Regicide and Restoration: English Tragicomedy, 1660-1671. (R

Maguire, N. K., 1660-1671. Pp. xvi + 276. Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 35.00[pounds].

THE non-comic corpus of English plays from the 1660s has long laboured under a burden of opprobrium. Awash with experimentation and derivation, the first attempts of Dryden, Orrery, the Howards, and others come down to most readers only through the brusqueness of theatre historians such as Allardyce Nicholl, for whom they were |drivelling, unreal, passionless theorizings'. Even in a strongly engaged modern study such as Nicholas Jose's Ideas of the Restoration in English Literature these early works are largely written off as propaganda, mere endorsements …