Thomas Otway

A strange figure of Restoration days is Otway, coming into the world in puritan times and leaving it with the dissolute Charles.

Although only one of his works is ever revived, and that as a dramatic curiosity, there is no forgetting Thomas Otway, son of the poor curate of Trotton who became vicar of Woolbeding and bequeathed him only "loyalty to his Prince".

 

Having passed through Winchester and Oxford he tried acting and failed through stage fright, turned dramatist at 24, fell in love with a lady of no reputation, and apparently lived for her.

She was an actress who appeared in practically all his plays. Their production was interrupted by his enlistment and military service in Holland, which ended when, sick of war, he returned home to resume work as a dramatist. Leaving out of account his comedies, which were gross, in keeping with Restoration traditions, he gave the stage two of the best plays of his day.

'The Orphan' had a success which long outlived its author, but 'Venice Preserved', which we sometimes see done today by private companies, was his masterpiece, and finds a place in any volume dealing with the drama of the 17th century.

Scott found in these two plays rivals to the scenes of passionate affection in Shakespeare. More tears had been shed for the sorrows of Belvidera and Monimia, he believed, than for those of Juliet and Desdemona.

To William Collins he was "gentlest Otway", "the tender and elegant Otway" to Voltaire, and a stricken hero of genius to all the poets since.

But his life was mostly vain; he lived beyond his means and drank himself to ruin. In desperate poverty he retired, according to Dr Johnson, hunted by bailiffs to a refuge on Tower Hill. Venturing forth one night he went starving to a coffeehouse, where he begged for a shilling from a man who knew him and was given a guinea.

The ravenous poet rushed forth, bought a roll, and choked to death. He was only 33, yet he had been a considerable figure in the literature of his time.

 

 

 

 

 

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