What Cato Did: Suicide, Sentimentalism, and the Drama of Emulation

Much recent criticism of Joseph Addison's Cato (1713) regards the tragedy as determinedly resistant to its eponymous protagonist's stoic heroism. Cato, it is argued, critiques Cato. But this wasn't how immediate contemporaries experienced play. For many commentators, was a model not only be applauded but also imitated. In essay, I take seriously disconnection between current interpretation and reception. first attend tragedy's fifth act, where we see concerted attempt both flag fallibility place critical frame around problematic spectacle suicide. second part then consider that an instrumentalist view play nonetheless became canon. Here, trace Richard Steele's appropriation his project reform stage, staked claims for cultural moral efficacy theater on avowedly emulative (and sentimental) drama. And argue belated insistence all-too-humanness works sentimentalize character so paradoxically opens up very possibility imitation seemingly seeks foreclose.