
Marriage a la Mode
By John Dryden
1673
First Published
3.42
Average Rating
103
Number of Pages
Whether for love or ambition, for parental approval or reasons of state, marriage has complicated the lives of all who enter into it. First performed in 1671, Dryden’s Marriage à la Mode portrays the motives high and low that make marriage the pivotal institution of a nation. Like Dryden’s best tragicomedies, Marriage à la Mode has a double plot. The hopes that marriage excites and the regrets it suffers, the possibilities it opens and the opportunities it denies, its potential nobility and its vulnerability to decay provided Dryden with plentiful dramatic material. Comedy and pathos intersect in plots that entangle and surprise like marriage itself.
Avg Rating
3.42
Number of Ratings
220
5 STARS
15%
4 STARS
30%
3 STARS
40%
2 STARS
11%
1 STARS
4%
goodreads
Author

John Dryden
Author · 15 books
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information. John Dryden (19 August [O.S. 9 August] 1631 – 12 May [O.S. 1 May] 1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Walter Scott called him "Glorious John."