The ongoing emphasis in literary studies on the work of literature as cultural artifact, or as one in a number of "texts," literary and otherwise, that derive meaning only from their interdependence, has had surprisingly little impact on Restoration and eighteenth-century theater studies, particularly the discussion of plays themselves. Since the playwright's script is but one factor in any performance, concern for intertextuality should lead to exploration of the mutability of any durable play's meaning, especially in a theater world that constantly evolves, as this one did. Yet, whether located in aesthetics, in political or social issues, or even in the circumstances or personalities around which a play is written, the meaning or significance assigned to that play is almost invariably a fixed one. This critical tendency neglects two remarkable features of drama in the so-called long eighteenth century: the extent to which audiences dictated the content and mood of plays, and the extent to which audiences, theaters, and new plays differed from each other. In prologue after prologue as well as in critical commentaries, playwrights and theater connoisseurs lament that the tastes of audiences--on which a play's success depended--debase the fare proffered. Such objections (and the sheer number of them) point to the subordination of the playwright's aesthetic concerns to audience expectations about a play. (l) This raises interesting questions about those plays that had any longevity during this period but that do not have a readily apprehensible universality of the kind generally attributed to, say, Shakespearian drama. If, as they did, audience demands kept pace with the rapidly changing political and cultural milieus and theater personnel and atmospheres, then in order to appeal to these ever-changing demands the durable plays of this period must be endowed with qualities that are incompatible with the fixed meanings sought for them. An outstanding example of a play with a critical history as remarkable as its endurance on the eighteenth-century stage is one that in fact kept a Shakespearian play from the boards throughout the entire period. John Dryden's All For Love (also known in its own time as Antony and Cleopatra) replaced Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra until 1813. (2) Howard Weinbrot long ago showed the futility of looking to Shakespeare for the key to All for Love, leaving critics still pondering the reason for the endurance of this starkly neoclassical play--one formal to a degree that even Dryden himself expressed nervousness about. (3) The critical dilemma has been confounded by the doggedly traditional approach, however: attention has focused not on those qualities that allowed it to survive chameleon stages and fickle audiences from the Restoration to the Regency, but on uncovering a particular moral, aesthetic, historical, or political meaning. (4) The red herring was perhaps thrown out by Dryden himself: the "excellency of the Moral" promised in the preface (10). Pursuit of this moral, or at least of some pinpointable meaning that makes sense of it, has led to titles like "The Significance of All For Love" (1970) and to assurances that "the value system of the play" lies in a circumscribed historical context (2000). (5) The result of such searches for a single encompassing meaning is that the only consistency amongst the criticism of All for Love is, as Harry Solomon notes, its inconsistency. (6)
