Rowe, Nicholas (rō), 1674–1718, English dramatist. An ardent Whig, he was able to gain various government posts during the course of his life. In 1715 he became poet laureate. His first two plays, The Ambitious Stepmother (1700) and Tamerlane (1701), established his reputation as a popular playwright. Soon afterward he wrote his best plays, The Fair Penitent (1703) and Jane Shore (1714); both are stories of men's cruelty to women that prefigure the domestic tragedies popular later in the 18th cent. Rowe is also well known for his edition of Shakespeare (1709), which supplied valuable textual and biographical data and divided the plays into acts and scenes.

Bibliography

See J. Canfield, Nicholas Rowe and Christian Tragedy (1977)

Rowe, Nicholas

(born June 20, 1674, Little Barford, Bedfordshire, Eng.—died Dec. 6, 1718, London) English writer. His plays, which did much to assist the rise of domestic tragedy (in which the protagonists are middle-class rather than aristocratic), include The Ambitious Step-Mother (1700), Tamerlane (1702), The Fair Penitent (1703), The Tragedy of Jane Shore (1714), and The Tragedy of the Lady Jane Grey (1715). He is also remembered as the first to attempt a critical edition of William Shakespeare (The Works of Mr. William Shakespear, 1709, 1714). His own poetry includes odes and translations. He became poet laureate in 1715. Rowe is regarded as the foremost 18th-century English tragic dramatist.