The Rival Ladies

The Rival Ladies (1664), Dryden's second play, features strong female leads in comical competition. Women had just been admitted, for the first time, onto the English stage, and trouser roles like those in The Rival Ladies fully exploit FTM crossdressing comic potential. (The queen herself had recently begun a fashion for women wearing men's breeches and stockings. ) Charles II shared the palace with his mistresses, so the "rival ladies" of this drama were "drawn from the life." Interwoven with the comedy is a Spanish melodrama plot which gives full play to Dryden's sublime eloquence. The final act contains tender and memorable poetry about selfless love. -The Kraken Series offers the only editions of Dryden's plays that fully explain all archaic language, slang, historical references, and also all the sometimes perplexing syntax employed by Dryden, who wrote in English but often thought in Latin. Kraken does for Dryden what Folger did for Shakespeare.