Oedipus (Dryden play)

[1] Charles Gildon, however, who revised many of Gerard Langbaine's articles in the manual on English Drama An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, harshly criticised Oedipus, a Tragedy, saying: The most understanding Judges wish they [i.e. Dryden/Lee] had followed Sophocles yet closer, it had then been the best of our Modern Plays, as 'tis of the Ancients: but as it is, they have destroyed the Character of Oedipus…[2]It remains uncertain which parts of this play were written by Dryden and by Lee.

[3] In his introduction to Oedipus, a Tragedy of 1808, Walter Scott says that the first and the third acts were wholly written by Dryden, maintaining a decided superiority over the rest of the piece.

Since there are "many excellent passages through Lee's scenes" and "the tragedy has the appearance of general consistence and uniformity",[4] Scott supposes that the whole play was corrected by Dryden afterwards.

Oedipus, a Tragedy was licensed on 3 January 1678 by Roger L'Estrange and published in 1679 by R. Bentley and M. Magnes in Russel Street in Covent Garden.

Financial considerations were probably the motivation for Dryden's decision to change publishers at this time, ending his long association with Henry Herringman, which dated back to the days before the Restoration.

Mr Dryden has now jointly with Mr. Lee (who was in Pension with us to the last day of our Playing, & shall continue) Written a play call´d AEdipus, and given it to the Duke's Company, contrary to his said agreemt [the contract of 1668], his promise [allegedly made after they granted him a third day for All for Love], and all gratitude [,] to the great prejudice and almost undoing of the Company, They being the only Poets remaining to us.

[5]But this complaint went unheeded, and the scenic complexity of the play shows that Dryden and Lee originally intended it for the Duke's Theatre.

During the remaining years of the company, which finally merged with the Duke's men in 1682, he wrote a number of prologues for his old associates, but he was probably paid a set fee for those.

In comparison to the earnings of contemporary skilled workers and other professions, however, one might assume that Dryden received an appropriate if not overly generous share of money.

[1] The heroic drama by Dryden and Lee remained popular for a long period of time and was constantly performed on stage, almost every year between 1678 and 1710.

The performance of Thursday 13, October 1692, is especially remarkable: On Thursday last was acted the tragedy of Oedipus king of Thebes at the theater, where Sandford [as Creon] and Powell [as Adrastus] acting their parts together, the former by mistake of a sharp dagger for one that runs the blade into the handle, stab'd the other 3 inches deep: said the wound is mortal.

It is certain, that, when the play was revived about thirty years ago, the audience were unable to support it to an end; the boxes being all emptied before the third act was concluded.

By doing so, he reveals his concept of Oedipus, a Tragedy, and explains why he thinks that the Latin and French adaptions of the drama were inferior to the original work by Sophocles.

In our Age, Corneille has attempted it, and it appears by his Preface, with great success: But a judicious Reader will easily observe, how much the Copy is inferiour to the Original.

He forgot that Sophocles had taken care to shew him in his first entrance, a just, a merciful, a successful, a Religious Prince, and in short, a Father of his Country: instead of these, he has drawn him a suspicious, designing, more anxious of keeping the Theban Crown, than solicitous for the safety of his People: Hector'd by Theseus, contemn'd by Dirce, and scarce maintaining a second part in his own Tragedie…"Dryden criticises Seneca's adaptation of the drama for lacking any naturalness of emotion and blames the Latin author for using artificial language, and as a consequence the lack of effects on stage: Seneca […] is always running after pompous expression, pointed sentences, and Philosophical notions, more proper for the Study than the Stage: The French-man follow’d a wrong scent; and the Roman was absolutely at cold Hunting.Dryden disapproves of the fact that Seneca has failed to introduce new aspects, except one: the scene when Lajus's ghost is called and appears on stage, which Dryden and Lee implement in their adaptation.

Seneca supply'd us with no new hint, but only a Relation which he makes of his Tiresias raising the Ghost of Lajus: which is here perform'd in view of the Audience…Sophocles's Oedipus is praised and considered "the most celebrated piece of all Antiquity" by Dryden.

What Dryden disapproves of in Greek theatre is only that the "principal person" appears constantly throughout the plot of a play, "but the inferiour parts seldome above once in the whole Tragedie."

Dryden/Lee's adaptation of Oedipus extends Sophocles's plot in two respects: by adding two further acts to the play and introducing a subplot with secondary characters, namely the love story of Eurydice and Adrastus.

In the preface of the play, Dryden justifies the subplot as a necessary gesture towards English "Custom": The conduct of our Stage is much more difficult, where we are oblig´d never to lose any considerable character which we have once presented.

In the construction of a play, the playwright is the "master-workman" who needs "many subordinate hands, many tools to his assistance", including "history, geography, or moral philosophy.

Dryden and Lee add a subplot of secondary characters – a love story about Adrastus, prince of Argos, and Eurydice, Oedipus' daughter.

The prince of Argos genuinely loves Eurydice and does not hesitate to accuse himself of killing Lajus to rescue her, even if he puts his own life at risk.

Death only can be dreadful to the bad: To innocence, 'tis like a bug-bear dress’d To fright’n Children; pull but off his Masque And he’ll appear a friend.

Even his last words and thoughts are dedicated to Eurydice: She’s gone […] They talk of Heroes, and Celestial Beauties, And wondrous pleasures in the other World; Let me but find her there, I ask no more.

Instead of feeling pity for Oedipus and Jocasta, who both commit suicide in the end, it is the fate of Adrastus and Eurydice that arouses compassion and sympathy.

As in many other plays and poems Dryden insists that through his imagination a poet creates a language by which audience and reader are given a new and vivid experience in life itself.

Thy drowzie Prophet to revive, Ten thousand thousand forms before him drive; With Chariots and Horses all o'fire awake him, Convulsions, and Furies, and Prophesies shake him: Let him tell it in groans, tho'he bend with the load, Tho'he burst with the weight of the terrible God.

By this means, the striking quarrel betwixt the monarch and Tiresias is, with great art, postponed to the third act; and the interest, of course, is more gradually heightened than in the Grecian tragedy.

[22] Extensive and decorative poetic language, the audience's strong lust for stage action, visual effects, intensive conflicts and complex plots, all changed Greek tragedy in the Restoration era.

As Laius is summoned, with "the stage wholly darkened" Tiresias call for a chorus of alto, tenor and bass voices: …infernal gods.