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Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.
Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.
Excerpt from English Comic Dramatists The idea which underlies true and pure comedy is, as the present writer understands it, that it should furnish cause for mocking but not ungenial laughter by a representation, in the guise of a fable - interesting dramatically - of the various actions, motives, humours, follies, inconsistencies, absurdities, pretensions, and hypocrisies of human life. In doing this, which, as man's literary capacity and his faculty of imagination go, seems to be a most difficult and rarely well-done thing, if the mirror be truly held up to nature, the result - after allowing for some slight conventional distortion of the image in accordance with accepted stage traditions - is Comedy, whether it be after the grand fashion set by Shakspere, or in the mode of Moliere, or in that of Congreve and Sheridan. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
It is well thus to make a somewhat dogmatic definition of Comedy, that the critical reader may know what he is to expect in the selections from our English Comic Dramatists. He will see at once how far afield his selector has been able to go, and where he has had to draw the line. Having regard only to the providing of good and interesting reading, he might have quoted largely from our Romantic Drama, in which our literature is exceptionally rich, or from our Farce Drama, to which we have something of an Italian leaning, but to do this would have required folios, not a single small volume.In making the selections from the Comic Dramatists which are to follow, it has been the endeavour of the author not merely to put together at haphazard a number of comedy scenes that shall amuse and entertain the reader of them, but to give him in a succinct form something which shall thoroughly represent English comedy literature. Each scene from a play is preceded by a sketch of the plot sufficient to make the scene intelligible. A short critical note upon each of the dramatists quoted will also be found in the body of the work
Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.