SOURCE: Hauser, David R. “Otway Preserved: Theme and Form in Venice Preserv'd.” Studies in Philology 55, no. 3 (July 1958): 481-93.

In the following essay, Hauser argues that critics who have complained about the structure and unity of Venice Preserv'd have not considered how Otway's careful imagery and realistic depiction of emotion overcome this supposed lack of coherence.

Otway's Venice Preserv'd has been repeatedly judged one of the finest of Restoration tragedies, yet almost all modern critical discussions have emphasized the play's defects, thereby producing a confusion as to precisely where the excellence of the play resides.¹ Amid the welter of claims and counter-claims the two most comprehensive and influential criticisms levelled at the play are these: that it merely repeats the artificial formula of heroic drama, being “another linguistic machine to magnify the clash of love with honor”;² and that the “poetic potential” is too low, emotion being presented for...