heroic play

Tragedy of the English Restoration period, fashionable 1660–80. The chief characteristics of heroic drama were strict observance of the unities and careful adaptation of French models, largely from Pierre Corneille. It contained long rhetorical and declamatory speeches, and was usually written in heroic couplets. John Dryden was the chief exponent.

Dryden's heroic plays include The Indian Queen 1664, Tyrannic Love 1669, The Conquest of Granada 1670–71, Aureng-Zebe 1675, and All for Love 1678.