All for Love, or the World Well Lost

All for Love or, the World Well Lost, is a heroic drama by John Dryden written in 1677. Today, it is Dryden's best-known and most performed play. It is a tragedy written in blank verse and is an attempt on Dryden's part to reinvigorate serious drama. It is an acknowledged imitation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, and focuses on the last hours of the lives of its hero and heroine Combining the unities of classical theatre and the style of Shakespearean drama, Dryden creates an elaborately formal production in which fashionable philosophies of the time could be discussed and debated in a public atmosphere. Dryden used the theatre as a forum for testing problematic philosophical, moral and political questions The results of these investigations were to form the basis of his later works