What is heroic tragedy?

Restoration Period  (1660-1700) is one of the most splendid periods in the records of English Drama, it is on the account of the Comedy of Manners. The so-called Heroic Tragedy which had a brief run concurrently with the Comedy of Manners had also a little of popularity, but was too unnatural and artificial and merely a type of French soil. Heroic Tragedy was also called 'Heroic Drama, but Dryden, the main supporter of Tragedy, called it 'Heroic Drama’. These plays were written in the Classical model of the rhymed heroic couplet and later in blank verse tragedy. 

This tragedy was only near tragedy. The theme of the heroic plays was based on the struggle between love and honour, the hero and heroine were cast on the grand scale and their dialogues consisted of elaborate speeches, in rhymed 10-syllabled couplets, full of emotional and bombastic of such kind that its parallel would not be found. The heroes and heroines would show great nobility. This would create admiration by the audience. The play would make people wonder and also excite the imaginations. There was a hero, a heroine, and a villain. 

The villain was a dominating character. From 1660 onwards, the plays were male-dominated, but in the 1670s and 1680s, the focus shifted from hero to heroin. The heroic play flourished for some 20 years and then died a natural death, exhausted by its own excess. Dryden is the major writer of dramatic tragedy. The Conquest of Granada is one of the better heroic tragedies, but Dryden's most successful achievement is All for Love. Other heroic dramatists were Nathaniel Lee and Thomas Otway.