2. Drama. The development of the drama is considerable. We summarize briefly what has already been indicated.
(a) In tragedy the most novel in the matter of form is the heroic play, whose peculiarities have already been pointed out on p. [199]. There is little further development. The tragical faculty is weakening all through the period, even in comparison with the post-Shakespearian plays. This type of play is best represented by Dryden’s All for Love and Otway’s Venice Preserved. The characters are becoming more stagy, and the situations are made as horrible as the ingenuity of the dramatist can devise.
(b) In comedy the advance is noteworthy. The comedy of “humors” is dying out, though considerable traces of it are still visible. The influence of the French is giving the comedy a new “snap” and glitter, and the almost universal medium is prose. Congreve’s Way of the World (1700), Wycherley’s Country Wife (1675), and Farquhar’s Beaux’ Stratagem (1707) are good examples.
3. Prose. With the exception of the work of Dryden and Bunyan, the prose work of the time is of little moment. Dryden’s prose is almost entirely devoted to literary criticism; Bunyan’s contribution shows a remarkable development of the prose allegory. The remainder of the prose-writers deal with political and miscellaneous subjects, with, in addition, some theological and historical writing.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY STYLE
The main tendency of the age, in all departments of literature, is toward a clear, plain, and forcible style.
1. Poetry. The new movement was seen most clearly in the development of the heroic couplet, which was soon to spread throughout poetry and through much of the drama. As we have seen (p. [182]), in the previous age the couplet had become so loose that it resembled a cross between prose and verse. An exponent of such a measure is Chamberlayne (1619–89):
Poor love must dwell
Within no climate but what’s parallel
Unto our honoured births; the envied fate