ABSTRACT
Several tragedies from the 1695–1705 decade entirely avoid music within the play. However, critic-authors like John Dennis, Charles Gildon, and John Oldmixon could use the example of the ancient Greeks, either imbibed directly from classical texts or via France, to justify the inclusion of music and attempt to rehabilitate its use in tragic drama. In his 1693 Short View of Tragedy Thomas Rhymer had insisted inclusion of the chorus was essential, but purely Grecian choruses were not widely accepted or put into practice in the 1690s, either as act dividers or within the acts. Shakespeare, Middleton, Beaumont, and Fletcher provided models from the English tradition for the use of other types of music, particularly songs.
