Thomas Shadwell

Thomas Shadwell was probably born in Norfolk in 1642. As he says himself in the preface of his play The Libertine, he has the birth and education of a gentleman, without having the fortune. In 1656 he enters the college of Cambridge, then studies law at the Middle Temple in London followed by some years of travel abroad, notably in Ireland and France. In about 1663, he marries an actress and begins his dramatist's career in 1668 with a comedy of manners entitled The Sullen Lovers that meets with a very honourable success. He writes seventeen plays, succeeding more especially with comedy interspersed with lyrical and musical passages, as is then the vogue in England. An unconditional admirer of one of his predecessors, Ben Jonson, he is also a great connoisseur of the French classic theatre and adapts numerous works of Molière, Corneille, Quinault or Rosimond. He also lends his pen to other authors of his time to perfect lyric adaptations and is thus solicited by John Dryden to transform his comedy The Tempest adapted from Shakespeare, into an opera. But his friendship with Dryden is short-lived and the virulent fight, by interposed pamphlets that they will continue throughout many years is very damaging to him. Starting mildly with divergent opinions that they both have of Ben Johnson, this dispute festers and reaches its climax when politics enter the frame. Shadwell becomes a convinced whig, then a defender of the revolution of  1688, whereas Dryden takes his place in the adverse camp of the tories.
Yet, if the invectives of Dryden blemish his reputation, his comedies of manners and humour, are much appreciated by the public. Typical of the Restoration theatre, they are quite pertinent portrayals of the society of the day and Shadwell is probably one of the authors who describes his contemporaries with the greatest sharpness. An obese, coarse and sometimes indecent character, according to his enemy's statements, this accomplished professional also precursor of the sentimental comedy, is however appreciated by the intellectuals of his day from the Duke of Rochester to other dramatists such as Etherege and Wycherley. If he possesses neither the finesse nor the elegance of these last, his theatre is nevertheless lively, written with an undeniable comic vivacity. In his Diaries, Samuel Pepys doften refers to him and never fails to underline the successes that he encounters. Weakened by illness, he is forced to resort to opium to relieve his suffering and dies from an overdose in 1692.