Thomas Otway wrote compelling heroines

Thomas Otway

It is the birthday of English dramatist Thomas Otway (1652), who died at age 34, in debt and poverty, and according to popular tradition, choked on bread provided by charity. Otway is best remembered for his plays, Orphan (1680) and Venice Preserved (1652), which concerns a prominent senator in Venice, his wife, his mistress and a plot against the crown. Perhaps he is most remembered for the compelling heroines  Monimia and Belvidera in those two plays. Critics have lauded the tenderness of the two characters, and especially the love scenes between Belvidera and her husband in Venice Preserved. “More tears have been shed for the sorrows of Belvidera and Monimia than for those of Juliet and Desdemona," wrote Sir Walter Scott. For a century, Otway's tragedies were among the most presented in England, after the works of Shakespeare. Still, biographer Samuel Johnson had little use for Otway's plays or him as a man. "It is the work of a man not attentive to decency, nor zealous for virtue; but of one who conceived forcibly, and drew originally, by consulting nature in his own breast."