1700

The final section covers the reign of William III after the death of his wife, the literary responses to the situation of Princess Anne following the death of her son, and the continuing tensions in Parliament between the Whigs and Tories. There were increasing literary satires on foreigners in power and the desire to define Englishness. After the death of John Dryden, dramatists including William Congreve and John Vanbrugh continued to resist Jeremy Collier’s desire to reform the theatre. Newcomers such as Alexander Pope and Susanna Centlivre arrived and made their debut as poets and dramatists. Satires against women and marriage continued against a backdrop of famous divorce trials, while writers such as Daniel Defoe called for a reformed society starting with the aristocratic elite.

London Theatricals: Italian Opera and an Evening at the Theatre

The London theatres in the first decade of the eighteenth century experienced changes in the types of entertainment offered and in their staging. Many of the stars of the previous decades including Thomas Betterton, Elizabeth Barry, and Anne Bracegirdle retired from the stage. New productions emphasized music and dancing; so popular was musical drama that a public competition was held to create the music for Congreve’s libretto The Judgment of Paris. Foreign singers, especially from Italy, were often paid higher salaries than English actors, leading to tensions, and while operas sung in Italian were very popular with audiences, critics such as Joseph Addison writing in the Spectator deplored the use of spectacle and music over script and moral. One of the most popular new playwrights of the decade was Susanna Centlivre.