Heroic Drama - Roswell Gray Ham (essay date 1931)

Roswell Gray Ham (essay date 1931)

SOURCE: Ham, Roswell Gray. “So Noble a Pleasure.” In Otway and Lee: Biography from a Baroque Age, pp. 65-81. 1931. Reprint. New York: Greenwood Press, 1969.

[In this essay, Ham considers the early plays of Thomas Otway and Nathaniel Lee, when each experimented with heroic drama before moving on to other forms.]

Pouring forth Tears at such a lavish rate,
That were the World on fire, they might have drown'd
The Wrath of Heav'n, and quench't the mighty Ruin.

Lee, Mithridates

Before the curtain had finally descended upon the destruction wrought by Otway in his Alcibiades, Mrs. Mary Lee arose from the heroic dead to recite the epilogue. It was a masterpiece of sophistication:

Now who sayes Poets don't in blood delight?}
'Tis true, the varlets care not much to fight;
But 'faith, they claw it off when e're they write;
Are bully Rocks not of the common size;
Kill ye...

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