Dramatic Theory and the Rhymed Heroic Play (1931; rpt. London: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1967), p. 56.

29

unified whole, with the comic and heroic modes reflecting

one another ironically scene by scene. These ironic con

trasts will now be specifically revealed in an examination

of three representative tragicomedies.

III. CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE TWO PLOTS OF SECRET LOVE

Despite the insistence of critics like Rymer that a double

plot destroys the unity of action, Dryden’s Preface to Secret

Love boasts that this tragicomedy is "regular," written "according to the strictest of Drama tick Laws."-*- The first pro

logue, echoing this claim, insists that Dryden has used in

Secret Love "Th* exactest Rules b£ which a Play is wrought: /

The Unities of Action, Place, and Time" (California, IX, 119).

But John Loftis points out that, since the play contains separate

comic and heroic plots, most seventeenth century critics would

argue that it lacks "unity of action and even unity of emotional

effect" (California, IX, 334). Thus Dryden must have defined

"unity of action" less strictly than his contemporaries did;

according to Loftis, perhaps he meant to produce in Secret Love

another kind of unity, two distinct plots that "coexist harmo

niously and in fact complement each other in producing the dis

tinctive tone of the play, which is neither pompous nor trivial,

1 John Dryden, Preface to Secret Love, The Works of John Dryden, ed. H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., IX (Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press, 1966), 115. All further references to this edition will be cited parenthetically in the text with the notation "California," the volume, and the page number. Some of the references will be to the play, its preface, or its prologue; others will be to John Loftis’ critical commentary on Secret Love at the end of Volume IX.

30

31

as it might have been if one or the other existed in iso

lation" (California, IX, 335). Thus Dryden j.s somewhat

justified in calling this kind of play "regular," for the

"natural compatability of the different plots . . . brings

about . . . a harmonious union" (California, IX, 336).

This liberal interpretation of the Unities might not

satisfy Rymer, but it does recognize an important strategy

which Dryden uses in his tragicomedies. Aware that a tragi

comedy need not be "a monster with two heads," Dryden blends

his two plots in subtle ways, interweaving them like the

strands of a finely meshed web. In every play he demonstrates

a slightly different approach to the problem of intertwining

the two narratives. Secret Love studies the concept of love

from antithetical comic and heroic viewpoints, juxtaposing

two groups of lovers with opposite attitudes. The heroic world embodies the values of preciosite', the Platonic love cult intro

duced by Queen Henrietta Maria.2 in this fashionable seven

teenth century code for flirtation, love must be spiritual, "forever freed from the limitations of mere physical passion."3

The lover has certain services to perform: he "must ever burn,

sigh, and languish in his courtship" and "humbly serve" his

2 Kathleen M. Lynch, The Social Mode of Restoration. Comedy, . University of Michigan Publications, Language and Literature, Vol. 3 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926), pp. 43-44.

Lynch, p. 46.

32

mistress "in every possible way."4 with a "completely un

selfish" attitude.5 He is expected to pay her "high-falutin

compliments . . • usually couched in ornate cliches which

frequently compare her to natural phenomena such as stars or

rivers.6 He also addresses her in a special tone of voice,7

so that he is often called "a whining lover" and Berkeley has described his practice as "The Art of Whining Love."8 The

mistress herself is accorded a "semi-divine status" and possesses a soul finer than the ordinary,8 with a charming effect

in the eye which can dart out and reduce a man "to whining

subjection."10 These conventions present an idealized view

of the man / woman relationship. Human beings are expected

to be more spiritual and selfless than they really are, and

love is portrayed as a "'sympathy'" growing up between two

4 Lynch, p. 48.

5 Lynch, p. 46.6 David S. Berkeley, "Preciosite^ and the Restoration

Comedy of Manners," Huntington Library Quarterly, 18 (1955), 127, 118 e —————— .. - -7 Berkeley, "Preciosit/*," pp. 125-26.

8 David S. Berkeley, "The Art of 'Whining' Love," Studiesin Philology, 52 (1955), .478-96. -------

9 Berkeley, "Preciosite^" pp. 114# 110>

Berkeley, "Preciosite^" p. 119.

33

souls.11 in reality man occupies the middle link on the chain of being, sharing the nature of both beasts and angels,12 but preciosite'' allies him more closely with the divine order than

his nature permits.Restoration comedy, on the other hand, assigns man a place

with the beasts. Love in the comic world is almost entirely

physical; it is the "mere physical passion" which preciosite

avoids. In every way the two ideas of love are so different

that Restoration comedy often satirized precieuse conventions

as artificial.13 Instead of faithfully serving his lady, the

comic lover boasts of his inconstancy and tries to avoid emo

tional entanglement; instead of paying her ornate but sincere

compliments, he engages with her in a contest of wit. She in

turn is no remote goddess, but an earthly woman who parries

his wit and attracts him by cleverness, not by a magical charm in the eye. Preciosite^(like Medieval chivalry) urges man to

live by his highest spiritual ideals, but the comic world por

trays human behavior as seen through the eyes of a cynic.

These two opposite ways of viewing mankind, when juxtaposed in

alternating scenes, present an ironic contrast between what

man wishes to be and what he more nearly is.

11 Berkeley, "’Whining’ Love," p. 487.12 Samuel Holt Monk, "The Pride of Lemuel Gulliver,"

Eighteenth-Century English Literature; Modern Essays in Criticism ed. James L. Clifford (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), pp. 125-26.

13 Berkeley, "Preciosite^" pp. 110-11.

34

The emotional tone of the two plots also contrasts markedly.

The comic lovers, who fear emotional entanglement, conceal their

affection for one another behind a whirlwind of sparkling, ex

travagant wit; the heroic characters, who nourish violent pas

sions for one another, frequently deliver immoderate rants about

their feelings. Anne Righter remarks on the different moods of

these two worlds: in Restoration comedy "only those characters

who can temper their attitudes and reactions, who link fancy

with judgment, passion with reason, find admission among the

truewits," but "Restoration tragedy, by contrast, presents a

world of absolutes, of black and white without any mitigating shades of grey. The whole form is built upon the idea of excess."14

Dryden directs most of the emphasis in Secret Love toward

exploring these differences in values and emotional tone. But

he occasionally draws even sharper contrasts between the two

plots by constructing parallel scenes in them, thus allowing the

audience to discern the difference between comic and heroic

treatment of the same situation. In later tragicomedies he uses .

this technique even more often to draw increasingly subtle com

parisons and contrasts between the two plots. In Secret Love,

however, he employs the parallel scene only three times, pre-

14 Anne Righter, "Heroic Tragedy," Restoration Theatre, ed. John Russell Brown and Bernard Harris (1965; rpt. New York: Capricorn Books, 1967), p. 145.

35

ferring to emphasize a simple antithesis of values and emo

tional tone between the two plots.

The difference in value systems emerges clearly through

out the play, developed in alternating comic and heroic scenes.

The wild comic hero Celadon recommends a code of inconstancy

which Rochester would have endorsed. Teased by Asteria to

reveal which of Melissa's daughters owns his heart, he replies

in astonishment:

Cel, Which of 'em naughty sister, what a question's there? With both of 'em, with each and singular of 'em. . . . Marriage is poor folks pleasure that cannot go to the cost of variety: but I am out of danger of that with these two, for I love 'em so equally I can never make choice between 'em.

(California, IX, 124-25)

To Celadon love is a physical response elicited by any beautiful

woman. He does not understand why anyone would wish to be mar

ried, and he thinks Asteria's question absurd because it is based

on a spiritual definition of love. Nor does he restrict his

amorous attentions to Melissa's daughters. Informed about Flori-

mell, a new beauty, he is resolved to pursue her also: "You

may trust my memory for an handsome woman, I'le think upon her,

and the rest too; I'le forget none of 'em" (California, IX, 126).

Even after he has become engaged to Florimell, Celadon continues

to pursue Melissa's daughters "for the sweet sake of variety"

(California, IX, 162), brazenly justifying his behavior to his

fiancee by protesting his need of a harem: "What would you have?

You are my Sultana Queen, the rest are but in the nature of your

36

Slaves; I may make some slight excursion into the Enemies

Country for forage or so, but I ever return to my head quar

ters" (California, IX, 162).

Celadon's fickleness contrasts vividly with the con

stancy of Philocles, the male protagonist in the heroic plot,

so faithful that he would reject the honors of court to live

in pastoral seclusion with his sweetheart. Philocles tells

his love Candiope that in all the world he needs only her:

Phil, He, who with your possession once is blest. On easieterms may part with all the rest.All my Ambition will in. you be crown'd;And those white Arms shall all my wishes bound.

(California, IX, 155)

Philocles gladly renounces all other women for his mistress;

even more, he gives up the rest of the world, rejecting society

and honors alike. This fidelity contrasts with the promiscuity

of Celadon, who yearns for a hundred mistresses to satisfy.

The disparity in values between these two heroes is especially

apparent in Ill.i. immediately after Philocles offers to seek

his entire world in. Candiope's "white Arms," Celadon crosses the

stage courting two women and ignoring his engagement to Flori-

mell. This skillful juxtaposition of opposites creates an

effective dramatic irony, besides illuminating the contrast be

tween comic and heroic values.

Thus Dryden casts his two heroes as foils for one another

in order to dramatize the gulf between comic and heroic values.

He also sets the two worlds apart by demonstrating their anti

37

thetical reactions to preciosite, the seventeenth-century code

of idealized love. As might be expected, the heroic characters

uphold precieuse conventions and the comic lovers satirize them.

Lysimantes, unsuccessfully in love with the queen, exemplifies

the heroic adherence to preciosite; in a formalized speech

about his feelings, he employs the assumptions and even the

language of the Platonic love code:

Lys, What greater pledge than Love? when those fair eyes Cast their commanding beams, he that cou’d be A Rebel to your birth, must pay them homage.


In accordance with precieuse tradition, the lady's "commanding

beams," darting out of her eyes, have enslaved the man; he must

now "pay . . . homage" to her in every possible way, hoping for

small signs of her favor. The speech also reflects the language of preciosite^ "high-falutin compliments . . . usually couched

in ornate cliches." In the ethereal world of preciosite^ the

woman is an angelic domina to be worshipped with fine-sounding

words.

The comic lovers repeatedly mock the precieuse conventions

which the heroic world accepts. In bantering with the masked

ladies Flavia and Florimell, Celadon emphasizes his readiness to accept any woman as a mistress, in contrast to the precieuse

fidelity to one domina: "I'll be constant to an 100 of you:

or, (if you will needs fetter me to one,) agree the matter be

tween your selves; and the most handsome take me" (California,

38

IX, 127). Celadon's plea to be accepted by the "most hand

some" masked lady cleverly mocks the way in which preciosite1s

adherents fall in love. In the precieuse tradition, as in Medieval love tales,I5 the lady captures her lover with a

charming effect in the eye which darts out to wound him so

that afterward he can be only hers. Florimell cannot wound

Celadon with her beauty since she wears a mask, so in a parody

of precieuse conventions. Celadon explains that the ladies must

"agree . . . between" themselves who is "the most handsome,"

and he will be wounded accordingly. But he would actually pre

fer to love both of them rather than being "fetter [ed] to one" as preciosite^requires of its wounded lovers.

Celadon and Florimell also mock the conventions of preciosite^

when they strike a bargain to be married. She demands that he

undergo a period of service, during which he is to do her bidding—

an obvious parody on the precieuse convention that a lover "must

humbly serve" his mistress "in every possible way." Another characteristic of pre'ciosit^ is the lover's special whining tone

of voice when addressing his mistress, a tradition which Flori

mell mocks when she complains of always attracting "an ordinary

15 James I. Wimsatt, Allegory and Mirror: Tradition and Structure in Middle English Literature, Pegasus Backgrounds in English Literature (New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc., 1970), pp. 69-73.

39

whining Lover" (California, IX, 141). The convention that the

lover "must ever burn, sigh, and languish in his courtship" is

satirized when Florimell demands of Celadon that he "hang him

self, drown himself, break his neck and poyson himself for

very despair" (California, IX, 141), or at the very least "be

pale, and lean, and melancholick" (California, IX, 142).

Celadon, in fact, underscores the satire for the audience by

his assertion that "a Treat, a Song, and the Fiddles" are "more

acceptable proof of love . . . then any of those Tragical ones"

(California, IX, 142).' A Restoration audience would have been

aware of these precieuse conventions and would have recognized

them, whether embodied in the heroic plot or parodied in the

comic one. The Platonic love code is thus another device whereby

Dryden draws an ironic contrast between the two plots, with the

comic protagonists mocking what the heroic ones revere.

Obviously, then, the comic and heroic characters manifest

opposing sets of values in their courtships. John Traugott,

discussing the difference in value systems between the two plots

of Marriage a la Mode, makes a point applicable as well to

Secret Love: "Deliberately Dryden has counterpointed the two

sides of the Restoration ethic, the sentimental regard for. love

and honor and the libertine questioning of their reality. The

age seems to say that it is the human fate neither to believe

nor to give up idealism and the age's literature has it both

ways, a never-never land of love and honor and a local habita

tion where lust and will and manners are the reality." This

40

dichotomy or "paradoxical ethic of the Restoration" can be

explained "as sentimental nostalgia for the heroic imposed upon an obsessive commitment to naturalism."16 Traugott is

certainly correct about the contrast in values between the

heroic and comic modes. But it is doubtful that the Resto

ration yearned wistfully toward ideal love as much as he

imagines. Admittedly his concept of a jaded, disillusioned

rake yearning toward unreachable ideals is attractive in a

romantic sort of way, and it has been proposed before by

critics. Typical is the remark of Sarup Singh: "The heroic

play came into existence in response to the spiritual needs

of a tired, disillusioned and decadent aristocracy. . . .

They needed a drama which should resuscitate for them those

nobler values of life which their society had either lost or

was in the process of losing. The heroic play created a dream

land for them where they could find love, virtue and greatness 17 as a substitute for the pettiness around them." John Harold

Wilson also attributes the heroic play to a search for ideals

in a cynical society: the Restoration created the heroic play

16 John Traugott, "The Rake's Progress from Court to Comedy: A Study in Comic Form," Studies in English Literature, 6 (1966), 395, 396.

Sarup Singh, The Theory of Drama in the Restoration Period (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1963), p. 2.

41

because it wanted heroes to fulfill its ideals, to "embody the characteristics most valued" by the society.18 But s£nce no

one can prove why the heroic play arose and what psychological

needs it served, such speculation is dangerous. The important

point is that its values contrast with those of wit comedy,

and that when these two genres are woven into the same play,

striking ironies result from the blending of opposite viewpoints

The emotional tone of the two plots is similarly opposite.

The comic lovers, wary of any deep emotional commitment, conceal

their affection for one another by joking frivolously about

marriage and constancy. But the heroic lovers, who experience

intense and eternal passion for one another, allow raging tor

rents of emotion to sweep over them without restraint. This

difference in emotional intensity appears repeatedly as the two

plots alternate. Celadon and Florimell, obviously in love, can

never exchange serious declarations of passion; they must always

be jesting to disguise what they feel. When they first meet

and are attracted to one another, they hide their swiftly grow

ing affection in jokes about inconstancy, which they both main

tain is characteristic of man / woman relationships. Celadon

boasts that he "can live with as few Mistresses as any man;"

requiring "onely . . . necessary change . . . as I shift my

Linen" (California, IX, 126). Florimell counters that faithful

18 John Harold Wilson, A Preface to Restoration Drama (1965; rpt. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968),

42

swains are "troublesome, and hinder a Lady of a fresh Lover"

(California, IX, 127). Even when the couple agree to be

married, they continue to jest about their feelings, with

Celadon confessing he is "so horribly" in love "that contrary

to my own Maxims, I think in my conscience I could marry you"

(California, IX, 141). John Harrington Smith, who has traced

this kind of witty, sparring courtship through Renaissance

and Restoration comedies, dubs the merry lovers as "gay couples,"

defining them as "that pair in comedy who begin their relation

ship as antagonists-rather than collaborators, whose attraction

for each other develops in the course of a sprightly courtship

game, and who, even when caught by love and about to be married., still persist in seeming not to take their situation seriously."19

Celadon and Florimell are so frivolous, witty, and lighthearted

that Smith maintains, "in no preceding romantic play except

Much Ado about Nothing had the gay couple been done with such

brilliant success."20

These gay and self-sufficient wits contrast noticeably with

the heroic characters, who thunder out their violent passions in

tirades of anguish. Ned Bliss Allen, remarking on the disparity

of emotional moods between the two plots, says that Dryden inten-

15 John Harrington Smith, The Gay Couple in Restoration Comedy (Cambridge, Mass.S Harvard University Press, 1948), p. 3.

20 Smith, p. 55.

43

sified the gaiety of Celadon and Florimell "not for the sake

of the comedy itself, but because he wanted to set off the tragic plot."21 The more witty and emotionally detached

are the "gay couple," the better they will contrast with the

gloomy, passionate characters in the heroic plot. The most

passionate of all is the queen, who is wracked by successive

fits of passion so violent that they leave her enervated and

helpless in their grip. Under the influence of her "secret

love" for Philocles, she weeps, grabs her rival's picture from

a lady-in-waiting; and at last, worn out by despair and rage,

she faints. Upon reviving, she predicts that she will soon

"lie all damp and cold, / Shrowded within some hollow Vault"

(California, IX, 136) , a victim of the passion which consumes

her "Like Lillies wasting in a Lymbecks heat" (California, IX,

136). This prediction is obviously melodramatic, an indulgence

of self-pity. The queen herself soon evidences dismay at her

violent behavior and laments that love has impaired her reason:

Qu. Gone, gone Asteria, all is gone, Or lost within me far trom any use. Sometimes I struggle like the Sun in Clouds, But straight I am o'recast.--


Such violent outbursts typify the behavior of heroic lovers.

2^ Ned Bliss Allen, The Sources of John Dryden's Comedies (1935; rpt. New York: Gordian Press, Inc., 1967), p. 100.

44

Their emotional tirades are so intense that Bruce King believes

them to be modelled after Jonson’s humour characters,22 anj

Scott C. Osborn classifies their love "as a malady, a passion

caused by a distemper of the-bodily humors" completely overpowering the reason.23 This kind of emotional excess, so com

monplace in the noble characters of the heroic plays, is alien

to the witty protagonists of comedy. If Celadon and Florimell

were to grow disinterested in one another, they would part

with a witty maxim on the transience of love.

In each case, the characters’ emotional behavior is governed

by their philosophical assumptions about love. The comic pair,

who define love as pure sex, fear to establish a permanent re

lationship on so fragile a basis. Celadon vows that he is

marrying Florimell "to make sure of one good night," which is

"as much in reason as a man should expect from this ill world"

(California, IX, 142). His fiancee apparently agrees with his

definition of love, for she cynically doubts that their love

can endure, promising to marry him in a year only "If neither

of us alter our minds before" (California, IX, 142). They

equate love with physical attraction, which they realize is

transient; thus, they do not attempt to establish an intense

emotional relationship which might later disintegrate. Hobbes,

whose philosophy inspired many ideas in Restoration comedy,

22 Bruce King, Dryden's Major Plays (1966; rpt. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966), pp. 12-13.

23 Scott C. Osborn, "Heroical Love in Dryden’s Heroic Drama," PMLA, 73 (1958), 481-83.

45

points out that no close relationship between equals can en

dure. When we receive benefits from "one, to whom we think

ourselves equal," we may "counterfeit love" but actually feel

"secret hatred. . . . For benefits oblige, and obligation is

thraldom; and unrequitable obligation perpetual thraldom; which is to one's equal, hateful."24 Florimell and Celadon seem

aware of this idea, and they fear marriage or betrothal as a

"thraldom" in which they will be obligated to exchange "benefits."

The very commitment will cause their love to decay; thus, keep

ing themselves in check emotionally is better than being disap

pointed later. Jean Gagen, who is disturbed by this emotional

fencing in their love relationship, fears that Celadon is in

herently promiscuous and Florimell, in order to maintain "parity

. . . in their life together," must pretend a taste for variety

which she does not feel. "If gallants parade their scorn of

marriage and their penchant for inconstancy," notes Gagen, "a self-respecting woman cannot fail to do the same."2^ Obviously

this point has some validity: both of the characters jest about

their inconstancy, but only Celadon actually practices it during

the course of the play. However, Florimell scarcely depicts a

24 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, in The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Ilalmesbury, ed. Sir William Molesworth (1893: rpt. n.p.: Scientia Aalen, 1962), III, 87.

25 jean E. Gagen, The New Woman: Her Emergence in English Drama, 1600-1730 (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1954), pp. 142, 148.

46

long-suffering, faithful maid, oppressed by male dominance into

stifling her inclination for monogamy. Her jests equal Celadon’s

in gaiety and high spirits; like him she uses cleverness as a

protective shield against deep emotional commitments, retreating

into cynicism and wit instead of surrendering to a love which

might prove transient.

Melissa’s daughter Olinda offers another comic definition

of love, regarding it not as sex but as a merry game of adolescent

treats. Her mother asks her about Celadon:

Mel. But tell me in earnest, do you think he loves you? Olin. Can you doubt it? There were never two so cut

out for one another; we both love Singing, Dancing, Treats and Musick. In short, we are each others counterpart.

Mel. But does he love you seriously?Olin. Seriously! I know not that; if he did, perhaps

I should not love him: but we sit and talk, and wrangle, and are friends; when we are together we never hold our tongues; then we have always a noise of Fiddles at our heels, he hunts me merrily as the Hound does the Hare; and either this is love, or I know it not.


To Olinda love is an enjoyable pastime, a merry chase of fiddles,

dancing, stolen kisses—a Maytime of life to be heartily enjoyed.

This idea, although childish, has much in common with the cynical

notion that love equals sex. Both views assume the superficiality

of love, classifying it as a shallow, peripheral concern not

involving the depths of the personality but instead affording

transient amusement. Thus, since the comic characters regard

love as relatively superficial, they can easily practice emo

tional restraint while in its grip.

47

On the other hand, the heroic characters react violently

to love because they regard it as a deep, eternal empathy be

tween harmonious souls, existing at the spiritual center of

their lives. The idealistic, romantic notions of love prevail

among them: fate has destined one special man for each woman;

the passion between these two fated lovers exists eternally,

unchanged by separation, death, or even marriage; this devoted

couple will struggle to remain true to one another despite all

extremes of fate which may work to separate them. Obviously,

the characters who possess these philosophical assumptions will react with intense, unbridled emotion when they fall in love,

for they rate the sexual-romantic passion as the most important

facet of their lives. Their serious attitude toward love be

comes particularly apparent when they discuss marriage. For

Celadon and Florimell this topic supplies an endless fountain

of jests about boredom and infidelity. But to the heroic

characters, marriage is a grave and sacred matter, viewed in

absolute shades of black and white: one marries his beloved

and is forever happy, or one misses that chance and forever

languishes in misery. Thus Lysimantes, who loves the queen,

grieves that he may not marry her; she in turn rages at the

thought of marrying him rather than her beloved Philocles. The

heroic characters1 belief in ideal love lends poignancy to all

the events that threaten to separate the eternal lovers, such

as the queen’s threat to break off Philocles’ match with

48

Candiope. Since these characters can love only once and do

so with every fiber of their beings, any separation is catastro

phic.

Thus Dryden studies two antithetical sides of love in the

contrasting plots of Secret Love. He also exposes the dif

ference between comic and heroic attitudes by constructing paral

lel scenes in the two plots, thus portraying the same situation

from opposing viewpoints. Loftis notes two examples of this

technique: "dialogue in praise of the queen1s beauty (I, iii)

follows similar dialogue in praise of Florimell's (I, ii); de

piction of the queen's jealousy and petulant criticism of the

appearance of her rival Candiope (III, i) precedes a similar

depiction of Florimell's jealousy and criticism of her two

rivals Sabina and Olinda, the one because she is too short and

the other because she is too tall (IV, i)," (California, IX,

335-36). Similarly, Philocles' debate over whether to marry

Candiope or the queen (IV, ii) mirrors Celadon's earlier dif

ficulty in trying to balance the loving demands of Florimell,

Sabina, and Olinda (III, i), (IV, i). In each case the parallel

situations are viewed from opposite viewpoints, heightening the

contrast between the two plots.

The mirror scenes which praise the heroines' beauty reveal

the difference between comic and heroic diction. Florimell's

appearance is described in a sprightly, witty dialogue.

49

Flor. What kind of Beauty do you like?Cel, Just such a one as yours.Flor. What's that?Cel, Such an Ovall face, clear skin, hazle eyes, thick t

brown Eye-browes, and Hair as you have for all the world. . . . A turn'd up Nose, that gives an air to your face: Oh, I find I am more and more in love with you! a full neather-lip, an out-mouth, that makes mine water at it: the bottom of your cheeks a little blub, and two dimples when you smile: for your stature 'tis well, and for your wit 'twas given you by one that knew it had been thrown away upon an ill face; come you are handsome, there's no denying it. (California, IX, 127-28)

The language in this passage is concrete and realistic; Celadon

describes Florimell as she is, with a catalogue of her physical

characteristics and a wholehearted delight in them. For the

original Restoration audience the description was particularly

realistic since, according to Loftis, it fits Nell Gwyn, who

first played the role (California, IX, 332). But the description

of the queen, also an accolade to beauty, appears in a dignified

and metaphorical style:

Lys. . . . doubtless she's the glory of her time;Of faultless Beauty, blooming as the Spring, In our Sicilian Groves; matchless in Vertue, And largely soul'd, where ere her bounty gives. As with each breath she could create new Indies.


In the heroic world enumeration of a woman's physical features

might be too gross and fleshly, so Lysimantes spiritualizes

the queen's beauty, comparing it to the spring and discussing

her "soul" rather than her physical features. Frequently

precieuse flattery compares the lady to natural phenomena, as

if intent to place her on a semi-divine rather than a fleshly

plane.

50

Similar contrasts appear in the jealousy scenes, in which

the queen and Florimell deprecate their rivals. In the heroic

plot this situation causes serious dramatic conflict. Maliciously

the queen jeers about Candiope's supposed faults, such as "the

bigness of her breasts" (California, IX, 153), while the in

sulted girl listens in silent misery, attempting to conceal her

resentment and dismay. Florimell*s jealousy scene, however,

embodies the light and frivolous mood of romantic comedy. Her

witty criticisms remind one of the comic banter between Hermia

and Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream: the insults rest on

jokes about short or tall women, with Florimell insinuating

that Celadon would not choose such physically inferior speci

mens as the sisters:

Flor. Troth I pity your Highness there, I perceive he has left you for the little one: Me thinks he should have been affraid to break his neck when he fell so high as from you to her.

Sab. Well my drolling Lady, I may be even with you.— Flor, Not this ten years by thy growth, yet.Sab. Can flesh and blood endure this?— Flor. How now, my Amazon in decimo sexto!— Olin, Do you affront my Sister?— Flor. I, but thou art so tall, I think I shall never

affront thee.—(California, IX, 168)

In both scenes the heroine mocks her rival's appearance, but

the emotional tone of the insults is entirely different. The

queen, who views her unrequited love as a cataclysmic emotional

manifestation, must taunt her rival with violent bitterness;

Florimell, who deems love a game, can enjoy her own wit with

a detached amusement as she teases her rivals.

51

Another parallel situation occurs when the two heroes.

Philodes and Celadon, have vowed fidelity to one woman but

are also loved by others. Celadon is confronted with the

problem of a typical Restoration rake: he has pursued too

many women, and they all keep intruding at the same time

(the dilemma also faced by Dorimant in The Man of Mode). His

urgent need for variety causes him to break a dinner engagement

with Florimell, whom he loves the best, in order to see

Melissa’s daughters, whom he considers as mere embodiments

of charm and not as serious flames. Of course, Florimell de

tects his inconstancy, and comic complications result: Celadon

must explain that he was not kissing Sabina but helping her

out of a swoon, an outrageous claim that supplies an excuse for

her brilliant wit.

But Philocles' problems with women are serious, not comic;

instead of inspiring intrigue or wit, they form the love / honor

conflict of the heroic plot. In love with Candiope, Philocles

suddenly discovers the queen’s passion for him. Conflicting

feelings torture his heart, for he loves his first sweetheart

and is bound to her by vows of constancy, yet he has always ad

mired the queen, feeling that he could love her if fate had not

placed her station above his. Moreover, as an ordinarily

ambitious mortal, he remembers that the queen can give him a

crown. He explains his paradoxical situation to Asteria in an

outcry of anguished indecision:

52

iHere Constancy; Ambition there does move; On each side Beauty, and on both sides Love.


His situation is even more complex than an ordinary love /

honor conflict, in which a character must choose between pas

sion and morality, for each of Philocles1 possible choices

satisfies partially the demands of both love and honor. If

he marries Candiope, he consummates his earliest passion and

keeps his promise to her; if he marries the queen, he responds

to a reverent and newly budding love, besides honorably acqui

escing to his sovereign's highest wishes. Like Celadon he has

been confronted by too many women; yet the two characters'

motives are entirely different. Celadon suffers because he

deliberately pursues inconstancy as an ideal; Philocles,

while wanting to be constant, faces an insoluble problem.

Dryden also develops a parallel motif in the two plots:

the situation of the disguise. In the heroic plot it is the

queen's "secret love" for Philocles, a passion she strives to

hide because it is unrequited and directed toward a social

inferior. In the comic plot the disguise is physical rather

than emotional: Florimell dresses as a gallant to lure Melissa's

daughters away from Celadon. The-disguise thus becomes with

Florimell not a significant revelation of character but a con

vention of romantic comedy, the woman in breeches.

Secret Love thus exemplifies Dryden's use of contrasting

and mirroring plots in his tragicomedies. The same situations

53

and themes appear in both plots, but as viewed through the

distorting glass of wit comedy or the heroic play, they assume

altered perspectives. The play as a whole thus resembles a

shifting kaleidoscope of alternating lights, with the attention

directed first toward one attitude and then toward its oppo

site. The many parallels between the plots argue that Dryden

carefully intertwined them, trying to achieve an ironic har

mony from the union of opposing viewpoints.

But his composition of tragicomedies had just begun with

Secret Love, and in later plays he was to try new methods of

blending the plots. An examination of-Marriage a la Mode and

The Spanish Friar will demonstrate how the techniques used in

Secret Love reappeared or altered in later years.

IV. CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE TWO PLOTS OF ‘ MARRIAGE A LA MODE

Proceeding by the same general method used in Secret Love,

Dryden constructed Marriage a la Mode by interweaving anti

thetical comic and heroic plots and emphasizing the differences

in philosophy on which they are built. He deliberately con

trasts the two heroines. Palmyra and Melantha, to elucidate the

gulf between female protagonists in heroic drama and comedy.

He also contrasts the opposing attitudes which the two sets of

characters hold about relations between the sexes, juxtaposing

the promiscuous love code of the rake against the ideals of

Platonic love as he did in Secret Love. But he draws more con

trasts between the two sets of values than he did in Secret Love;

the characters in Marriage a la Mode, as well as airing their

opposite viewpoints on love and marriage, express contrasting

attitudes toward such diverse topics as honor or country life.

Special devices also emphasize still more contrasts between

the two plots. At one point a provocative couplet, while clo

sing a scene, comments on both the comic and heroic worlds and

subtly emphasizes the difference between them. The disguise

motif, also a useful device in Secret Love, discloses another

difference between the two worlds. Dryden even constructs his

imagery to reflect the prevailing attitude or philosophy of

54

55

the plot in which it occurs. Thus he uses the same methods

of contrast which proved effective in Secret Love, but he

explores many more differences in attitude between the comic

and heroic characters.

Another important difference exists between the two plays

as well. In Secret Love the antithetical plots are perfectly

balanced like a skeptic's discourse, with neither philosophy

given preference over the other. But in Marriage a la Mode

Dryden sometimes undercuts the heroic characters by satirizing

their attitudes or mental qualities, as if he himself were as

suming the cynical, libertine outlook of the wits in the comic

plot. Usually he embodies this satire in a deliberate exag

geration of the heroic characters' speeches, causing them to

reach grotesque heights of emotion or express seemingly impor

tant ideas with violent, ill-conceived imagery. At one point

he even undercuts their attitudes by concluding one of their

chaste love scenes with an obscene song—decidedly a satirical

touch which a witty rake would appreciate. Naturally some

critics have viewed these distortions not as deliberate satire

but as careless artistry or poor taste on the author's part.

Ned Bliss Allen, who subscribes to the theory of Dryden's care

lessness, apologizes for what he deems a lack of taste: "The

author seems to have lost interest in the serious plot before he had brought it to its final polish.*1 In a similar vein,

Ned Bliss Allen, The Sources of John Dryden's Comedies (1935; rpt. New York: Gordian Press, Inc., 1967)f p. 16.

56

Sir Walter Scott concludes that the heroic plot "bears evident

marks of hurry and inattention" and is "grossly artificial and

improbable," redeemed only by the comic scenes and probably

grafted onto them at the last minute on a whim (Scott-Saintsbury,

I, 122) Not only does such a view deny the careful mirroring

of comic and heroic scenes to unite the two plots; it denies

the author’s great skill and reputation as a satirist. An

examination of Marriage a la Mode will show that the two plots

are skillfully constructed to mirror one another and that

exaggerated language is used in the heroic mode as a form of

parody.

One of the first contrasts evident is the one between

Palmyra and Melantha. Both are lovely young ladies; both take

a major part in the action; but Dryden has drawn them as foils

for one another to emphasize the difference between comic and

heroic treatment. Since they appear for the first time in

adjacent scenes, the contrast between them is unmistakable.

Palmyra, the protagonist in the heroic plot, is quiet, virtuous,

and modest. King Polydamas asks her if she would like to be a

princess, and her usassuming reply is, "I am content to be what

heaven has made me" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 277). This humble

attitude remains with her throughout the play. When she is at

last revealed as Polydamas* daughter, her reaction to the news

is one of disbelief:

You sport yourself at poor Palmyra’s cost;But if you think to make me proud. Indeed I cannot be so: I was born With humble thoughts, and lowly, like my birth.

(Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 310).

57

With her "humble thoughts, and lowly," Palmyra is the virtuous,

unassuming woman frequently idealized in heroic drama or

romance.

Exactly opposite is Melantha, who sweeps onto stage im

mediately after Palmyra's exit. Melantha*s humour is that she

tries to be what heaven has not made her. Born a Sicilian, she

yearns to be Parisian and even memorizes a list of French words

to inflict upon her acquaintances each day. Her first lines

on stage include the terms "en Francais," "billets-doux," "etourdi b^te," and "maladroitly" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 278);

and henceforth she proceeds to rattle away in affected French

throughout the rest of the play. She scorns being courted by

anyone who is a "mere Sicilian" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 280),

and Palamede must finally win her by adopting her own humour

and speaking nonsense French himself. The motive for her affectation is social advancement, for she is misguided enough to v

think that her behavior will impress the royal family and ladies

in waiting. Thus her driving desire to rise on the social scale

is the opposite of the princess's humility, which scarcely will

allow her to accept a crown rightfully hers.

The two ladies are opposites in yet another way. Palmyra,

when confronted by king and courtiers for the first time, is so

modest that she can barely be made to speak and bashfully finds

refuge in answers such as "Indeed I cannot tell" (Scott-Saints

bury, IV, 277). But Melantha chatters so aggressively that no

one can speak in her presence. When she first meets her suitor

58

Palamede, she falls upon him with such a barrage of questions

and commentary that he cries out in despair, "She asks all,

and will hear nothing" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 280). After she

has chattered her fill and exited "running" from the stage, he

is left to implore, "Now heaven, of thy mercy, bless me from

this tongue I" He concludes that only drastic means will keep

her quiet after they are married: "I must kiss all night in

my own defence, and hold her down, like a boy at cuffs, and

give her the rising blow every time she begins to speak" (Scott-

Saintsbury, IV, 281). By drawing these two ladies as foils,

Dryden illuminates a difference between the heroic play, which

idealizes modest virtue in women, and wit comedy, which satiri

zes their affectations. The audience is quite likely to notice

this contrast in character since Palmyra and Melantha first

appear in adjacent scenes, and "contraries, when placed near,

set off each other."

Perhaps Melantha contrasts with Palmyra in a more general,

philosophical way as well. As the female protagonist of the heroic plot, Palmyra behaves by the rules of preciosite^ exem

plifying innocent chastity and inspiring Leonidas with the fidelity and religious adoration of the pr^cieuse lover. Melantha

however, may well be designed to mock preciositeT David S.

Berkeley points out that she is "a mock precieuse" in her "zeal

for refinement in language" since all Platonic ladies consider

themselves "separated . . . from the vulgar mob and their

59

coarseness,"2 ana Kathleen Lynch calls her a "precieuse"3 as well. Thus Melantha, who parodies preciosite' with her

affected language, is analogous to Florimell in Secret Love,

who mocks the code of Platonic love which the heroic char

acters accept. Both of these comic heroines satirize the

behavior of precieuses, Florimell consciously with her wit

and Melantha indirectly through her exaggerated behavior. Since preciosite^was imported from France, Melantha*s exag

gerated assumption of Platonic refinement is also consistent

with her admiration for French customs.

Thus Dryden deliberately contrasts Palmyra and Melantha

in order to highlight the difference between the comic and

heroic worlds. He also explores the antithetical attitudes

which the two groups of characters hold about love, juxtaposing

the inconstancy of the heroic lovers against the fidelity of

the heroic ones.. The song which opens Marriage a la Mode is often cited by critics as the theme of all Restoration comedy^:

2 David S. Berkeley, "Preciosite and the Restoration Comedy of Manners," Huntington Library Quarterly, 18 (1955), 112, 110-11.

Kathleen M. Lynch, The Social Mode of Restoration Comedy, University of Michigan Publications, Language and Literature, Volume 3. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926), p. 160'.

For example, see L. C. Knights, "Restoration Comedy : The Reality and the Myth," in Restoration Drama: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. John Loftis, A Galaxy Book (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 15.

60

I.Why should a foolish marriage vow.Which long ago was made,

Oblige us to each other now, When passion is decayed?

We loved, and we loved, as long as we could, rTill our love was loved out in us both;

But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled;—|Twas pleasure fir’st made it-an oath.

II.If I have pleasures for a friend.And further love in store,What wrong has he, whose Joys did end.And who could give no more?*Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me,Or that I should bar him of "another:

For all we can gain, is to give ourselves pain. When neither can hinderThe other.

(Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 261-62)

This situation is what Celadon and Florimell implicitly fear

when they bargain carefully over their engagement. "A foolish mar

riage vow," made in the heat of sexual passion, can chain two

people together long after the initial attraction has dissipated.

Then what should the couple do? Celadon and Florimell never

have to answer this question since they are brought only to the

brink of matrimony in Secret Love, but in Marriage a la Mode

Dryden presents a couple much like them for whom the possibility

of passion's decay has become an actuality. In love only two

years before, Rhodophil and Doralice are now an old married

couple oppressed by the boredom which Restoration comic lovers

regard as an inevitable consequence of monogamy. The opening

song proposes a remedy for this tedious fidelity: the refresh

ment and variety afforded by a lover.

These two ideas, that marriage destroys love and infidelity

refreshes the jaded imagination, recur throughout the comic plot.

61

For example, Rhodophil frequently discourses on the tedium of

marriage with comments such as, "There's something of anti

pathy in the word marriage to the nature of love: marriage is

the mere ladle of affection, that cools it when 1tis never so

fiercely boiling over" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 325). Palamede,

who shares his friend's attitudes, points out that even sex is

dull when a man is chained by law to the same woman: "He sets

out like a carrier's horse, plodding on, because he knows he

must, with the bells of matrimony chiming so melancholy about

his neck, in pain till he's at his journey's end; and, despairing

to get thither, he is fain to fortify imagination with the

thoughts of another woman," whereas the lover, "like a well-

breathed courser," can "take heat after heat"„(Scott-Saintsbury,

IV, 325). But both agree that there is a remedy to stimulate

this "one continued, lazy, tired love" into becoming "vigorous,

fresh, and active"; one should take a mistress (Scott-Saintsbury,

IV, 282).

This idea of love as variety, excitement, and challenge

reappears in the masquerade scene. Both of the comic heroes de

cide that they enjoy meeting women at a masked ball, for as

Palamede says, "In masquerade there is nothing to be known, she's

all terra incognita; and the bold discoverer leaps ashore, with

out the vile consideration of safety to his person, or of beauty,

or wholesomeness in his mistress" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 323-34).

The excitement of a disguised lady appeals so strongly to the

62

rake's sense of adventure that he prefers her to a familiar

beauty. As Rhodophil might say, the mask and domino are a

sauce to flavor the monotonous dish served all week.

But love in the heroic world is entirely different. It

is a spiritual union between two sympathetic souls, an enduring

commitment which time and repeated pledges only strengthen. In

the scene following Rhodophil1s and Palamede's jokes about

their inconstancy, the heroic protagonist Leonidas expounds

his belief that one man is fated to love one woman. His sup

posed father King Polydamas demands to know why he will not

marry Amalthea, and Leonidas replies.

Sir, ask the stars.Which have imposed love on us, like a fate. Why minds are bent to one, and fly another? Ask, why all beauties cannot move all hearts?

(Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 289)

Love is an all-consuming passion fated by the "stars" to involve

one man with one woman so that no other beauties can move him.

Fidelity naturally follows love, for a man is drawn by his mis

tress's unique character.

The difference between these two concepts of love becomes

even more apparent in II.i. when the motif of seduction empha

sized in the comic plot is suddenly given heroic treatment.

Argaleon crosses the stage following Palmyra and whispering to

her in a sinister way like the toad at Eve's ear. She is fright

ened and bewildered until Leonidas valiantly orders the leering

villian away. The seducer is thus a reprobate from which inno

63

cent virginity must be protected. But in the comic plot the

seducers are the heroes—witty, lighthearted, attractive, any

thing but malevolent. Moreover, their sophisticated ladies

know exactly how to answer the talk "of flames and fires"

(Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 292) which puzzles naive Palmyra. In

the heroic plot extra-marital sex is a sinister trap laid for

unwary virgins by villains; in the comic plot it is the normal

response of man to woman.

The difference between these two types of love is further

explored, with Dryden particularly intent on exposing the degree

of selfishness which each inspires. The comic attitude, which

views the man / woman relationship as the means of titillating

and satisfying sexual desire, produces characters who fumble

around at cross purposes in inns and caves with little regard

for anyone but themselves. The beginning of the play shows

Rhodophil and Palamede, supposedly great friends, setting out

to seduce one another's property. Rhodophil courts Melantha,

Palamede's betrothed; and Palamede likewise courts his friend's

wife Doralice. As Bruce King points out, these men exemplify

Hobbes's theories that life is a continual round of appetites

to be satisfied and that natural man, when unrestrained, constantly tries to seize his neighbor's property.5 In direct

contrast to these grasping creatures Dryden has placed the

noble Leonidas. Immediately after Rhodophil has exited plotting

5 Bruce King, Dryden's Major Plays (1966; rpt. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966), pp. 83, 82.

64

the seduction of his friend's fiancee, Leonidas enters, trying

to avoid courting Amalthea. "Think . . . not . . . that I

want eyes to see your beauty," he explains to her enigmatically,

rejecting her as graciously as possible (Scott-Saintsbury, IV,

291). As soon as she leaves the stage, he reveals his motives:

he cannot court Amalthea because he is bound by pledge and in

clination to Palmyra.

This beauteous princess, charming as she is.Could never make me happy: I must firstBe false to my Palmyra, and then wretched.


Keeping inviolate his vow to Palmyra, Leonidas with his con

stancy opposes the faithless Rhodophil, who deceives both friend

and wife to chase after a new beauty.

The same contrast between selfish and selfless love appears

later in the play as well. In Ill.i. the comic lovers, whose

acceptance of Hobbist principles has converted their appetites into sacred commandments,® attempt to hold assignations in a

cave. Since the guilty couples surprise one another there,

they pretend to accept one another's excuses and leave the prem

ises in feigned innocence. But obviously all four of them are

trying to satisfy their appetites without regard for ties of

marriage, betrothal, or friendship.

Exactly the opposite kind of love appears in the scene

immediately following. Selfless Amalthea, choosing to consider

® King, p. 86.

65

her beloved Leonidas1 happiness above her own, agrees to help

him find his sweetheart Palmyra. The magnitude of this sacrifice

is disclosed at the end of the play, for Amalthea, who can love

only once and has lost her chance with Leonidas, decides to enter a convent. In her unselfish attitude she mirrors pr^cieuse

tradition, for Lynch points out that the Platonic sweetheart is

characterized by "completely unselfish" love and can love only once.7 Thus she embodies preciosite^just as Melantha mocks it,

and Dryden has used the Platonic love code again to set his comic

lovers apart from his heroic ones.

The two sets of characters also embody opposing attitudes

toward duty or honor. The comic lovers, bent on the gratifica

tion of their own desires, bow to duty only when it serves self

interest, but the heroic ones consider it an important ideal

even when it conflicts with their own happiness. The contrast

between these two attitudes appears when both plots deal with

the issue of arranged marriages. King Polydamas demands that

Leonidas court Amalthea when his love has already been pledged

to.another. Since Leonidas is a noble and virtuous hero, he

must consider as sacred the duty which he owes to Polydamas,

who reminds him, "Consider, / He's both your king, and father,

who commands you" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 288). Yet also because

he is virtuous, he is by conscience and inclination faithful to

his only love. His sweetheart Palmyra later falls victim to

7 Lynch, pp. 46, 47

66

the same love / honor conflict: when Polydamas discovers that

she rather than Leonidas is his real child, the tyrant demands

that she marry Argaleon. Thus both of the heroic lovers suf

fer because they must either disobey a father or betray their

own hearts.

A mirror situation exists in the comic plot since the fa

thers of Melantha and Palamede arrange a marriage between their

children, who have already become involved in other romances.

But the idea that marriage could interfere with their affairs

never disturbs the couple at all. They accept the arrangement,

flirt with one another, and continue their other romances as

well. Palamede never suffers because marriage will make him

unfaithful to Doralice; nor does Doralice weep because he must

be in the arms of another. In fact, she reveals her lack of

sentimentality about the forthcoming marriage by jeering Palamede

with lewd jokes about the wedding night. Their relationship

is a strictly physical attraction, an opportunity to satisfy

their desire for sexual variety. Melantha and Rhodophil must

be even less concerned about the forthcoming wedding, for they

never mention it at all when they are together. Thus there can

be no love / duty conflict for this set of characters since

the emotional demands of comic love are so slight.

The concept of duty is very different in the comic plot

as well. Palamede*s motives for marrying Melantha are hardly

the selfless ones Leonidas might have had. He is acceding to

his father’s wishes not for the sake of filial duty but "because

she's handsome, and because I hate to be disinherited for a

67

younger brother, which I am sure I shall be, if I disobey"

(Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 284). Thus he hopes to gain from the

wedding neither a spiritual union with Melantha nor the pleas

ure of obeying his father, but two decidedly material benefits:

sex and wealth. His attitude mocks the dutiful obedience

idealized by Leonidas and Palmyra, who experience deep mental

conflicts when they must deny a father's wishes.

In all of their behavior the comic and heroic characters

have opposite motives. Materialism is juxtaposed against

idealism; selfishness is opposed to self-sacrifice. The dif

ference between these two attitudes mirrors Albert Cook's

distinction between comedy and tragedy. Comedy, he says, ex

hibits "social man," whose "goal is not to save his soul but to

avoid pain and enjoy pleasure"; it focuses on "man as beast, as

social animal." Tragedy, on the other hand, "shows the godlike

in man."8 The heroic play presents this "godlike" side even

more relentlessly than tragedy does, for its protagonists, built '

on absolutes of good and evil, usually lack even the ordinary

human failings of the tragic hero. Hamlet, a tragic character

patterned after human nature, can experience self-doubt or

guilt, but the idealized Leonidas always epitomizes unblemished

virtues such as duty, self-sacrifice, and fidelity. Thus by

juxtaposing the comic and heroic attitudes in his tragicomedies, '

Dryden can create a striking irony between happy, selfish beasts

8 Albert Cook, The Dark Voyage and the Golden Mean: A Philosophy of Comedy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949) , pp. 33, 46.

68

who seek pleasure and virtuous demigods who live by selfless

ideals.

Even when expressing minor opinions, the two sets of

characters in Marriage a la Mode disagree, as evidenced in

their value judgments on city or country living. Bored and

sophisticated, the comic characters crave the city’s excite

ment, but Leonidas and Palmyra yearn for the quiet peace of

the country. Doralice expresses a view often presented in

Restoration comedy when she deprecates the pastoral life for

its dullness: "In the country! . . . Their entertainment of

wit is only the remembrance of what they had when they were

last in town;—they live this year upon the last year’s know

ledge, as their cattle do all night, by chewing the cud of what

they eat in the afternoon" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 300-01).

Melantha despises the country because it does not practice the

latest fashions: "A song, that’s stale here, will be new there

a twelvemonth hence" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 301). The rural

regions are detestable because they do not fit the life style

of a highly polished, fast-moving social world. But the heroic

characters express the opposite viewpoint. Leonidas repeatedly

says that he hates the court for its crowd of fawning sycophants.

Immediately after Doralice and her friends have jeered at fam

life, he and Palmyra paint idyllic pictures of how happy they

were together in the country. "In cottages," according to

Leonidas, "love has all the day, /Full, and at ease" (Scott-

Saintsbury, IV, 294). Palmyra even feels that "The sun . . .

69

shines faint and dimly here" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 294) in

comparison to the brilliant country sunshine. To this innocent

couple love blooms most freely in a land of fresh air and

flowers, but the comic characters need more exciting stimula

tion to titillate their senses: to them love flourishes in

the adventure of balls, treats, fiddles, masquerades, and plays.

Sarah Susan Staves explains this difference in attitude by

pointing out that the heroic lovers "have experienced a pasto

ral world completely satisfying to the imagination," but the

comic characters "are plagued by a hunger of the imagination

which drives them to restless intriguing." She adds that the

comic lovers in Marriage a la Mode, like many other characters

in Restoration comedy, are suffering "from jaded imaginations."

Thus they "seek to vary what they consider the humdrum routines

of their lives with adventure and excitement," resorting to such

titillating stimulation as "chases in caves" and disguises.

Even the gifts that the lovers offer their mistresses illuminate

the difference between the fresh, sunshine-drenched countryside

and the jaded, pleasure-seeking court. Palmyra lists the sim

ple yet touching gifts which Leonidas showered on her in the

country:He picked the earliest strawberries in woods. The clustered filberts, and the purple grapes; He taught a prating stare to speak my name; And, when he found a nest of nightingales. Or callow linnets, he would show them me, And let me take them out.


9 Sarah Susan Staves, "Studies in the Comedy of John Dryden," (Diss. Virginia, 1967), pp. 226, 224, 225.

70

Palamede, on the other hand, must win Melantha not through

simple natural gifts but through affectation. He bribes her

maid to give him a list of French words, and by using them he

earns her approval and appears a fashionable gallant.

Thus Dryden repeatedly contrasts the values of his comic

and heroic lovers, characterizing the wits by their incon

stancy, selfishness, and desire for excitement while painting

the heroic couple as faithful, idealistic, self-sacrificing,

and content with simple pleasures. He also explores other dif

ferences between these two groups. At one time a parallel

situation appearing in both plots illustrates an important dif

ference in the comic and heroic psyches; at another time a sug

gestive couplet, though ending a heroic scene, reverberates

with contrasting meaning for the comic characters in the scene

immediately following; the assumption of disguises by both sets

of characters reveals an important difference in their percep

tiveness; even the imagery of the two plots contrasts, reflect

ing either the materialism or idealism of the characters con

cerned. Dryden thus develops the difference between his two

plots much more thoroughly in this tragicomedy than he did in

Secret Love.

The parallel situation which he explores in adjacent comic

and heroic scenes is the lovers1 declaration. First he depicts

with Palmyra and Leonidas a scene of pastoral beauty, in which

the lovers recall their sun-drenched country days together and

renew their vows to one another. They have stolen away for a

71

quiet moment together to declare their sincere and innocent

love in secret since their feelings for one another must

remain hidden. As soon as they exit, Doralice and Rhodophil

enter, and in what appears to be a scene parallel to the

previous one, they embrace and exclaim enthusiastic words of

love. Yet this lavish display of affection is only for the

benefit of Artemis, who is watching them; when she leaves,

they immediately begin quarreling and exchanging insults.

Thus their feelings are in every way opposite to those shared

by Leonidas and Palmyra. While the heroic protagonists must

disguise a sincere love, the comic ones must feign in public

a fondness they do not feel. By placing these two contrasting

scenes side by side, Dryden highlights another difference be

tween the two sets of characters: the natural, simple sincerity

of the heroic lovers as opposed to the affectation and scheming

of the comic ones.

A couplet spoken by King Polydamas also contrasts the comic

and heroic plots. It is spoken at the conclusion of a heroic

scene and is superficially a comment on the affairs which have

just transpired, but in an ironic way it also foreshadows the

comic scene immediately following. Raging that heaven has .

granted him a child only to make her disobedient, Polydamas

cries,

So blind we are, our wishes so in vain, That what we most desire, proves most our pain.


72

Polydamas1 wish for a child, once granted, has become a painful

actuality because Palmyra is disobedient. Similarly, what

Leonidas and Palmyra "most desire, proves most . . . [their]

pain" since they are forbidden to marry. But the couplet also

comments ironically on the comic scene immediately following

it. Doralice, disguised as a boy, is detaining Palamede at an

eating house, and he experiences great anguish because he does

not recognize her and is trying to get away, thinking that she

will meet him elsewhere. Thus he is "blind" in his inability

to penetrate her disguise, and his greatest desire (to seduce

her) "proves most . . . [his] pain" as she taunts and teases

him before revealing herself. In a sense this couplet applies

to the other comic lovers as well. As they run hither and yon,

consumed by desire but always being thwarted, their greatest

desire is also their greatest pain. Did Dryden see the broad

and comic possibilities of this maxim when he put it into Poly

damas 1 mouth? It is tempting to think so, although the analo

gies probably should not be strained too far. At any rate, the

couplet does set up a contrast between the scenes on each side

of it. Spiritual desires in the heroic world (to marry one's

beloved, to have an obedient child) are juxtaposed against.the

physical desire of Palamede for Doralice, and mental suffering

is opposed to sexual frustration.

The disguise motif in both plots also points up an impor

tant difference between the two worlds. Beauty and virtue shine

through the disguises of heroic characters, unmistakably re

73

vealing their identities, but the comic characters can easily

fool one another by donning costumes. The innate nobility of

Palmyra and Leonidas is instantly recognized by all even when

they seem only a fisherman’s children. Polydamas says their

uncommon beauty,And graceful carriage, make it seem suspicious They are not what they seem,


and Argaleon and Amalthea echo the same sentiments:

Arga. It is not likely, a virgin, of so excellent a beauty. Should come from such a stock.

Amal. Much less, that such a youth,, so sweet, so graceful. Should be produced from peasants.


Similarly, when Palmyra wears a masquerade habit, Leonidas knows

who she is:

She cannot hide so much divinity.Disguised, and silent, yet some graceful motionBreaks from her, and shines round her like a glory.

(Scott-Saintsbury, Iv, 327)

These incidents reveal the idealistic attitude that true virtue

or beauty is so transcendent it will shine through any disguise;

or that true love will always discover the woman that inspires

it. Against this idealistic view Dryden opposes a more realistic

one in the comic plot. Doralice, disguised as a boy, holds a

- conversation with Palamede, but he never recognizes her until

she lifts up her peruke. She even teasingly hints to him of her

identity, suggesting that his mistress may come to him in disguise

"to try your wit," but he only emphasizes his blindness by insis

ting, "I could know her in any shape: My good genius would prompt

74

me to find out a handsome woman: There’s something that would

attract me to her without my knowledge" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV,

332). This assertion is exactly like Leonidas’ comment "She

cannot hide so much divinity," but here the boast has an ironic

effect since Palamede cannot live up to it. In the realistic

mode of comedy only the probable occurs; people do not radiate

transcendent auras of beauty through their disguises, and if

they don costumes, they may well go unrecognized. But the

heroic play presents ideals. A lover wants to believe that he

would recognize his mistress in any disguise—partially because

love has a magnetic force drawing them together, and partially

because his sweetheart is an all-surpassing creature who would

stand out in any crowd. As Albert Cook says, "Tragedy’s subject is the wonderful-as-probable"10; in the heroic play it

does not even have to be very probable. Palamede*s inability

to recognize Doralice, after his boast that she would be his

"load-stone," presents an ironic comment on the previous scene,

in which the signs of Palmyra’s divinity shone through her habit.

Even the imagery of the two plots reveals their contrasting

philosophies. The comic lovers employ naturalistic, material

istic images: sexual metaphors abound, sometimes drawn from

the barnyard to suggest that love is a mere physical coupling;

or sometimes from the typical Restoration analogy of love and

a meal, which suggests that it is an appetite to be satisfied

10 Cook, p. 32

75

like any other. For example, when Palamede thinks of being

in bed with Melantha, he is reminded of "two cocks in a pit"

(Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 281), and Doralice extends the meta

phor by later asserting, "You men are like cocks; you never

make love, but you clap your wings, and crow when you have

done" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 315). At another time Palamede,

contrasting himself with Rhodophil as the sexual partner of

Doralice, is reminded of horses: "He sets out like a carrier's

horse, plodding on, because he knows he must, with the bells

of matrimony chiming so melancholy about his neck, in pain

till he's at his journey's end; and, despairing to get thither,

he is fain to fortify imagination with the thoughts of another

woman: I take heat after heat, like a well-breathed courser"

(Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 325). The metaphor of sex as food also

prevails in the comic plot. Complaining of Rhodophil's inatten

tion, Doralice rails against the bored disinterest with which

men regard their wives: "Because they cannot feed on one dish,

therefore we must be starved. 'Tis enough that they have a

sufficient ordinary provided, and a table ready spread for them

If they cannot fall-to, and eat heartily, the fault is theirs;

and 'tis pity, methinks, that the good creature should be lost,

when many a poor sinner would be glad on't" (Scott-Saintsbury,

IV, 299).. Palamede uses the same metaphor when he propositions

Doralice, reasoning that she ought "to punish that sign of a

76

husband there, that lazy matrimony, that dull insipid taste,

who leaves such delicious fare at home, to dine abroad on worse

meat, and pay dear for it into the bargain" (Scott-Saintsbury,

IV, 287). These examples suggest that love is only a physical

act, an attitude emphasized by the other elements in the comic

plot as well.

But imagery in the heroic plot is elevated and noble. The

religious mataphor, suggesting love as a spiritual experience in the fashion of preciosite^ is prevalent. When Palmyra, loath

to disobey her father, hesitates about affirming her love for

Leonidas, he protests.

You give, and then restrain the grace you show; As ostentatious priests, when souls they woo, Promise their heaven to all, but grant to few.


Almost as far removed from bodily limitations is the nature

imagery, reminiscent of the "Sicilian groves" which describe

the queen in Secret Love. Palmyra's first kiss seems to Leonidas

"like drops of honey" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 294) , and she com

pares love to a river:

Man's love may, like wild torrents overflow; Woman's as deep, but in its banks must go.


All of these images demonstrate an idealized attitude toward

love. It is a religion by which one worships his mistress or a

manifestation of natural beauty like honey and rivers in green

springtime. Thus the imagery of both plots echoes the contrast

ing attitudes expressed in character and theme. Frank Harper

77

Moore summarizes these contrasts rather well:

As in Secret Love, the elevated love of the serious plot is deliberately contrasted with the earthly love of the comic plot. Marriage is regarded by the serious lovers as a state of transcendent and sacred bliss; the comic lovers treat it as a state of ineffable boredom.. The serious lovers are true to one another under the most trying circumstances; the comic lovers are cheerfully promiscuous. . . . The serious lovers are forever indicating their heroic willingness to die for love, while the comic lovers are unheroically busy trying to die of it. Dryden’s use of contrast in this play, as in Secret Love, is consistent with Meander's theory that 1 contraries, when placed near, set off each other.'-

John Traugott makes the same point more succinctly: "The heroic

plot has no indecencies . . . but the comic plot . . . is pure wit and libertine philosophy."12

Thus the contrasts between comic and heroic attitudes are

developed much more thoroughly in this play than in Secret Love.

Another important difference exists between the two plays as

well: Marriage a la Mode contains some conscious satire of the

heroic mode. D. W. Jefferson explains that while Dryden’s mind

was excited by the concepts of power and grandeur inherent in

the heroic play, "it also stimulated another side of his nature—

his satirical and sceptical spirit, and his sense of the ludi-

Frank Harper Moore, The Nobler Pleasure: Dryden’s Comedy in Theory and Practice (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro- Txna Press, 19^3), p. 104.

12 John Traugott, "The Rake’s Progress from Court to Comedy: A Study in Comic Form," Studies in English Literature, 6 (1966), 393.

78

crous."13 Dryden can compose some of his grandest poetry when

inspired by the magnificent, epic sweep of the heroic play,

and he often ascends to dignified heights in the march of his

verse, but suddenly he cannot resist the impulse to laugh when

struck by the inherent absurdity of a situation which he is

portraying. There are many elements in the heroic drama which

invite parody, particularly when it is being written by one

of the foremost satirists in the English language. There is

the excessive emotion which shakes the characters; the naive

idealism with which they espouse a morality far more divine than

that of ordinary mortals; the smug pride which they take in

their own obvious superiority. The plot also deals with situa

tions which are on the surface absurd, and it has enough com

plications and surprises to make anyone laugh if he approaches

it in a certain mood. Inevitably Dryden, who wrote many heroic

plays, became sensitive to "the mood of parody" which William Empson points out "is hardly under the surface" of the genre.14

Thus his satiric impulse occasionally emerged as he wrote the

heroic plot of Marriage a la Mode, giving the play an additional

layer of irony and supporting Bruce King's dictum that often

13 d. W. Jefferson, "The Significance of Dryden's Heroic Plays," Restoration Drama: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. John Loftis, A. Galaxy Book (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966) , p. 165.

^•4 william Empson, Some Versions of Pastoral, A New Directions Book (Norfolk, Conn.: James LauglTlin, n.d.), p. 57.

79

"what seems heroic in Dryden turns out to be satiric and in the best tradition of destructive Augustan wit."^^

Sometimes the sudden plunge from dignified verse into irony

can be sudden and surprising. For example, immediately after

a grave and innocent love scene in which Leonidas kisses Pal

myra’s hand, Dryden inserts an obscene song about two lovers

trying to achieve sexual orgasm (or, in the Restoration idiom,

to "die") at the same time.

I.

Whilst Alexis lay prestIn her arms he loved best,

WitR~his hands round her neck,Anu his head on her breast.

He founcTtlie fierce' pleasure too hasty to stay, And his-soul in the tempest just flying away.

II.

When Caelia saw this,With a sigh and a kiss.She cried,—0, my dear, £ am robbed of my bliss!1 Tis' unkind to your" love, and unfaithTully done". To leave me behind you, and die all alone.

III.The youth, though in haste.And breathing his" Tast,In pity died slowly, while she died more fast;tT11 at length she cried,—Now, my dear, now let us go;Now die, my Alexis, and"*! will die tool

IV.

Thus entranced they did lie.Till Alexis did tryTo recover new breath, that again he might die:TKen often they died; but the more”they did so, The nymph died more quick, and the shepherd more slow.

fsco11-Saintsbury, IV, 328-29)

15 Bruce King, "Heroic and Mock-Heroic Plays," Sewanee Review 70 (1962), 514.

80

The use of such conventional names as "Caelia" and "Alexis"

leads one to expect a decorous pastoral love poem, but as in

Swift's poetry, an ironic shock is supplied by the naturalistic

content of what purported to be an artificial portrait of

nymphs and shepherds. Thus the song mocks the pastoral life

which Leonidas and Palmyra frequently paint as idyllic. It

also mocks their chaste relationship by intruding immediately

after the scene in which.Leonidas has kissed her hand. It is

difficult to say what might have caused Dryden to undermine

heroic love with such devastating skill, for there is nothing

particularly absurd about the way the lovers behave on this

occasion. In fact, they are faced with a crisis, for they have

been separated by an edict of Polydamas and are meeting in dis

guise at a masquerade. But something about the situation must

have seemed comic to Dryden. Perhaps he was only impatient

with his noble characters for being so virtuous through four

acts of the play, or perhaps he simply wanted to make the audi

ence laugh at their expense. At any rate, the song is there,

and it certainly mocks the chaste decorum of Palmyra and Leonidas.

Palmyra also becomes the object of satire herself. When

she discovers she is Polydamas* daughter, she makes a masochistic

comment with which Dryden mocks the extremes of filial duty na

tive to the heroic plot:

I know, in spite of my unworthiness,I am your child; for when you would have killed me. Methought I loved you then.


81

In tills instance the origin of the satire is easy to discover:

Dryden cannot resist jeering at the absolute fidelity to duty

which the heroic code demands.

In a more intellectual way Dryden also strives to create

sympathy for his comic characters at the expense of the heroic

ones. Doralice, Palamede, and Rhodophil are admirable in their

quickness of wit, whereas the heroic characters many times fail

when they attempt to use it. Dryden’s most famous definition

of wit is "the propriety of thoughts and words" (Ker, I, 190),

or the skillful construction of metaphors so that the images

are fresh and appropriate in expressing the thought. Thomas H.

Fujimura points out that the presence of this skill with meta

phors distinguishes admirable characters from foolish ones in

Restoration comedy. The Truewit, or more skillful practitioner

of witty conversation, "possesses . . . in a superlative degree"

both fancy and judgment. Fancy, explains Fujimura in a paraphrase

of Hobbes, is "the creative faculty," "associated with the

poetic art of inventing, or discovering, similitudes," but "it

was regarded as wild, unbridled, and irrational" by discriminating Restoration critics.16 Judgment, the other necessary quality

of the Truewit, is the ability to restrain the fancy so that it

produces appropriate images rather than wild, erratic ones.

16 Thomas H. Fujimura, The Restoration Comedy of Wit (1952; rpt. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1968), pp. 38, 28.

82

Fujimura summarizes the important difference between the two

faculties: "Suddenness, copiousness, and sparkle are char

acteristic of the fanciful side of wit, while correctness

represents the judicious side." Thus "decorum (true wit) might

be defined simply as a natural elegance of thought and conduct";

it is, moreover, firmly "based on judgment and not on mere con

vention." The Would-be Wits have "a lack of judgment and de

corum," 17 whereas the real wits possess the ability to restrain

their fancy and produce suitable, elegant metaphors. These

ideas about the proper relation of fancy to judgment, while

applicable to wit comedy, are also critical commonplaces in the

Restoration. Good poets restrain their fancy with judgment so

that their images are arranged in a sensible pattern and avoid

the violence or eccentricity of metaphysical poetry.

These familiar standards are significant in interpreting

the imagery of Marriage a la Mode. Doralice, Palamede and

Rhodophil, who effortlessly play with clever and appropriate

metaphors, are to be admired for their wit. Melantha, who dem

onstrates a fertile fancy in her varied application of French

words but who lacks the judgment to use them moderately, is a

source of laughter. And the heroic characters are meant to be

a source of amusement as well when they use grotesque or unre- 1

strained metaphors.

Fujimura, PP. 38, 27, 23, 24, 37.

83

The play flourishes with appropriate images contributed

by the three wits. A brief exchange between Palamede and Dora-

lice will reveal the ease with which they can concoct clever,

suitable metaphors during conversation. Although on the brink

of matrimony, Palamede is still trying to seduce Doralice,

who is deftly putting him off.

Paia. . . . A little comfort from a mistress, before a man is going to give himself in marriage, is as good as a lusty dose of strong-water to a dying malefactor; it takes away the sense of hell and hanging from him.

Dor. No, good Palamede, I must not be so injurious to your bride: *Tis ill drawing from the bank to-day, when all your ready money is payable to-morrow.

Paia. A wife is only to have the ripe fruit, that falls of itself; but a wise man will always preserve a shaking for a mistress.


They are arguing through clever metaphors which express

their points of view. To contradict one another, they merely

shift the image to some figure which better suits their argu

mentative position. Palamede draws a witty analogy between

marriage and such dire punishments as hanging and hellfire; her

sexual acquiescence thus becomes the holy water that will sal

vage him from the worst of his fate. But she contradicts him

by concocting an apt new metaphor: sleeping with a man before

his wedding is like drawing money from a bank today when it is

payable tomorrow. Palamede then shifts the ground of the argu

ment entirely, countering her point with a different metaphor:

he is not a bank, but a fruit tree which will always "preserve

a shaking for" her. Each image they concoct is suitable for the

84

thought, demonstrating "the propriety of thoughts and words";

fancy supplies them quickly with elegant and sparkling simili

tudes, while judgment refines the figures so that they have

an air of suitability and correctness. The same kind of wit

appears whenever Doralice, Palamede, or Rhodophil come onto

stage; all of them have an inexhaustible supply of bon mots

born from a fertile fancy and a clear judgment.

But when the heroic characters attempt to concoct simili

tudes in their conversations about love, the imagery often is

exaggerated and in poor taste. Leonidas's metaphor on ideal

love compares poorly to the vigorous, apt imagery of Doralice

and Palamede:

When love did of my heart possession take, I was so young, my soul was scarce awake: I cannot tell when first I thought you fair; But sucked in love, insensibly as air.


This vampiric image is indeed in poor taste and would never have

been used by a Truewit sensible of decorum. The flaw here is

a too-wild operation of the fancy, unrestrained by any judgment.

The word "sucked" is much too violent and jarring, incongruous

to the delicate situation of a youth and maiden falling in love

in a pastoral setting. One can always argue that the flaw in

tone is Dryden's, that he could not distinguish between false

wit and true; however, the only time he makes such a "mistake"

is in the heroic drama. The imagery in his verse satires, songs

85

religious poems, and comic plots catches precisely the right

tone and holds it, with the words being proper for the thoughts

in accordance with Dryden's own definition of wit. Thus one

is forced to conclude that the heroic characters' slips in

decorum have been engineered with a conscious satiric purpose

in mind.

A heroic character may also be satirized for using stale

wit. When Palmyra reports that Argaleon has been attempting to

seduce her, she describes the language that he has used:

First, he began to look. And then he sighed, and then he looked again; At last, he said, my eyes wounded his heart: And, after that, he talked of flames and fires. And such strange words, that I believed he conjured.


Palmyra's naivete is gently amusing, but Argaleon may be the

object of some comedy himself for lacking a quick fancy. Allud

ing to "flames and fires," to wounds made by a lady's eyes, is

scarcely clever or ingenious; the imagery has been commonplace

since the Medieval romance and was probably used by countless

precieuse lovers in Dryden's own time. Such stale, would-be

wit contrasts unfavorably with the sparkling and original meta

phors created by Doralice, Palamede, and Rhodophil.

Thus the evidence suggests that Dryden occasionally used

his heroic characters for satirical purposes. Not everyone,

however, agrees with this conclusion1. Some critics persist in

believing that Dryden's unrestrained, exaggerated imagery reveals

his own lack of artistic taste or talent. Ned Bliss Allen draws

86

this conclusion, although not without regret: "Dryden's attempt

to make his characters soar into the realms of poetry under the

stress of emotion . . . is not always successful, and the failures are painful failures."18 George Saintsbury is equally

as unhappy with Dryden's supposed failure: "Never, perhaps

was there a better example of what can and what can not be done

by consummate craftsmanship in the teeth of artistic error.

That Shakespeare would have transformed the heroic play, as he

transformed everything he touched, is quite possible. Dryden could not transform it altogether."19 the mind that pro

duced MacFlecknoe (1678), with its keen burlesque of dullness,20

would scarcely be capable of such unconscious artistic absurdi

ties as Allen and Saintsbury assume. D. W. Jefferson makes this

point rather well: "It is, after all, a little unlikely that

Dryden, whose sense of the ludicrous was so keen, should have

been capable of lapsing into gross absurdity himself without realising it."21 Merely on the strength of Dryden's skill as a

18 Allen, p. 141.

18 George Saintsbury, "Introduction," Dryden: Three Plays, A Mermaid Dramabook (New York: Hill and Wang, I^"57) , pp. xv-xvi.

20 in MacFlecknoe, one of Dryden's greatest satires, dramatist Thomas Shadwell is crowned as the King of Dullness in a series of brilliantly conceived mock-heroic scenes, some of which parody The Aeneid while ruthlessly sustaining a tone of fierce satiric destruction.

21 Jefferson, p. 164.

87

satirist, demonstrated profusely in poetry and comic drama

throughout his long career, critics ought to suspect irony

in such touches as the "Alexis-Caelia" song rather than

glibly labelling them as examples of poor taste.

Perhaps Sarah Susan Staves realizes that Dryden would

not have been guilty of such gross lapses in taste, for she

never accuses him of careless artistry: but she still refuses

to admit the presence of satire in his heroic plots, and thus

she is bewildered by an ironic undercurrent which she cannot

quite understand. Her remark on Dryden's Amphitryon is re

vealing: she cannot interpret how the audience is supposed to

regard Jupiter because his "rhetoric itself seems self-conscious;

not what is said, but the way in which it is said clamours for our attention and finally seems more important."22 Apparently

she too forgets that an author may use his characters as an

object of satire. This method is occasionally employed in Mar

riage a la Mode: the heroic characters use "self-conscious"

rhetoric for a definite reason, and it is indeed more important

than what they say. If a critic will not admit that this satire

exists, he must either blame Dryden for carelessness like Allen

and Saintsbury or admit his own perplexity like Staves. The

more logical conclusion is that reached by William Empson: he

notices this satiric effect in the heroic plot and thinks it is "almost like parody," particularly in the "Alexis-Caelia" song.23

22 staves, p. 196.

23 Empson, p. 47.

88

A final proof of Dryden's satirical purpose is supplied

in the dedication to the play, "To the Right Honourable, The

Earl of Rochester," the most notorious rake and wit in Charles

Il's court. Dryden was a member of Rochester's circle for

awhile, and he attributes most of the wit in Marriage a la

Mode to an acquaintance with this group: "I am sure, if there

be anything in this play, wherein I have raised myself beyond

the ordinary lowness of my comedies, I ought wholly to acknow

ledge it to the favour of being admitted into your Lordship's

conversation" (Scott-Saintsbury, IV, 253). Not all of this

statement is flattery. From being associated with a circle of

wits, Dryden undoubtedly felt his own wit being sharpened, and

he became more skillful in creating the raillery of the comic

plot. But with this added keenness of wit must have come also

a heightened awareness of decorum, the judgment that separates

false wit from true. It is unlikely that with newly sharpened

intellectual capacities Dryden should begin making mistakes with

the imagery of his heroic plot; it is more likely that he created

grotesque figures out of a zest for satire and a newly awakened

knowledge of the fine line that separates good taste from bad.

The dedication itself is intimate and urbane, its tone suggesting

that Rochester and the author are among the rare few who under

stand true wit. In a polished, sophisticated way Dryden dis

cusses some categories of men who lack the intellectual capac

ities he and his patron possess: "a middling sort of courtiers.

89

who become happy by their want of wit"; "fools," who "grow

mischievous to witty men, by the great diligence of their

envy" but "are forced, when they endeavour to be pleasant,

to live on the offals of their wit whom they decry" (Scott-

Saintsbury, IV, 254). The entire tone of this dedication,

the easy and urbane assurance with which Dryden gently satiri

zes those lacking in wit, indicates that the exaggerated imagery

in Marriage a la Mode must be deliberate. Perhaps Dryden em

ployed it to amuse his new circle of friends, or perhaps, with

a newly awakened sense of what witty rakes would appreciate,

he included satire of the heroic characters to heighten the

success of his play. Since he made his living from the theater and was continually harassed by financial worries,24 was

obviously eager to please as many of his spectators as pos

sible. He might have structured his heroic plots to provide

two levels of entertainment: the ladies could be struck with

admiration by the spectacle, melted to tears by the trials which

harassed pure love, flattered by-the.Platonic concept of women

as virginal and all-commanding goddesses; but the wits could

roar with laughter at the parody which mocked the heroic genre.

The Rehearsal (1671), a burlesque of heroic plays which appeared

24 This point is made by Charles E. Ward throughout The Life of John Dryden (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), but p. 202 contains one of the most compelling examples.

90

roughly the same time as Marriage a la Mode, was certainly

quite popular.Thus it becomes more apparent why many authorities want

to classify Marriage a la Mode as a comedy.25 Besides pre

senting wit and intrigue in the comic plot, it contains a

further layer of satire in occasional parody of the heroic

characters. Yet with all of this comedy. Marriage a la Mode

is still a two-part tragicomedy, constructed like Secret Love

so that the comic and heroic plots reflect one another ironic

ally. Again the attitudes toward love are the main basis of

contrast, with inconstancy and selfishness juxtaposed against

fidelity and self-sacrifice. To draw this contrast sharply,

Dryden uses similar scenes, situations, and motifs in both

plots so that analogous elements are given opposite treatment.

This method of composition is the same in the last tragicomedy

to be examined, The Spanish Friar.

25 See above. Chapter II, p. 23.

V. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO PLOTS OF THE SPANISH FRIAR

Like Dryden's earlier tragicomedies The Spanish Friar

contains a comic and a heroic plot, each largely independent

of the other. But Dryden has exercised more care than usual

in uniting the two divergent plots of this play. He suggests

in the Dedication that "the care and pains I have bestowed on

this, beyond my other tragi-comedies" have unified the play:

"I used the best of my endeavour, in the management of two

plots, so very different from each other, that it was not

perhaps the talent of every writer to have made them of a

piece" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 403, 402).

An examination of The Spanish Friar supports Dryden's

claim that he has unified the comic and heroic actions more

completely than in his earlier tragicomedies. Secret Love

and Marriage a la Mode employ only a few linking themes and

motifs to unite their opposing plots. Moreover, these links

function chiefly to reveal the difference between comic and

heroic values. For example, love is the major linking theme

in both plays, but each plot explores a different attitude

toward it, with the heroic lovers embodying the values of

Platonic devotion and the comic lovers espousing the philo

sophy of libertinism. Thus the contrasts between the plots

receive so much emphasis that the similarities are relatively

negligible.91

92

In The Spanish Friar Dryden again draws significant con

trasts between the comic and heroic plots, but as he claims

in his Dedication, he has also taken "care and pains" to make

the play "of a piece." The contrasts, as in earlier tragi

comedies, are built on the difference between comic and heroic

values. The rake Lorenzo, with his penchant for pursuing women

and his lack of filial piety, serves as a.foil to the faithful

and dutiful Torrismond; the sexual attraction between Lorenzo

and Elvira contrasts with the Platonic devotion of Torrismond

and Leonora. But in this play the similarities between the two

plots are just as important as the differences. Besides em

ploying the usual linking devices such as the love theme, Dryden

occasionally assigns the same character trait to people in

both plots. Bertran, the villain who unsuccessfully seeks

Leonora’s hand, is jealous of the hero Torrismond; he thus par

allels Elvira’s husband Gomez in the comic plot, colorfully

described as "a jealous, covetous, old hunks" (Scott-Saintsbury,

VI, 431). Bertran also serves as a temptor and evil counselor,

urging Leonora to murder the deposed king, and he is thus analo

gous to Friar Dominic in the comic plot, who counsels Elvira

to commit adultery. Moreover, instead of serving as a paragon

of virtue like most of Dryden’s royal heroines. Queen Leonora

displays the tendency to commit evil deeds on impulse and to

quiet her conscience with feeble rationalizations later; this

failing of hers parallels the hypocritical behavior of the main

93

character in the comic plot, the "Spanish Friar" Dominic.

Rather than illustrating only the differences between comic

and heroic characters, Dryden shows that important similar

ities can exist. The effect, as Dryden himself accurately 1

notes, is to make the play more "of a piece" than the earlier

tragicomedies on which fewer "care and pains" were lavished

to provide linking devices.

The Spanish Friar differs from the earlier tragicomedies

in yet another way. It contains no sparkling "gay couple"

whose scintillating wit captivates the audience, attracting

their admiration. Elvira and Lorenzo, the lovers in the comic

plot, exchange witty remarks only twice, and few of their com

ments mimic the brilliance of those exchanged by Celadon and

Florimell. Consequently, their libertinism is less appealing

than that of the "gay couples" since no sparkling repartee

masks the animalistic crudeness of their responses to one an

other. Not ingenious enough to manage their own love affair,

they must depend upon the scheming machinations of Dominic, who

is actually the main character in the comic plot. The heroic

lovers consequently attract more interest than their prototypes

in earlier tragicomedies—partially because they contrast •

with a less sparkling and endearing pair.

Nevertheless, Dryden does not allow the heroic couple to

enjoy a disproportionate share of audience sympathy, for he

undercuts their behavior with occasional satire, as he does

with Palmyra and Leonidas in Marriage a la Mode. Torrismond

94

makes self-pitying, maudlin remarks under the influence of

love, and Leonora employs violent imagery incongruent with good

judgment. On these occasions Dryden seems detached from his

characters, bemused with them. Bonamy Dobree comments upon this detached point of view when he reports, "Heroic drama is

consciously artificed: and with Dryden you often" feel that he

is standing aside, with a twinkle in his eye, watching himself

perform.in The Spanish Friar the ridicule thus directed

against the heroic characters undercuts the values which they

represent, preventing the audience's complete identification

with them. Since potential empathy with the comic lovers is

undercut by their lack of wit; Dryden achieves a balance of

interest between the two plots, with neither taking precedence

over the other.

Thus the two plots of The Spanish Friar achieve a closer

unity and balance than do the two plots of earlier tragicomedies.

Important contrasts set the comic and heroic worlds sharply apart,

but at the same time linking motifs bring them closer together.

The comic lovers lose audience sympathy because they lack the

wit to raise themselves above the animalistic level, and the

heroic lovers fare little better because their emotionalism and

false wit become the object of amusement. An analysis of The

1 Bonamy Dobree, John Dryden, Writers and their Work, No. 70 (New York: Longmans, Green, 1956), p. 18.

95

Spanish Friar will reveal how different it is from the

earlier tragicomedies despite certain obvious similarities.

The Spanish Friar is similar to the earlier tragicomedies

of course, in its contrasts between comic and heroic values.

One important contrast is drawn between the two heroes, who

act consistently as foils for one another, particularly in

their attitudes toward women and love. Lorenzo is an obses

sive Don Juan whose only purpose in life is fulfillment of

his sexual appetite; as Bruce King points out, he "lives by

self-interest,11 for like Friar Dominic he follows Hobbes's

philosophy that a man's function on earth is gratification of

his appetites.2 Torrismond, on the other hand, adores one

woman with a religious devotion. Dryden skillfully draws a

contrast between these two opposite characters by presenting

them in alternating scenes so that the "contraries" of their

attitudes may "set off each other."

They reveal their antithetical ideas about love in the

first scene of the play. Lorenzo's mania for sexual pursuit

obfuscates his reason. He is unable to discuss an important

battle with the anxious Pedro and Alphonso, for each time they

question him, he responds by boasting of the harlots he will

soon procure. He babbles incessantly about the "tedious fast"

2 Bruce King, Dryden's Major Plays (1966; rpt. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966), p. 158.

96

he has kept during the battle; he insists that he will accept

any woman at all who is not diseased: "fair, black, tall, low, /

Let her but have a nose" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 421). When

Pedro and Alphonso persist in discussing political affairs, the

single-minded Lorenzo loses interest, resolving to "go lose my

self in some blind alley, and try if any courteous damsel will

think me worth the finding" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 422). This

obsessive pursuit of women qualifies Lorenzo as a humour char

acter, one who mechanically pursues a single bias to the exclu

sion of all other interests and whose predictable responses are

comic.

Torrismond regards love not as the mechanical gratification

of an appetite, but as a religious devotion, a spiritual response

elicited by one woman alone. Like the lovers of Medieval ro

mance, Torrismond worships his lady as a divine creature, allud

ing to her with religious imagery: "Queens may be loved, / And

so may gods; else why are altars raised?" (Scott-Saintsbury,

VI, 425). He feels himself so unworthy of her notice that speak

ing to her would be "a happiness too great" (Scott-Saintsbury,

VI, 424) to bear. By deifying his loved one, Torrismond proves

himself the opposite of pleasure-seeking Lorenzo, who views

women only as objects of sexual desire. His fidelity is the

antithesis of Lorenzo's promiscuity. The contrast between these

two characters is drawn sharply since they reveal their opposing

attitudes in consecutive scenes.

97

The heroes differ also in their degree of filial piety,

with Torrismond subordinating his desires to his father’s while

Lorenzo quickly sacrifices devotion to expediency when called

to fight against his father in the civil wars:

Lor. [Aside.] Let me consider:—Bear arms against my father? he begat me;— That’s true; but for whose sake did he beget me? For his own, sure enough: for me he knew not.

’Tis policy for a son and father to take different sides: For then, lands and tenements commit no treason.

(Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 503-04)

With such sophistical reasoning Lorenzo easily disposes of his

social obligations to his father, convincing himself that what

he does for self-interest is but a rational course of action.

Torrismond cannot so easily dismiss his duties to enjoy his

desires. Believing that his new bride Leonora has murdered his

father, he cannot bring himself to embrace her on their wedding

night. The two heroes thus present opposing attitudes with

respect to the father / son relationship, Lorenzo discarding

all filial obligations to serve self-interest but Torrismond

regarding his father’s welfare as more important than his own

pleasure, a contrast in values implied in Staves’s remark that

Torrismond expresses "noble sentiments" which contrast with Lorenzo’s "cynical comments."3

3 Sarah Susan Staves, "Studies in the Comedy of John Dryden" (Diss. Virginia, 1967), p. 134.

98

More obvious than the contrast between the heroes is the

difference between comic and heroic love, developed as sharply

in this play as in the earlier tragicomedies. Lorenzo and El

vira espouse a libertine philosophy, equating love with sexual

attraction and cynically doubting the possibility of constancy.

Torrismond and Leonora, modelled after their earlier heroic

counterparts, view love as a grand passion which sweeps away

reason and inspires one with a religious awe for the beloved.

Dryden dramatizes this contrast in attitudes by placing the

two sets of characters in parallel situations, then studying

the difference between comic and heroic reactions.

The first parallel situation is the lovers* meeting, in

which each couple meets for the first time and discusses love.

The animalistic crudity of the attraction between Lorenzo and

Elvira is apparent at once. He has been "ranging over half

the town" in sexual pursuit of women whom he characteristically

dubs as "game" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 426), when Elvira makes

her appearance. Unlike the retiring maiden of modest reputa

tion, she accosts Lorenzo before he sees her, hinting broadly

of her "frailty" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 427) in order to place

their relationship on a sexual plane. He understands her mean

ing immediately and responds, "Oh, I love an easy woman!" (Scott-

Saintsbury, VI, 427). Neither of them makes any attempt to

spiritualize the relationship; in fact, Lorenzo actually mocks

99

the language of romantic lovers when he salutes Elvira with a

few trite compliments: her eyes are "killing metal," and he

is "languishing and sighing" for her so violently that he will

soon be the proper subject for "rhyme and sonnet" (Scott-

Saintsbury, VI, 428). These glib compliments, which he showers

upon a woman whom he has just met, are but a preliminary exer

cise to seduction, demanded by convention.

In contrast, Leonora and Torrismond exemplify at their

first meeting a reticence which contrasts with the bold frank

ness of Lorenzo and Elvira. Torrismond, emboldening himself

to declare his love, considers himself unworthy of so great a

lady: "I see you set so high, / As no desert or services can

reach.—" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 439). She herself has sud

denly fallen in love with him, but like the virtuous lady of Medieval romance, she must at first pretend to reject him lest

she seem too bold. Their shy fencing is antithetical to the

bold sexual innuendoes of Elvira and Lorenzo, but it indicates

a greater depth of emotion since both fear losing one another

by advancing too quickly.

This difference between casual and serious love is sharply

drawn in the parallel meeting scenes. Lorenzo and Elvira com

municate lascivious desires to each other through such code words

as "frailty" and "easy woman." Leonora and Torrismond describe

their love as a violent, soul-^shattering madness, in conformity with Osborn's theory of heroic love.^ In an impassioned solilo-

See above, p. 44.

10 0

quy the Queen reveals her ecstasy upon first espying Torris-

mond:

It rushed upon me like a mighty stream, And bore me, in a moment, far from shore. I've loved away myself; in one short hour Already am I gone an age of passion.

(Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 438)

Torrismond, the bolder, confesses a similarly violent love to

the Queen herself, alluding to his passion as a welcome distem

per of the brain:

There is a pleasure, sure, In being mad, which none but madmen know! Let me indulge it; let me gaze for ever!


Torrismond's desire to "gaze" on his beloved contrasts with

Lorenzo's wish to trap some likely "game." Similarly, the vio

lence of passion felt by the heroic lovers contrasts with the

casual sexual bargain struck by Elvira and Lorenzo. Leonora

and Torrismond respond to one another as whole human beings,

but the comic lovers view one another narrowly as sexual part

ners.

Another parallel situation emphasizes this difference be

tween the contrapuntal love plots in the play. Both couples

plan a sexual liaison; Leonora and Torrismond intend first to

be married, whereas Elvira and Lorenzo are planning to cuckold

Gomez. The anticipatory speech of Leonora^s a paean to wedded

love similar to the famous soliloquy spoken by Shakespeare's

Juliet:

101

Here end our sorrovzs, and begin our joys: Love calls, my Torrismond; though hate has raged. And ruled the day, yet love will rule the night. The spiteful stars have shed their venom down. And now the peaceful planets take their turn.

What hinders now, but that the holy priest In secret join our mutual vows? and then This night, this happy night, is yours and mine.


Leonora idealizes her passion for Torrismond, anticipating their

wedding night as a sacred rite of love sanctioned by a "holy

priest" and "the peaceful planets." Her religious and celes

tial imagery recalls Spenser’s "Epithalamion," another cele

bration of sacred wedded love. Like Leonora, Spenser’s narrator

eagerly awaits the "night so long expected" which cancels out

the cares of "long daies labor"; he calls upon "great luno"

"to solemnize" these "sacred rites" just as Leonora depends

upon the "holy priest"; and Spenser’s narrator also gazes upon

"peaceful planets," invoking their sanction of the holy union

between husband and wife: "Poure out your blessing on vs plen- tiously, / And happy influence upon vs raine."^ Like Spenser’s

poem, Leonora’s monologue is an "epithalamium," a sacred hymn

to the rite of marriage. Far different is the attitude of

Lorenzo as he plans his night’s festivities. The next scene

5 Edmund Spenser, "Epithalamion," in The Works of Edmund Spenser: A Variorum Edition^VIIT-Part 2^ed." Charles Grosvenor Osgood and”Henry Gibbons Lotspeich (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1947), 249, 251, 252.

102

reveals him paying Friar Dominic to arrange the cuckolding of

Gomez. Although Dryden probably did not intend any overt sym

bolism in the scene, the gold used to bribe Dominic perfectly .

represents the materialistic relationship which Lorenzo and

Elvira hope to enjoy. Idealistic Leonora anticipates the

night in her exuberant recitation of poetry, but cynical and

materialistic Lorenzo is paving the way for his love’s success

through bribery and deceit. Since Dryden has placed the two

scenes consecutive to one another/ this juxtaposition of ideal

istic love and tawdry conforms to Dryden’s theory that "contra

ries, when placed near, set off each other."

Although an important difference in philosophy separates

the comic and heroic plots, an equally significant link binds

them as well: occasionally a comic and a heroic character ex

hibit the same trait. The characters thus linked often play parallel roles, such as jealous husband and jealous fiance7, but

on one occasion Dryden emphasizes the hypocrisy of two seemingly

opposite characters—the virtuous queen in the heroic plot and

the reprehensible friar in the comic plot. This linking of

characters in opposirig plots creates a peculiar kind of unity,

causing the play as a whole to appear to be a microcosm of.var

ious universal follies.

One of the. most obvious parallels is that between Elvira’s •.

husband Gomez and Leonora’s disappointed lover Bertran. Gomez

u ■

103

is a type character in comedy: the jealous old man trying

to guard a beautiful young wife, an example of Albert Cook’s

observation that middle-aged lovers are always ridiculed in comedy.6 Dryden establishes Gomez’s jealous humour early and

frequently in the play. Lorenzo, groping for the best words

to describe the old man, settles on the endearing appellation

of "jealous, covetous, old hunks" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 431).

Friar Dominic thoroughly agrees with this evaluation in a

later discussion with Lorenzo: "Ho, jealous? he’s the very

quintessence of jealousy; he keeps no male creature in his

house; and from abroad he lets no man come near her" (Scott-

Saintsbury, VI, 444). Gomez’s behavior supports this evalua

tion of this character. He has armed his house against para

mours and warns Lorenzo that "there are blunderbusses planted

in every loop-hole, that go off constantly of their own accord,

at the squeaking of a fiddle, and the thrumming of a guitar"

(Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 432). Even suspicious of Dominic,

Elvira’s confessor, he cries out in a jealous rage when the

friar takes Elvira’s hand. Through such demonstrations of

jealousy Gomez establishes himself as the elderly, jealous hus

band in comedy, the blocking figure who frustrates the desires

of the young lovers. —

6 Albert Cook, The Dark Voyage and the Golden Mean: A Philosophy of Comedy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 19^977* PP» 36-37.

104

Bertran fills a similar role in the heroic plot. As Leonora's fiance^ he stands between the heroine and hero, frus

trating their love. Also like Gomez, he suffers from jealousy.

Leonora, recognizing this trait in him, says that if he suspects

her love for Torrismond, "His jealousy will furnish him with

fury" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 463). Bertran himself demonstrates

this flaw by denigrating Torrismond before Leonora has even

met him, manufacturing the lie that the hero has "filled your

court with tumult" and behaved with "fierce demeanour" and ■

"insolence" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 436). His jealousy is par

ticularly unreasonable since Torrismond, at this time only a

subject seeking an audience with his queen, poses no forseeable

threat as a rival.

Bertran also mirrors another character in the comic plot,

the "Spanish Friar" himself. Both play the role of temptor,

urging the heroine to sin and rationalizing away her scruples.

Dominic, who smuggles letters to Elvira and then offers her ab

solution for adultery, epitomizes the dissolute priest often

satirized in literature, and even calls to mind Robert Massie's

comment on the real monk Rasputin, who "offered all three: sin, redemption, and salvation."7 Dominic's pious rationalizations

coax Elvira down the path of delightful sin, offering her pleasure

and absolution at the end of her journey: "Have you striven

7 Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra (New York: Atheneum, 1967), p. 196.

105

with all your might against this frailty? . . . Your reputation

is in danger, to say nothing of your soul. Notwithstanding,

when the spiritual means have been applied, and fail, in that

case the carnal may be used. . . . Remember, that adultery,

though it be a silent sin, yet it is a crying sin also. Never

theless, if you believe absolutely he will die, unless you

pity him; to save a man's life is a point of charity; and actions

of charity do alleviate, as I may say, and take off from the

mortality of the sin" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 448-51). Elvira

later testifies that the friar's comforting advice has removed

her religious scruples, reporting that he has given her con

science "a dose of church-opium, to lull it" (Scott-Saintsbury,

VI, 453). Thus Dominic serves as a false counselor, tempting

his charge with the allurements of sin and lulling her conscience

asleep.

Bertran offers the same false counsel to Leonora in the

heroic plot, urging her to perform a patently -immoral act and

suggesting arguments with which to overcome her scruples. The

friar's sophistry rationalizes that adultery may save a man's

life; Bertran, similarly ingenious, demonstrates that murder

can be a virtue:

_____ Mercy is good, a very good dull virtue; But kings mistake its timing, and are mild, When manly courage bids them be severe: Better be cruel once, than anxious ever.


106

Afterwards when Leonora believes that her acquiescence to this

argument has caused her father-in-law's death, she like Elvira

explains that she has been the victim of a temptor, accusing

Bertran of "playting] the devil to tempt me": "You contrived, /

You urged, you drove me headlong to your toils" (Scott- Saintsbury, VI, 486). Thus Dominic and Bertran are parallel

characters. Each provides evil counsel for the heroine and

offers ingenious rationalizations intended to "alleviate . . .

the sin."

But Dryden also knits the comic and heroic plots together

by examining the vice of hypocrisy in two unrelated characters,

Leonora and Dominic. Both perpetrate deeds of which to be

ashamed, yet both find ways to minimize their guilt. As the

play begins, Leonora is already demonstrating her penchant for

self-delusion. Alphonso reports that "her father's crimes" of

usurpation and oppression "sit heavy on her," and as a result

She has not been abed, but in her chapel All night devoutly watched, and bribed the saints With vows for her deliverance.


But her sorrow cannot be entirely genuine, for she still retains

the throne which her father has seized. Like King Claudius in

Hamlet, she wants absolution for the crime while still owning

the benefits for which it was committed. Her contrition is thus

a pretense, an attempt to "bribe the saints" rather than to

express true penitence. Pedro recognizes her true state of mind

when he bitterly remarks, "Very good: she usurps the throne,

107

keeps the old king in prison, and at the same time is praying

for a blessing. O religion and roguery, how they go together1"

(Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 419).

Leonora's hypocrisy appears again as she tries to ration-I

alize away her guilt for ordering King Sancho's murder. After

an elaborate speech on free will and predestination, she concludes

that no evil deed is culpable since "our actions" are "first

decreed" by an omnipotent heaven (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 467).

Later she rightly dispenses with this sophistical justification,

but only to seize upon another irrational excuse: Bertran is

to blame for divining her wishes and executing them. This

habitual tendency to find excuses for herself remains a fault

until she finally admits her.sin at the end of the play.

Her rationalizations are mirrored by those of Dominic in

the comic plot. No ^natter how many questionable deeds he per

petrates, he always masquerades as the man of God; whatever the

sin, he can inevitably find a pious reason to excuse it, indeed

exemplifying the union of "religion and roguery" to a far great

er degree than Leonora. His hypocrisy assumes two equally in

genious forms. Occasionally he chooses not to understand the

sin he is committing. Conveying a love letter to the married

Elvira, he considers himself free of guilt: "My comfort is,

I know not the contents; and so far I am blameless" (Scott-

Saintsbury, VI, 445). His ingenuity is more severely taxed

10 8

when he actually witnesses a rendezvous between the adulterous

lovers, but he decides to maintain his innocence by feigning

blindness: "I am taken on the sudden with a grievous swimming

in my head, and such a mist before my eyes, that I can neither

hear nor see" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 453). Lorenzo summarizes

this aspect of the friar's hypocrisy when he chuckles, "This

friar is a comfortable man! He will understand nothing of the

business, and yet does it all" ' (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 451).

The second form in which Dominic's hypocrisy manifests it

self is his ability to minimize convenient sins, an exercise

at which he is far more skillful than the distracted Leonora.

As already noted, he successfully quiets the conscience of

his charge Elvira while purveying love letters to her. He is

able to minimize the sin of murder just as easily, suggesting

to Lorenzo that they have the troublesome Gomez executed for

assassinating the king, for the cantankerous husband has op

posed Dominic, and "He, that is an enemy to the church, is an

enemy unto heaven; and he, that is an enemy to heaven would have

killed the king if he had been in the circumstances of doing

it; so it is not wrongful to accuse him" (Scott-Saintsbury,

VI, 477-78). Thus like Leonora Dominic dismisses the conse

quence of his crimes, but his behavior is much more sinister

than hers. Leonora finds excuses for herself because she must

delude a tender conscience; the friar, who perpetrates his

crimes deliberately, only wants to delude or manipulate others.

109

Besides examining the equivalent character traits in

both plots, Dryden employs another linking device to unite

the comic and heroic worlds. Occasionally he inserts into

one plot a remark which bears upon the other, a technique

which he also uses in Marriage a la Mode with the comment of Polydamas that "what we most desire, proves most our pain."8

The first of these suggestive remarks occurs in the opening

scene. Pedro, acting in the heroic plot, describes a friar

whom he has just seen:

I met a reverend, fat, old gouty friar,— With a paunch swoln so high, his double chin Might rest upon it; a true son'of the Church; Fresh-coloured, and well thriven on his trade,—

. . . About his neckThere hung a wench, the label of his function.

(Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 417-18)

This friar is a simulacrum of Dominic, who later emerges as the

main character in the comic plot. The physical description of

Dominic, offered later by Lorenzo's servant, closely matches

that of Pedro's anonymous corrupt priest: "There's a huge, fat,

religious gentleman. . . . He says he's but a friar, but he's

big enough to be a pope; his gills are as rosy as a turkey cock;

his great belly walks in state before him, like an harbinger;

and his gouty legs come limping after it: Never was such a tun

of devotion seen" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 442). The friar de-

scribed by Pedro has with him a paramour, illustrating the non-

8 See above, pp. 71-72.

110

priestly vice of lechery; Lorenzo hints that Dominic too pos

sesses this failing when he teases the friar, "Thou knowest

thou lovest a sweet young girl" (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 472).

Thus Dryden knits the two plots together by suggesting again

that both comic and heroic characters partake of the same

human vices. Again, this narrowing of the distance between

the two plots creates the impression that Dryden is dealing

with only one world in this tragicomedy—a world in which vice

and hypocrisy can flourish, whether fate may turn their effects

to tragedy or comedy.

At least one additional link serves to join the two plots.

Leonora, singing a mournful love song with false premonitions

of Torrismond's inconstancy, touches unconsciously on the core

not of her lover’s character, but Lorenzo’s:

The passion you pretended. Was only to obtain;

But when the charm is ended, The charmer you disdain.


In actuality, this song describes not the faithful Torrismond,

but the inconstant Lorenzo in the comic plot, who refers to women

as "game" and makes ready use of a seducer’s vocabulary to

obtain his desire. When Leonora sings, the audience feels a

double irony: first, she errs in her evaluation of Torrismond,

whose love is sincere; and second, she unknowingly describes

Lorenzo, Torrismond’s character opposite in the comic plot.

Through this song Dryden sets up a reverberating irony between

Ill

the two plots, linking them at the same time that he emphasizes

their difference in philosophy.

Thus The Spanish Friar differs in impact from Dryden’s

earlier tragicomedies; it develops the contrast between comic

and heroic love, but contains striking parallels between the

two plots as well. The world of the play is more "of a piece"

than the world of Secret Love or Marriage a la Mode, both of

which concentrate on the difference between comic and heroic

attitudes.

Finally to insure that the audience sees the two plots of

The Spanish Friar as a balanced union, Dryden gives both plots

equal preference, balancing them against each other in two

ways: by minimizing the wit of the comic lovers and satirizing

the emotionalism of the heroic ones. Neither set of lovers re

ceives complete sympathy because neither appears wholly admirable

at the expense of the other.

Lorenzo and Elvira are a disappointment to anyone expecting

the scintillating wit of Dryden’s famous "gay couples." They

display their powers of repartee in but two scenes, and their

wit lacks the sparkle exhibited by their predecessors. Bruce

King senses this diminution of wit when noting that The Spanish Friar lacks the "gaiety" and "charming modishness"^ of Dry

den’s earlier comic plots; Frank Harper Moore is of the same

view, finding Lorenzo and Elvira "less artificial"than

9 King, p. 160.10 Frank Harper Moore, The Nobler Pleasure: Dryden’s Comedy

in Theory and Practice (Chapel Hixl, Nortn Carolina: university of North Carolina Press, 1963), p. 162.

112

their predecessors. Critics have offered various reasons to

explain this shift in Dryden's comic tone. King believes that

by 1680 Dryden had ceased his interest in wit because of his

disillusionment with the group that most fostered and employed

it, Rochester's circle. The court itself, explains King,

shared Dryden's disappointment with the witty rakes and had

turned from the intellectual excitement of applauding Hobbist

principles to the more practical business of examining national problems.H Ned Bliss Allen proposes an equally reasonable ex

planation for Dryden's shift of comic tone in The Spanish Friar.

The audience, which was gradually becoming more bourgeois, preferred farce and intrigue to the more intellectual wit,-^ anfl

Dryden, as usual, gave them what they wanted. Both of these

theories no doubt explain part of the reason that Dryden turned

from wit to broad physical comedy in The Spanish Friar. But

another factor might have influenced his decision to change the

tone of the comic plot; he might have wanted to make this play

more "of a piece" than the earlier tragicomedies. Witty stars

like Celadon and. Florimell capture a disproportionate amount

of audience attention and sympathy. When they mock heroic values

their eloquence and vivacity gain adherents to their position

and undercut the duller rhetoric of the heroic characters. By

11 King, p. 160.

12 Ned Bliss Allen, The Sources of John Dryden's Comedies (1935; rpt. New York: Gordian Press, Inc., 1967), p. 124.

113

creating in Elvira and Lorenzo a rather ordinary lascivious young

couple, Dryden can insure that they will not spoil the balance

between comic and heroic philosophies in the play. Thus he

denies them the intellect that he lavished on his earlier "gay

couples" and makes them happy, pleasure-seeking creatures like

Alisoun and Nicholas in Chaucer's The Miller's Tale—the typical

young couple trying to cuckold an old husband. Moreover, they

lack the ingenuity of Alisoun and Nicholas, for they cannot

arrange their assignations without the schemes of Dominic, who

must assist them repeatedly. Thus, the comic interest is di

rected from the lovers to the friar: he moves them around

like pieces on a chessboard while they passively wait for his

next scheme. The heroic lovers consequently appear admirable

by comparison, for they act to shape their own destinies and

experience a deep emotional life.

But in order to maintain the balance between the plots,

Dryden makes the heroic couple less attractive as well, using

the same technique that proved effective against Palmyra and

Leonidas in Marriage a la Mode, mockery of their violent emotions

and ethical absolutes. In Torrismond Dryden mocks a basic

value of Medieval courtly love which had become embodied in the

heroic play: the notion that a lover must be overjoyed at any

morsel of attention the lady deigns to throw his way. Exag

gerating the gratitude which Torrismond feels for Leonora’s

114

smallest attention, Dryden makes the hero appear absurd. An

obvious instance of Torrismond's emotionalism occurs during

his first interview with Leonora. She manipulates him, drawing

from him ever more ridiculous and exaggerated strains of emo

tion. When she expresses a condescending sympathy for his

lovelorn state, he explodes with a series of melodramatic

exclamations:

Tor. Am I then pitied! I have lived enough!— Death, take me in this moment of my joy; But, when my soul is plunged in long oblivion. Spare this one thought! let me remember pity,

. And, so deceived, think all my life was blessed. (Scott-Saintsbury, VI, 440)

The self-abasement in these lines makes Torrismond appear ludi

crous. Like a martyr enjoying his terrible expiration in the

flames, Torrismond delights in what are normally painful pros

pects: pity from his beloved and the "long oblivion" of death.

Again, his short, violent exclamations, which make him appear

mechanical, are an effective rhetorical strategy to incite

amusement. Leonora continues to manipulate him in the scene

by hinting of ever greater favors and producing from him ever

more ecstatic reactions, as if she were a puppeteer pulling his

strings. Dryden has contrived the lines to produce the maximum

comic effect from Torrismond: Leonora offers only a small favor

each time, but every hint causes the hero to cry out in ecstasy.

After he has given his melodramatic speech on pity and death,

the queen graciously asks,

Leo. What if I add a little to my alms? If that would help, I could cast in a tear To your misfortunes.


115

A tear counts for very little more than pity, but Torrismond

responds to this offer with violent glee:

Tor. A tear! You have o’erbid all my past sufferings. And all my future too!


The entire structure of the scene is comic, Leonora condescend

ingly offering him little encouragement in her speeches, and

Torrismond capering about in ecstasy after each promise, pro

ducing mechanical utterances: "Am I then pitied!" "A tear!"

Dryden unmistakably mocks two heroic imperatives in this scene:

the notion that love should be a violent disease, overturning

the reason; and the rule that a lover must experience ecstasies

over his lady's smallest favor. Pedro expresses the common

sense reaction to this kind of love when he scoffs at Torris

mond *s behavior:

I hate to see a brave bold fellow sotted. Made sour and senseless, turned to whey by love; A drivelling hero, fit for a romance.—


Robert Burton, that brilliant seventeenth century psychologist,

would have diagnosed Torrismond's disease as "heroical love,"

"a passion of the braine" which causes melancholy "by reason of corrupt imagination."13

Leonora also becomes the object of satire—partially for

rampant emotionalism, but mainly for the indecorous imagery which

13 Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, The English Experience: Its Record in Early Printed Books Published in Facsimile, No. 301 (Amsterdam, New York: De Capo Press, 1971), p. 543.

116

that emotionalism inspires. Her description of Torrismond’s

first kiss teems with images inspired by a too-active fancy:

How dear, how sweet his first embraces were! With what a zeal he joined his lips to mine! And sucked my breath at every word I spoke, As if he drew his inspiration thence: While both our souls came upward to our mouths. As neighbouring monarchs at their borders meet;

I could discern his cheeks were glowing red. His very eyeballs trembled with his love. And sparkled through their casement's humid fires.


Leonora has derived these ideas from the typical code of Renais

sance courtly love, in which a kiss expresses the spiritual union

between lovers and the eyes communicate passion. The popular

Book of the Courtier discusses the organs of sight as 11 faithful

messengers" that "show the passion that is within more clearly

than the tongue itself" and "kindle love in the beloved's heart";

even more significantly, the eyes receive the lady's image, which

is then transported to the heart to "fan with the breath of de

sire that fire which glows so ardently" in the blood.But

Dryden exaggerates the typical imagery of souls and fire to

create a ludicrous effect. Leonora's outburst includes several

violent, indecorous images: the exaggerated picture of lovers

sucking one another's breath; the peculiar notion that localized

Count Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, trans. Leonard Eckstein Opdycke, 2nd ed." (n.p.: Scribner & Sons, 1929), p. 229.

117

and materialized souls could float into people's mouths during

a kiss; the oddly mixed metaphor which equates breath with

inspiration, souls, and monarchs all at once; the fantasy that

a lover's eyeballs could tremble during a kiss at the same

time that they sparkle through his eyelids like "humid fires"

through a "casement." By assigning all of these violent images

to Leonora, Dryden suggests that she is a creature more emotional

than logical, prone in excitement to lose her critical judgment

and suffer from a disordered intellect. Perhaps Dr. Johnson

was thinking of just such a passage when he remarked that Dryden

delighted "in wild and daring sallies of sentiment, in the ir

regular and excentrick violence of wit. He delighted to tread

upon the brink of meaning, where light and darkness begin to

mingle; to approach the precipice of absurdity, and hover over

the abyss of unideal vacancy.These "wild and daring sallies,"

when used in the heroic drama, frequently satirize the character

speaking them. Dryden had such a keen sense of the ludicrous,

H. T. Swedenberg remarks that, "His pen was always stealing into irony, frequently in unexpected moments."16 A rationalistic

15 Samuel Johnson, "John Dryden," Lives of the English Poets, ed. George Birkbeck Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905),•I, 460.

15 H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., "Dryden's Obsessive Concern with the Heroic," Essays in English Literature of the Classical Period Presented to Dougald MacMillan, ed. Daniel W. Patterson and Albrecht B. Strauss, Studies in Philology, Extra Series 4 (Jan. 1967), 12.

118

impulse in him warred against portraying excessive, violent

love in a uniformly serious vein; the satirist in him glimpsed

the possibilities of "a drivelling hero, fit for a romance."

Johnson shrewdly appraised this rationalistic side of Dryden,

saying that he was more intellectual than emotional:

Upon all occasions that were presented he studied rather than felt, and produced sentiments not such as Nature enforces, but meditation supplies. With the simple and elemental passions, as they spring separate in the mind, he seems not much acquainted, and seldom describes them but as they are complicated by the various relations of society -and confused in the tumults and agitations of life.17

Johnson's use of the word "Nature" is revealing: for him, Shakespeare was above all "the poet of Nature,"1® the artist

who portrayed all human emotions with complete empathy. But

Dryden produced his characters' "sentiments" from "meditation"

rather than from "Nature"; unable to empathize with "the simple

and elemental passions" which spring naked from the human heart,

he treated violent emotion artificially, with a detached or be

mused attitude. Faced with the artistic problem of portraying

violent love, Dryden created a Torrismond rather than an Othello

because "he studied rather than felt."

1Z_Johnson, "Dryden," p. 457.

1® Samuel Johnson, "Preface to Shakespeare," Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson, VII (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968) ,"T2.

The Spanish Friar amalgamates Dryden's old tragicomic struc

119

tures in a new way. It contains the usual formula of comic and

heroic plots, linked by parallel situations but separated by

contrasting value systems. Dryden, however, treats these famil

iar elements in different combinations to produce a more unified

effect than they do in Secret Love or Marriage a la Mode. In

fact, every time that Dryden writes a play, he alters and rear

ranges the old formulae which he has used before, always experi

menting to discover new combinations. Secret Love, Marriage a

la Mode, and The Spanish Friar differ from one another in subtle

ways, for each contains its own variation on the tragicomic

formula. A brief examination of the plays together will demon

strate that, in effect, they offer three original improvisations

on the same melody.

EPILOGUE THREE VARIATIONS ON DRYDEN'S TRAGICOMIC FORMULA

Tragicomedy is a mixed form, a juxtaposition of opposing

moods and philosophies to achieve a unique, ironic blend. On

the one hand, it depicts man as god, striving to transcend the

limits imposed by his humanity; on the other hand, it portrays

the comic vision of life, which is "hardheadedly realistic about the nature of man."-*- This new synthesis of two opposing visions

produces a different impact than either comedy or tragedy would

have done separately; Giambattista Guarini recognizes this truth when he explains, "The tragicomic writer does not intend to

compose separately either a Tragedy or a Comedy, but from mingling of the two a third thing perfect of its kind."2 In its

juxtaposition of divine ideals and harsh reality, tragicomedy exposes "the dual nature of man,"3 * * * * * * * with his dreams of heaven

and feet in the dust, occupying this "isthmus of a middle state.

3 Giambattista Guarini, "From The Compendium of TragicomicPoetry,11 trans. Robert Hogan and Sven Eric Molin, eds.. Drama:The Major Genres (New York, Toronto: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1962),p. 342.

3 Hoy, p. 8.

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, in The Twickenham Editionof the Works of Alexander Pope, III, Part 1, ed. Maynard Mack"{London: MetKuen and Co.,' Ltd., 1950), 53.

1 Cyrus Hoy, The Hyacinth Room: An Investigation into the Nature of Comedy, Tragedy, & Tragicomedy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf," 1964) , p. 187^-- -------- -------

120

121

Dryden’s tragicomedies all employ this ironic juxtaposition

of ideal and real, spiritual and corporeal. But each play dif

fers slightly in its emphasis. Secret Love presents the formula

in its simplest pattern: a stark combination of comic and

heroic love, with little attempt to portray other differences

in philosophy between the two plots. Only a few linking motifs

and situations hold the disparate plots together: the love

theme, disguise motif, and three parallel situations in the ac

tion. For the most part, Dryden merely presents the two opposing

kinds of love, balancing them skillfully against one another,

with only a slight preference given to the comic values through

the captivating wit of Celadon and Florimell.

In Marriage a la Mode the balances and contrasts are more

complex, suggesting that Dryden had begun to experiment with

the tragicomic formula. Besides contrasting comic and heroic

love, he explored other differences in values between the two

plots, allowing each set of characters to demonstrate attitudes

toward selflessness, duty and country life. He also developed

Melantha and Palmyra as character opposites to highlight more

sharply the difference between comic and heroic treatment.

Furthermore, he altered the balance between the two plots,,

weighting his scales with a preference for the comic point of

view: three witty characters undercut the values of Palmyra

and Leonidas with eloquent mockery, and the author himself joins

in the ridicule by satirizing the heroic characters’ emotional

ism, violent imagery, and even their chaste love.

122

The last play under scrutiny presents yet another variation

on the formula. After having labored in Marriage a la Mode to

discover contrasts between the comic and heroic philosophies,

Dryden determined in The Spanish Friar to proceed in an opposite

manner, developing complex links of character and situation

between the two plots while yet exposing the opposite value

systems of comic and heroic love. With its exploration in both

plots of such vices as hypocrisy, jealousy, and priestly cor

ruption, The Spanish Friar presents a unified portrait of life

while still retaining its opposing comic and heroic plots. Per

haps Dryden wrote this play while mindful of contemporary critical

objections to tragicomedy. According to theoreticians like

Howard, an audience cannot adjust to the opposing moods and

philosophies of tragicomedy. But in The Spanish Friar, the play

is more "of a piece," and the audience has less of an adjustment

to make when the scenes change. Since Dryden took pride in the

unity of the play while writing his Dedication, perhaps he felt

he had answered his critics.

But although Neoclassical critics prize unity of action,

the presence of. more closely unified plots does not make The

Spanish Friar inherently better than the earlier tragicomedies.

In a brilliant study of Medieval literature, Arthur K. Moore

points out that the concept of unity, only a descriptive term,

should not become a criterion by which to judge the value of a

123

work, for some art achieves its special beauty by other means.5

Since tragicomedy's impact depends upon the balanced juxta

position of opposites, one might argue that Marriage a la Mode

is the "best" play for containing the largest number of con

trasts; or that Secret Love is the "best" for maintaining a

more equal balance between the philosophies. But such value

judgments are subjective and pointless. In each play the unique

combination of elements achieves a special effect; every new ad

justment of the pattern creates its own beauties. As he manipu

lates the tragicomic formula in different ways, Dryden is like

a baroque musician, constructing the varied counterpoints of his

fugue on the pattern of one simple, lovely melody.

5 Arthur K. Moore, "Medieval English Literature and the Question of Unity," MP, 65 (1968), 287-88, 300.

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