Thomas Shadwell
born 1642?, Norfolk, England
died November 19, 1692, London
English dramatist and poet laureate, known for
his broad comedies of manners and as the butt of
John Dryden’s satire.
Educated at Caius College, Cambridge, and at the
Middle Temple, London, after the Restoration
(1660) Shadwell became one of the court wits and
an acquaintance of Sir Robert Howard and his
brother, Edward. He satirized both Howards in
The Sullen Lovers (1668), an adaptation of
Molière’s Les Fâcheux.
Shadwell wrote 18 plays, including a
pastoral, The Royal Shepherdess (1669), an
opera, The Enchanted Island (1674; adapted from
Shakespeare’s The Tempest), a tragedy, Psyche
(1674–75), and a blank verse tragedy, The
Libertine (1675). He translated Juvenal’s The
Tenth Satyr (1687) and composed bitter attacks
upon John Dryden. He also instituted the New
Year and birthday odes when he became poet
laureate.
Shadwell’s friendship with Dryden ended with
the political crisis of 1678–79, when Shadwell
espoused the Whig cause, producing The
Lancashire Witches, which caused offense with
its antipapist propaganda and attacks upon the
Anglican clergy. Their feud produced three
satires by each in the course of 1682, of which
the best known are Dryden’s Absalom and
Achitophel and his mock-heroic verse satire,
MacFlecknoe. The issue was partly political,
partly a difference of opinion over dramatic
technique, particularly Dryden’s scorn for Ben
Jonson’s wit and Shadwell’s uncritical reverence
for him.
When Dryden was removed from the laureateship
and the position of historiographer royal during
the Glorious Revolution (1688–89), Shadwell
succeeded him. Shadwell continued in Jonson’s
style of the comedy of “humours” in many of his
plays. They form a link between Jonson’s art and
the realistic fiction of the age of Fielding.
The Humourists (1670) was a failure because he
satirized the vices and follies of an age that
did not care for generalized satire. His next
play, The Miser (1671–72), was a rhymed
adaptation of Molière that showed his gradual
shift toward the wit of the comedy of manners.
Epsom-Wells (1672) became his greatest success,
being played for nearly half a century. The
Virtuoso (1676) was an inventive satire of the
Royal Society. In The Squire of Alsatia (1688)
he presented middle-class people and villains,
rascals and thieves. Bury-Fair (1689) showed the
influence of the popular farce that was to put
his fame in eclipse in his later years. His last
play, The Scowrers (1690), was a precursor of
sentimental comedy.
