Vinton Dearing & Alan Roper's

The Works of John Dryden

The Kind Keeper, The Spanish Fryar, The Duke of Guise, and
The Vindication

Dryden asserted that The Kind Keeper was a moral play, dedicated to exposing the "crying sin" of keeping a mistress, without pointing the finger at any particular individual. Some of those who first saw or read it interpreted it differently, but others agreed that its short life on the stage--it ran only three nights-- was owing to its success as a moral instrument. Thus Langbaine said that Dryden "so much expos'd the keeping part of the Town, that the Play was stopt." Those parts of the comedy which expose other human foibles will strike every reader as good fun.

The comedy The Spanish Fryar, on the other hand, was a success from the beginning and continued in repertory until in the later eighteenth century its expressed antipathies to Spain and Catholicism no longer seemed relevant. The famous comedian Anthony Leigh had his portrait painted in the costume of the friar, a role that he had created (see frontispiece in this volume). The interpretation of the play's anti-Catholicism has continued to intrigue students of Dryden. The play appeared on the stage at the height of public apprehension over the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis, but Dryden's purpose, as he was a firm supporter of the Catholic Duke of York in his expectation of becoming King of England, is hard to fathom. From the beginning the play offered actors fine opportunities to display their comedic abilities, and we know enough of the original production to savor many of these opportunities today.

In writing The Duke of Guise, Dryden once more collaborated with Nathaniel Lee. When the play was attacked for its political point--that opposition to the Stuarts was dangerous--Dryden came to its defense with a full-scale Vindication in a separate pamphlet. His opponents had sought to present the play as an attack on rather than a defense of the Stuart monarchy, and Dryden is at his best as a controversialist in exposing their malice, besides telling us many interesting things about the playwright's art. The historical Duke of Guise came near to overthrowing Henry III of France. The play effectively presents the tensions as the protagonists maneuver, adding to history by making them also maneuver for the hand of and be influenced by a beautiful and good woman, and by introducing a minor Dr. Faustus in the character of Malicorne.

The Editors of this volume are Professors Alan Roper and Vinton A. Dearing, both in the Department of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. Professor Dearing is also Textual Editor for this volume and General Editor of the edition.