ABSTRACT
The historians of English literature have usually classified John Crowne as a writer of dull tragedies, and it is significant that he gained his first success as a playwright in heroic drama. Although the couplets in Crowne's first heroic play are as good as Settle's in The Empress of Morocco, they are of a very mediocre quality. During the years 1680 and 1681, when the religious and political turmoil was at its worst, Crowne expended his energies in adapting older tragedies. For theatrical effects Crowne relied to a noticeable degree upon supernatural agencies, especially ghosts, of which one finds specimens in seven of his tragedies. Crowne's last extant comedy, The Married Beau is also a work of considerable artistic merit. It is especially noteworthy for its form, affording a rare instance of Fletcherian blank verse in realistic comedy. Critical opinions of Crowne's merits as a comic poet vary considerably.
