THE RULE OF THE FATHER: ABSOLUTIST MONARCHY AND CONTRACTUALISM IN THOMAS OTWAY’S VENICE PRESERV’D

Two opposing theories, namely absolutism and contractualism, dominated the political scene in england in the seventeenth century. the father as the symbol of absolute authority, in particular, found ample representations in the political writing of this period since the proponents of absolute rule theorised on hierarchies of power by repeatedly drawing analogies between the father’s paternal authority over the family and that of the king’s over the country. in keeping with the political imagination of the time, the playwrights turned to the familial and domestic issues, interconnecting the lives of the ordinary people with the larger issues of the state. it became commonplace to read the plays structured around family members and domestic issues as reflections of larger matters of political and social order. written immediately after the popish plot, thomas otway’s venice preserv’d (1682) has been conventionally categorised as a tory statement against the threat of a popular uprising. it is true that otway structured the play around the events of contemporary popular politics. yet, reading venice preserv’d from a strictly limited political viewpoint is to disregard otway’s dramatic power to reflect the diverse social and political dynamics prevailing in stuart england. the aim of this paper is to analyse venice preserv’d against the socio-political backdrop of stuart england as a country on the verge of a transformation from absolutist monarchy into a more egalitarian political structure.