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"[A] play, which I presume to call original": Appropriation, creative genius, and eighteenth-century playwriting
Studies in the Literary Imagination, Spring 2001 by Kewes, Paulina
Granted that by mid-eighteenth century "truly original" composition was held up as an ideal, contemporary playwrights need not have suffered debilitating anxiety of influence on account of Shakespeare.54 On the contrary, they could draw comfort from the example of a universally acclaimed modern genius who was also a wide-ranging appropriator. Moreover, within the framework of the contemporary dramatic poetics, some materials were less objectionable than others. That is to say, though one's credentials as an original writer could be in jeopardy if specific textual debts had been incurred, historical sources were routinely accepted as legitimate foundations for plays. "The most celebrated characters of all ages and nations," wrote Thomas Wilkes, "the most remarkable events lie open to the creative genius of the dramatic poet, under whose hands they rise to light, with additional lustre of strong fancy, and harmonious numbers to embellish them" (5). William Duff, too, conceded that:
A Poet possessed of the most sublime and extensive original Genius, finding either in the records of history, the traditions of his country, or the events of his own times incidents great and surprizing enough to captivate the imagination, will sometimes rest satisfied with these (without giving himself the trouble to invent others), and think only of displaying them to the utmost advantage in poetry. (128-29)
This tolerance of the use of historical sources led to a paradoxical situation, for tragedy-a form at once more dignified and more challenging than comedy-- was also one in which originality was easier to come by. There were many reasons why eighteenth-century playwrights selected historical subject matter for representation in their tragedies-to address the political concerns of the day, to glorify the native past, or to cater to the audience's interest in far-off lands and climes stimulated by the British empire's expansion55-yet the dramatists were also keen to capitalize on the wealth of characters and storylines that could be gleaned from native or foreign history in the knowledge that the genre of historical tragedy held out the prospect of gaining credit for invention and originality.
Foreign pasts were more promising in this respect than native lore. One could score points simply by choosing unfamiliar historical setting and story. The novelty then could be underscored through a contrast with the overworked Greek and Roman themes. The Prologue to Young's Busiris reminds the audience of the stale wares with which they have been treated of late-"Long have you seen the Greek and Roman Name, / Assisted by the Muse, renew their Fame"-so as to alert them to the freshness of the Egyptian tale about to unfold: "Yet ne'er has Albion's Scene, though long renown'd, / With the stem Tyrants of the Nile been crown'd."56 Young's pretensions were instantly mocked by an anonymous pamphleteer: "notwithstanding what the Prologue says, he had better contented himself with the Heroes of Greece and Rome, than to have travelled to Egypt to form a greater Monster than the Nile produc'd" (Critical Remarks 58). Even so, later dramatists were not deterred from experimenting with a variety of remote settings, the comparison between exotic and classical history itself soon becoming a cliche. John Home's Prologue to Alexander Dow's Zingis (1769) ("taken from the Tarich Mogulistan, or History of the Mogul Tartars")57 and Arthur Murphy's Prologue to his own Alzuma (1773) (based on "the history of the Spanish conquests in AMERICA")58 are typical of this trend. Following the predictable jibe at classical tragedy-"Too much the Greek and Roman chiefs engage / The Muses care,-they languish on our Stage," Home extolls Dow's creative acumen evident in his dramatization of Tartar history (a task for which Dow is uniquely qualified, having recently translated from the Persian tongue "The History of Hindostan"):59
