The Tragedies of the Last Age

The Tragedies of the Last Age is a work by Thomas Rymer, an English literary critic. In this 1678 publication, Rymer critiqued the plays of Jacobean dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. He argued that their works did not adhere to the principles of classical tragedy. Rymer advocated for dramatic action to be probable and reasonable, to instruct through moral precept and example, and for characters to represent either idealized types or average members of their class. He also coined the expression "poetic justice". Rymer's critical approach was rooted in French formalist Neoclassical criticism, and he later published A Short View of Tragedy in 1693, where his Neoclassicism was even more stringent, leading him to criticize Shakespeare's Othello as a "bloody farce".1