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Irish dramatist (1660–1746)

Thomas Southerne (12 February 166026 May 1746) was an Irish dramatist.

Thomas Southerne, born on 12 February 1660, in Oxmantown, near Dublin, was an Irish dramatist. He was the son of Francis Southerne (a Dublin brewer) and Margaret Southerne. He attended Trinity College, Dublin, in 1676 for two years. In 1680, he began attending Middle Temple, London, to study law but was drawn away by his interest for theater. By 1682 he was greatly influenced by John Dryden and produced his first play, The Loyal Brother, which was performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane by the King's Company. Southerne bought his prologue and epilogue from Dryden, who made extra income from his ability to turn such pieces. Despite his friendship with the new playwright, Dryden raised his prices for Southerne". In 1684, Southerne produced his second play, The Disappointment, or, The Mother in Fashion (Kaufman). However, in 1685 Southerne enlisted as an ensign in Princess Anne's Regiment of the Duke of Berwick's Foot. Southerne plays with the idea of a double plot: one path that deals with the tragic fates of the newly interracial African lovers and the other on Charlotte's comical take on finding rich husbands for herself and her sister. Through his double plot, Southerne had hoped to illuminate a "twinned relationship between white women's social representation and black women's invisibility and lose of agency under colonialism's raced visual regimes" (MacDonald). Southerne also emphasizes Oroonoko's honor and writes about how Oroonoko gave a speech on justifying slavery in terms of private property and civil contract. Oroonoko speaks of how their owners have paid for them and now they are a part of their estate and they may not like it, but they are no longer individuals, but pieces of property. Southerne expands the idea that even though the harsh treatments, Oroonoko is willing to come to terms with his situation and make it work.

Thomas Southern's first play, The Persian Prince, or the Loyal Brother (1682), was based on a contemporary novel. The real interest of the play lay not in the plot, but in the political significance of the personages. Tachmas, the loyal brother, is obviously a flattering portrait of James II, and the villain Ismael is generally taken to represent Shaftesbury. After leaving his regiment in 1688 he gave himself up entirely to dramatic writing. In 1692 he revised and completed Cleomenes for John Dryden; and two years later he scored a great success in the sentimental drama of The Fatal Marriage, or the Innocent Adultery (1694). The piece is based on Aphra Behn's The History of the Nun, with the addition of a comic underplot. It was frequently revived, and in 1757 was altered by David Garrick and produced at Drury Lane. It was known later as Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage. The Fatal Marriage is yet another play based on the story of a woman. Like many of his other plays, this too was considered a comedy. Isabella wishes to mourn her lost husband. Isabella finds herself feeling lonely and an outcast from the rest of society. Living in this relatively new world without her husband, Isabella finds herself raped and taken of her innocence by an admirable man in the play who goes by Villeroy. Southerne uses character techniques within Villeroy to display the once innocence of Isabella which enhanced the theme of the play. Southerne was admired for his character technique and was skilled at creating realistic characters and enhancing other characters with the use of newly created personalities. The play was considered to be a tragedy and a serious topic of that time period. Due to the intense tragedy in the play, it became a rather big hit on the stage in which many actresses fought to play the lead role of Isabella and was soon translated from a multitude of languages to be presented on many stages around the world. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "[t]he general spirit of his comedies is well exemplified by a line from Sir Anthony Love (1691) "every day a new mistress and a new quarrel." This comedy, in which the part of the heroine, disguised as Sir Anthony Love, was excellently played by Mrs Mountfort, was his best. He scored another conspicuous success in Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave (1696). For the plot of this he was again indebted to the novel by [Aphra] Behn."

The Wives' Excuse (1669) was a play Southerne wrote in the late 1660s. a comedy that focused on the idea of a woman trapped in an unhealthy marriage. It was one of its kind in that time period and dramatized a serious, intelligent woman living in a corrupt and unethical society. During this time, divorce was a difficult issue to overcome and go through with. The woman, Mrs. Friendall was dismissed by her husband and later resulted in a liking for her suitor. Overall, the play touches up on the subject of inequality in terms of men in relation to women. Often in Thomas Southerne's plays he depicted woman as greedy, selfish, and likely to commit sin. In this piece, a notable character Lady Trickett is considered to be a dirty, sinful woman unworthy of marriage. The play focuses on women such as Lady Trickett being rejected by a seemingly male dominated society. As so, the message is clear in the play as it is for that time period, women who were sinful and simply not pure were not worthy of marriage and a happy life.