Shadwell, Thomas (1642?-1692), was an English playwright and poet who was poet laureate of England from 1689 to 1692. Shadwell became poet laureate after John Dryden, a Roman Catholic playwright, was dismissed from his government posts, including those of poet laureate, for refusing to swear allegiance to the new Protestant monarch, William III, in 1688 (see Dryden, John).
Shadwell wrote 17 plays, mostly comedies, as well as two operas. His work for the stage brought him great popular success during his lifetime. Many of Shadwell’s dramatic works were influenced by other authors of the 1600’s. In the preface to his first play, the satire The Sullen Lovers (1668), Shadwell acknowledged his debt to the work of the English writer Ben Jonson. Shadwell’s play was based on Les Fâcheux by the French dramatist Molière and imitated Jonson in style. Shadwell’s later plays, such as Epsom-Wells (1672), show the development of a more sophisticated, individual style, and give a vivid picture, with lively dialogue, of London life of the period. Shadwell’s other well-known plays include his highly praised comedy of manners The Squire of Alsatia (1688) and The Virtuoso (1676), a satire on the activities of the Royal Society, an elite group of scientists founded in 1660.
Among Shadwell’s poetry written after his appointment as poet laureate are A Congratulatory Poem on His Highness the Prince of Orange’s Coming into England (1689), Ode on the Anniversary of the King’s Birth (1690), and Votum Perenne: A Poem to the King on New Year’s Day (1692). Shadwell also wrote operas, including an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which Shadwell titled The Enchanted Island (1674).
In 1681 and 1682, a disagreement over dramatic style and politics resulted in a famous exchange of published written attacks between Shadwell and John Dryden. In such works as Shadwell’s The Medal of John Bayes (1682) and Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe, or a Satire on the True Blue Protestant Poet, T. S., the two authors criticized each other’s writing skills, political beliefs, and character. Dryden, the superior satirist, emerged the winner in this exchange. His description of Shadwell as a drunken, overweight writer of dull, unimaginative plays largely defined Shadwell for later generations. Shadwell unsuccessfully attempted to defend himself against Dryden’s attacks in his dedication in Tenth Satire of Juvenal, his translated adaptation of the Roman poet Juvenal’s work, published in 1687.
Thomas Shadwell was born in Norfolk. He studied law at the Middle Temple, one of the Inns of Court in London where lawyers lived and studied, beginning in 1658. He traveled in Europe during the early 1660’s. From the late 1660’s onward, he lived in London and earned his living as a playwright. He died on Nov. 20, 1692, in London.
