John Dryden: Marriage A-la-mode

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New Mermaids is a series of over sixty modernised and fully annotated classic plays, with an active program of new editions. New Mermaids are edited and updated by experienced teachers who are internationally recognised as authorities in their field. They are ideal for, and accessible to, actors, theatre-goers and students and are printed in a clear, easy-to-use format, with annotations below the text and a comprehensive introduction. 

Dryden's audiences in 1671, both aristocratic and middle-class, would have been quick to respond to the themes of disputed royal succession, Francophilia and loyalty among subjects in his most successful tragicomedy. In the tragic plot, written in verse, young Leonidas has to struggle to assert his place as the rightful heir to the throne of Sicily and to the hand of the usurper's daughter. In the comic plot, written in prose, two fashionable couples (much more at home in London drawing rooms than at the Sicilian court) play at switching partners in the 'modern' style.

The introduction of this edition argues that Dryden's own ambivalence about King Charles and his entourage, on whom he came to rely more on more for patronage, manifests itself in both plots; most of all perhaps in the excessively Francophile Melantha, whose affectation cannot quite hide her endearing joie-de-vivre.