Essays on the Stage

Arguments over the English theater take a personal turn in these two prefaces from the late seventeenth century. Thomas D'Urfey answers Jeremy Collier's criticism of his plays in the preface to The Campaigners, published in 1698. His reply mixes defense of the playwright's craft with pointed remarks about Collier's religious position and loyalty to King William. A second, anonymous preface accompanies a 1699 translation of Bossuet's Maxims and Reflections upon Plays and presses the case against the theater itself.

Joseph Wood Krutch's introduction sets these opposing voices within a wider dispute about comedy and morality. He considers how the stage's defenders answered their critics, and whether they addressed the purposes of comedy clearly enough. The collection offers readers of theater history and literary criticism a close view of a public argument in which religious authority, political allegiance and the freedom to portray human faults meet.