Thomas Otway eminent English playwright and poet,
So much acclaimed as England's greatest tragedian,
next to William Shakespeare, but very few know it.
Transcendent English playwright of the Restoration.
The Orphan and Venice Preserv'd, renowned tragedy
Venice first played, in sixteen hundred and eighty two,
On this very day, so let us mark the ninth of February
Otway's conviction about an irrational world rings true.
that humanity is unable to control its worst impulses,
crafted but bleak vision, that life is meaningless chaos.
Audiences no easy answers, but finely turned fluences.
Undoubtedly his life evolved in a litany of hard knocks,
Forced to leave Oxford before he received his degree,
Otway died in a Tower Hill tavern, last orders in a box.
Certainly debt-riddled, a life of drama lived in poverty
choked on a piece of bread he had begged out on the street.
A. McTiernan
