BIOGRAPHY

Ham, Roswell Gray. Otway and Lee: Biography from a Baroque Age. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1931, 250 p.

Compares the lives, influence, and plays of Otway and Nathaniel Lee, including stage productions on which they collaborated.

CRITICISM

Berman, Roland. “Nature in Venice Preserv'd.” ELH 36, no. 3 (September 1969): 529-43.

Argues that Venice Preserv'd is the darkest type of dramatic tragedy, since it offers no solution to the problems that arise when humanity believes it can overcome its inability to live and govern wisely.

Bywaters, David. “Venice, Its Senate, and Its Plot in Otway's Venice Preserv'd.” Modern Philology 80, no. 3 (February 1983): 256-63.

Establishes links between the Italian setting of Venice Preserv'd and criticism of English government and Whig politicians.

Ghosh, J. C. Introduction to The Works of Thomas Otway: Plays, Poems, and Love-Letters, Vol. 1, edited by J. C. Ghosh, pp. 1-94. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932.

Comprehensive introduction to Otway's life and literary output, focusing on Otway's best-known tragedies but also discussing his poetry, prose, and comedies.

Gill, Pat. “Revolutionary Identity in Otway's Venice Preserv'd.” In Illicit Sex: Identity Politics in Early Modern Culture, edited by Thomas DiPiero and Pat Gill, pp. 239-55. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997.

Claims that Otway's themes of corruption and moral breakdown in Venice Preserv'd are mirrored in the bleak existence depicted in Hollywood film noir.

Harth, Phillip. “Political Interpretations of Venice Preserv'd.” Modern Philology 85, no. 4 (May 1988): 345-62.

Discusses why critical interest in the political themes of Otway's Venice Preserv'd has waxed and waned over the centuries.

Munns, Jessica. “‘Plain as the light in the Cowcumber’: A Note on the Conspiracy in Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd.” Modern Philology 85, no. 1 (August 1987): 54-7.

Argues that critics who concentrate on Whig-Tory polemics in Otway's Venice Preserv'd miss the subtleties of the playwright's mature political vision.

———. Restoration Politics and Drama: The Plays of Thomas Otway. Newark, N.J.: University of Delaware Press, 1995, 269 p.

Study focusing on political themes in a number of plays Otway published between 1675 and 1683.

Murray, Barbara A. “Plutarch, Shakespeare, and Lodge: The Literary and Theatrical Origins of Otway's The History and Fall of Caius Marius (1680).” Forum for Modern Language Studies 32, no. 1 (January 1996): 1-10.

Argues that although works by Plutarch and Shakespeare were key sources for The History and Fall of Caius Marius, critics have overlooked the influence of Thomas Lodge on Otway's tragedy.

Pollard, Hazel M. Batzer. From Heroics to Sentimentalism: A Study of Thomas Otway's Tragedies. Salzburg, Austria: Institut fur Englische Sprache und Literatur, 1974, 301 p.

Analysis of Otway's six tragedies, arguing that the plays move away from heroic drama toward the drama of sensibility.

Taylor, Aline Mackenzie. Next to Shakespeare: Otway's Venice Preserv'd and The Orphan. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1950, 313 p.

Outlines the stage history of Otway's most famous plays and accounts for their rapid decline in popularity after the nineteenth century.

———. Introduction to Thomas Otway: The Orphan, edited by Aline Mackenzie Taylor, pp. xiii-xxx. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976.

Provides a stage history, plot summary, and critical assessment of The Orphan, arguing that the play should be read as a “Tragedy of Manners.”

Warner, Kerstin. Thomas Otway Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982, 162 p.

Study of Otway's life and literary career set in the context of the political and social background of the Restoration era.

Additional coverage of Otway's life and career is contained in the following sources published by Thomson Gale: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 80; DISCovering Authors Modules: Dramatists Module; Drama Criticism, Vol. 24; Literature Resource Center; and Reference Guide to English Literature, Ed. 2.