SOURCE: Moore, John Robert. “Contemporary Satire in Otway's Venice Preserved.” PMLA 43, no. 1 (March 1928): 166-81.

In the following essay, Moore argues that Venice Preserv'd is principally an attack on the Earl of Shaftesbury and that much of the play cannot be understood without a grounding in late-seventeenth-century English history.

From the accession of Charles II, English drama manifested a continuous strain of political satire, most of it in favor of the Court party. The Roundheads, the citizens, the Presbyterians, the opposers of the Crown, above all the foremost Liberal of the day,¹ Anthony Ashley Cooper, later the Earl of Shaftesbury, were fair game to be attacked in a prologue, an epilogue, and even at times in a full-length character portrayal or an entire play.

Especially was this true during the troublous years 1678-1682, during which five of Otway's plays were produced. The two struggling theatres of the time, dependent...