What features of Dryden's heroic tragedy are evident in All For Love?
Dryden had been writing heroic plays, which were significantly characterized by dialogue in heroic couplets and influenced by French dramas, French tragedies, and French romantic poets. Having fulfilled his ambitions in this genre , which he had reportedly begun to please the taste of King Charles II for French rhyming...
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plays, Dryden turned his attention to developing the heroictragedy.
The heroic tragedy is distinct from the heroic play in two chief points. The first is that the heroic tragedy abandons rhyming and embraces blank verse, a change influenced by Shakespeare, whom, in the "Preface" of All for Love, Dryden calls "the divine Shakespeare." The second is that heroic tragedy emphasizes deeper characterization, again influenced by Shakespeare, within a structure adhering to the unities of time, place, and action (to which Shakespeare did not adhere).
According to C.D. Merriman, after the appearance of the comedy Marriage A-la-Mode (1672), Dryden began writing blank verse in 1676, and All for Love was performed in 1678. Scholars agree that All for Love is Dryden's greatest play in blank verse heroic tragedy style, which was invented by Dryden. In it, he develops the characters of Cleopatra and Antony to show the affects of their love on each other during the last day of their lives. Dryden strove to evoke the Aristotelian dramatic emotions of fear and pity, but some critics say he only achieved pathos and sentiment.
How is love portrayed in Dryden's "All for Love"?
As Dryden wrote "All For Love" in homage to Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, opportunities for writing about historical context are plentiful. For example, an essay that compares and contrasts Shakespeare's depiction of the love between Antony and Cleopatra compared to that of Dryden's could be interesting. After all, Dryden chooses to present their love to the audience without going into too many details about their physical relationship, while Shakespeare does not shy away from sexual matters in quite the same way. Also interesting is the fact that this play was first performed in 1677, when the love affairs of King Charles II were much-discussed; pointing out elements of the play that could be challenging to watch with this societal concern in mind could also make for a fascinating essay.
How is love portrayed in Dryden's "All for Love"?
You would want to write about the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra. Some of the topics you could address include: how they became involved, why they were so attracted to each other, the complications that arose during their affair, and how the affair ended. You could also discuss which people tried to break them up, prevent their relationship, complicate their relationship, etc.