SOURCE: "Joanna Baillie," in The Closet Drama of the Romantic Revival (Poetic Drama and Poetic Theory 35), edited by James Hogg, Universität Salzburg, 1978, pp. 308–19.

Below, Mathur argues that Baillie's plays are, for the most part, dramatically unsound but acknowledges Baillie's strength as a poet.

The dramatic works of the major poets of the Romantic Revival show the varied manifestations of the phenomenon of the closet drama and its distinguishing characteristics. But there were quite a few other writers also who, by choice or necessity, pursued the same path and made their own contribution to the form. It will be interesting to see what this contribution was and how it stands in relation to that of the major poets.

The earliest and, historically, the most important of these writers was Joanna Baillie who received perhaps a little more than her due of praise from a number of her illustrious...