Otway, Thomas (1652-1685), was an English Restoration dramatist. He is best remembered for Venice Preserved (1682), a tragedy in blank verse—that is, poetry written in unrhymed lines of 10 syllables, with every other syllable accented. The drama is a story of love and betrayal set in Venice, Italy. Venice Preserved was as popular as many of William Shakespeare’s plays until the middle 1800’s. Otway wrote two other important tragedies, Don Carlos (1676) and The Orphan (1680). He also wrote the comedies Friendship in a Fashion (1681) and The Atheist (1683), and adapted plays by Shakespeare and the French dramatists Molière and Jean Racine. Otway also wrote an autobiographical poem, The Poet’s Complaint of His Muse (1680). Otway was born on March 3, 1652, near Trotton, in West Sussex. He died in poverty on April 14, 1685.
