SOURCE: Hume, Robert D. “The Unconventional Tragedies of Thomas Otway.” In Du Verbe au Geste: Melanges en l'honneur de Pierre Danchin, pp. 67-78. Nancy, France: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1986.

In the following essay, Hume finds in all Otway's comedies and tragedies the playwright's characteristically pessimistic view of human nature.

Otway is usually thought of as a Tory loyalist who started out writing rhymed heroic plays in imitation of Dryden and Lee and gradually evolved toward the pathetic and domestic modes in which he is considered a precursor of Banks and Rowe. This cliché has some truth in it, but it distorts our understanding of Otway's plays by ignoring their values and ideology, which are by no means of a piece with those of his fellow Carolean playwrights. If we return to his plays without inherited preconceptions, we will discover considerable strains and contradictions between their form and their...