SOURCE: An introduction to The Plays of James Thomson, edited by Percy G. Adams, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1979, pp. v-xxxvii.

In the following excerpt, Adams surveys Thomson's six dramas, discussing each play from both a performance-based and an aesthetic perspective.

Thomson's six plays were written between 1730, the year of the first full edition of The Seasons, and 1749, the last one being acted and published posthumously. Five are called tragedies—Sophonisba (1730), Agamemnon (1738), Edward and Eleonora (1739), Tancred and Sigismunda (1744), and Coriolanus (1749), while Alfred (1740) is subtitled A Masque and was co-authored with David Mallet, Thomson's friend.

The first of these, Sophonisba, was produced at Drury Lane on February 28, 1730, with Wilks as Masinissa and the equally great Anne Oldfield playing Sophonisba in her last appearance before her death a few months later. Thomson's preface is highly revealing as a document declaring his dramatic theories and practice not just for this one play but...