>>Dryden - no mean poet himself - even rewrote Antony and Cleopatra into the
>>incredibly dull All for Love.
>
>Dull it may be for Steve, who may not appreciate Dryden's thesis that women
>as much as men are as "full of craving and as vain, and as busy and blind,"
>working their way to ruin - all for love.  However, more to the point, All
>for Love is no more a "rewrite" of Antony and Cleopatra than Puccini's
>Manon Lescaut is a rewrite of Massenet's Manon.

Well, according to my professors it was (18th century not my field), and
I can certainly see their point: it's the Antony and Cleopatra story
re-written according to the Aristotelian unities.  Also, although I seemed
to have misplaced my copy of the play, I dimly recall a preface by Dryden
in which he himself explicitly courts comparison to the Shakespeare play.
This could be a trick of memory, I admit, but I suggest it as a place to
look.  Dryden did this kind of competition more than once.  His Age of
Innocence is a deliberate rewrite of Milton's Paradise Lost to adapt it as
a drama.  There is record of him asking the aged Milton for his blessing on
the project and Milton pointing out the difficulty of representing God on
stage.

Dryden by me was a great lyric poet and a terrible dramatist.  The songs
from his plays soar above the plays themselves.  Purcell's music to
Dryden's operas is wonderful.  Dello Joio's setting of the Ode to St.
Cecilia ("From harmony, this universal frame began") is a little-known gem.

Steve Schwartz