SOURCE: Kirsch, Arthur C. “The Significance of Dryden's Aureng-Zebe.” ELH 29, no. 2 (June 1962): 160-74.

In this essay, Kirsch interprets Dryden's Aureng-Zebe as a pivotal heroic drama.

The second decade of the Restoration witnessed two significant changes in the development of serious drama: the advent of sentimental heroes and domestic situations, and the abandonment of rhyme. The changes are particularly interesting because they seem to be related. They can be seen in all the serious plays of the decade, but their relationship is perhaps most clear in Dryden's Aureng-Zebe (1676), the play which stands midway between The Conquest of Granada (1672) and All for Love (1678), the former a rhymed play whose hero exemplifies an aristocratic code of glory and self-aggrandizement, the latter an unrhymed play whose hero is guided by standards of sentiment and self-denial.

I. Sentiment and the Fall of Glory

Aureng-Zebe gathers up many themes and characters long familiar in...