17th-18th-century English Literature

English Drama after Shakespeare

II:

• Restoration drama
The comedy of manners
 The Restoration Age:

“…such a Restoration was never

seen in the mention of any history,
ancient or modern.” (diarist John
Evelyn, 1660)

“The Restoration of the monarchy was a

restoration of pomp and splendour; a
dash of much-craved colour for a
country sunk in drabness.” (DK History
of Britain and Ireland, 176)

- the “REIGN OF REVELRY”:

“Cheering crowds greeted the
restored King when he arrived in
London on 28 May. [After 7 years of
civil war and 11 more of Puritan
King Charles II, the “Merry Monarch”
sobriety?], Charles wanted to restore
popular celebrations.” (ibid.)
• Reopening of the playhouses in 1660: “the reopened theatres offered
much raunchier fare than had ever been seen before on the English
stage.” (ibid.);

• For the first time, women’s roles were played by actresses rather
than boys in drag;

• Playwright Aphra Behn became England’s first known professional

woman writer.

Aphra Behn

Nell Gwynn
• “Restoration Age” - “became as much a byword for decadent revelry
as the Commonwealth had become for seriousness and sobriety”
(ibid.); “a period wholly given over to frivolity and debauchery”
(Abrams, 1722).
• Yet, there was a serious intellectual interest in the arts (Charles II
was a patron of the arts, loved music and painting, took an interest in
the progress of science and in the theatre).
• The autonomy of the aesthetic:
• the informative and educational functions of literature remain
crucial;
• yet poetry is defined as an imaginative imitation of nature,
written or performed for aesthetic enjoyment.
• Emphasis on: - the moving and entertaining functions of poetry;
- artistry and decorum.
• Hence: the mannerism of style and implausibility of characters and
actions, and the highly artificial quality of the Restoration drama and
poetry;
• but also: their elegant diction and balanced form.
 Royal patronage and patents for shared control
of the London public theatre
- artists, writers, theatre companies looked for patronage from the court
and the great nobles the most characteristic art of the period reflected
the interests and tastes of those who supported it (i.e. the court, the
nobility)
 Restoration Playhouses:

-fully enclosed, roofed structures;

-used artificial lighting;
-staging techniques: moveable and
changeable scenery
-seating pattern: boxes, galleries, the
pit (now the most fashionable part of
the house);
-auditorium - almost as well
illuminated as the stage, spectators
could see one another (seating
arrangement = opera-house style);
-audience capacity: ≈ 650;
-admission prices - relatively high;

(Zwicker, 84-87; Fisk, 11-12 )

Conjectural reconstruction of interior of Drury
Lane Theatre (1674) by Richard Leacroft
The Dorset Garden Theatre, on the Thames (c. 1671) – design
attributed to Sir Christopher Wren
 Restoration Stage:

- the apron/forestage was gradually

cut back to increase seating capacity
actors had to retreat into the scenic
stage, which in time led to more
realism;
- the scenic area – used more and
more as an environment, rather than
a decorative background;
- scenery: painted flats (shutters) that
could be slid offstage and on to
change scene;
- perspective effect – raked stage
(the floor was sloped from front to
back);
- machines: cranes, trapdoors, rolling
platforms – for special effects (aerial
flight, appearance from above, ocean
waves, etc) A scene from Elkanah Settle’s The Empress of
(Fisk, 6-12) Morocco (1673)
A longitudinal section through a Restoration playhouse drawn by Christopher Wren
for the second theatre on the Drury Lane site, which opened in 1674 (the original
Theatre Royal had burned to the ground in 1672). 1: Proscenium arch. 2: Four pairs
of shutters across the stage (=the moveable scenery). 3: Pit. 4: Galleries. 5: Boxes.
The favourite/ politically correct themes:
- the Puritans are the comic butts of comedy & the villains of tragedy;
- the libertinism of the King and Court a considerable amount of
licentiousness on stage, esp. in the treatment of love and marriage.
The new repertoire introduced two “extreme and temporary” fashions:
the heroic tragedy
the bawdy comedy
(1) heroic drama: John Dryden, Thomas Otway, Nicholas Rowe,
Nathaniel Lee
- theme: the conflict between love and honour
- characters: heroes are impossibly brave, “performing gigantic military
feats” (Blamires 137); heroines are impossibly high-minded and attractive;
- plots: excessively complicated; events “serve to fabricate situations of
emotional tension according to standardized formulas” (ibid.);
- language and style: artificiality, bombastic rhetoric, pomposity,
sensationalism:
“The heroic drama of this period too often sacrifices naturalness and artistic
discipline to supposed force of impact and fails to purchase sympathy through
over-selling astonishment” (Blamires 138).
- John Dryden is the commanding figure of
the last four decades of the 17th century; the
author in whose work the image of an age
can be discerned (Abrams 1744); the top
representative of Neo-classicism in English
literature; extremely influential;
Tragedies: - rhymed heroic plays – The
Indian Emperor (1665), The Conquest of
Granada (1670), Aureng-Zebe (1675),
Oedipus (with Nathaniel Lee, 1679) – of
“contrived situational improbability and
emotional extravagance” (Blamires 138),
- one great tragedy: All for Love, or the
World Well Lost (1677), in blank verse – a
re-writing of Shakespeare’s Anthony and
Cleopatra John Dryden
Comedies: witty comedies of manners – (1631-1700)
Marriage a la Mode (1673)
Opera libretti: Albion and Albanius (1680)
(2) comedies of manners and morals: William Congreve, William
Wycherley, George Etherege, Sir John Vanbrugh, George Farquar,
Aphra Behn

= “the real distinction of Restoration drama […], concerned with

criticism of man as a moral and social being” (Abrams, 1733)

-realistic and cynical: they reflected truthfully and accurately an age

characterized by cynicism, immorality, coarseness, depravity,
libertinism;
-brilliantly witty, humorous, with vivid, memorable characters,
clever dialogue, intricate plots;
-themes: power, sex, money, the marriage market;
-greed, superficiality, ignorance, stupidity, immorality are exposed
to ridicule.
 William Congreve (1670-1729): “his
mastery in comedy remains
un-challenged; he brought to
perfection the form which we call ‘the
comedy of manners’” (Blamires 143).
-early comedies: The Old Bachelor and
The Double Dealer (both1693)
-most successful, most humorous, and
most frequently revived: Love for
Love (1695)
-most elegant, wittiest, and “certainly
the finest comedy of the period”: The
Way of the World (1700) – “it has an
air of sophistication perfectly in tune
with the mores depicted.” (ibid.)
- tragedy: The Mourning Bride (1697).
 Oxford Playhouse production of The Way of the World; 13 – 17 April, 2004

Memorable character names: Mirabell, Millamant, Foible, Fainall,

Lady Wishfort, Sir Wilful etc.
All these plays articulate “fictions of authority”:
• Honour “defines the relationship of sovereign and subject and
lends political resonance to the play insofar as it mediates the
moral economy that binds them. The sine qua non of honour,
service, is expressed in the language of debt.”
• Love, loyalty, submission are expressions of that debt owed by
the subject to the sovereign and, figured as wedlock, also
establishes the legitimacy and naturalness of political
relationships in power and domination.
• “Love and honour, in fact, are not really conflictual elements in
many of these plays, but parts of a whole that has been
disrupted through usurpation and exile” (Richard Braverman in
Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1650-1740 93-4).
In this, both Restoration comedies and tragedies are essentially a
reflection of the concerns of the age, and increasingly the realities
they portray are connected with political corruption and moral
decay.
By 1680: - drama breaks its allegiance to the Crown, gradually
becoming both politically independent and more concerned with
the private and the domestic.
- it becomes more aware of the need for a reformation of stage
morals.
- but: withdrawal of patronage some of the most talented
playwrights, including Nathaniel Lee, Aphra Behn and Thomas
Otway, died in poverty in the late 1680s and early ’90s.

During the 1690’s a considerable demand arose for moral reform

in literature and the daily life: Jeremy Collier, Short View of the
Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698) – an
attack on the indecencies of language and situation in comedy, in
the name of the “godly middle classes,” intended to bring about
the “reform of stage manners.”
 18th-century drama:
- less impressive – it expresses bourgeois values of comfort rather
than glory, and esteems trade rather than war.
- a new sort of comedy emerges: “the sentimental comedy” (based
on the notion that man is naturally good), also called “weeping
comedy” (comedie larmoyante) because it “moved the audience not
to laughter, but to tears” (Abrams 1736).
- female professional playwrights (Susannah Centlivres, Mary Pix,
Catherine Trotter, Jane Wiseman, Delarivier Manley) producing
works that are female-oriented in terms of characters and plots.
- A new tradition of dramatic entertainment: opera in the Italian
fashion (which replaces English operatic drama), ballet, and
domestic and sentimental drama.
Congreve’s heirs in the late 18th century:
- Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816): The Rivals (1775), St Patrick’s Day
(1775), The School for Scandal (1777), and The Critic (1779).
- Oliver Goldsmith (ca. 1730-74): The Good-Natured Man (1768) and She Stoops
to Conquer (1773).
 Bibliography
Abrams, M.A. (ed.). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Fourth
edition. Vol. 1. New York & London: W. Norton & Co., 1988.
Blamires, Harry. A Short History of English Literature. Second edition.
London & New York: Routledge, 2003.
Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary
Theory. Penguin Books, 1998.
Daiches, David. A Critical History of English Literature. Vol.2:
Shakespeare to Milton. London: Ronald Press Co., 1975.
---. A Critical History of English Literature. Vol.3: The Restoration to 1800.
London: Ronald Press Co., 1975.
Fisk, Payne Deborah. The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration
Theatre. Cambridge U.P., 2005.
Schneider. Ana-Karina. English Literature: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries (Lecture Notes). Sibiu: LBUS Press, 2013.
The Definitive Visual Guide: History of Britain and Ireland. London: DK
Ltd., Penguin Group, 2011.
Zwicker, N. Steven (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to English Literature
(1650-1740). Cambridge U.P., 1998.