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The five plays included in this volume William Wycherley's "The Country Wife," Sir George Etherege's "The Man of Mode," William Congreve's "The Way of the World," Sir Richard Steele's "The Conscious Lovers" and Richard B. Sheridan's "The School for Scandal" are the most distinguished comedies written during an especially exciting and innovative period in the London theater and English society. This Norton critical edition offers an authoritative text for each play and a unique collection of documents and critical essays (ranging from Charles Lamb to the present) for a deeper understanding of them.
An exploration of the ways in which Restoration comedy was performed, using the costume, customs, manners and behaviour of the age as a way of understanding its theatre and drama. It also considers problems encountered in early twentieth century revivals of plays by authors such as Etherege, Dryden, Congreve and Farquhar.
John Dryden was first published in 1976. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. This annotated bibliography represents a comprehensive updating of Samuel Holt Monk's earlier work, also published by the University of Minnesota Press, John Dryden: A List of Critical Studies Published from 1895 to 1948 (out of print). Since the publication of that earlier bibliography, the number of studies devoted to Dryden has more than tripled, and thus this new bibliography is essential for scholars of Dryden or related aspects of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English literature. This volume contains four times as many entries as the earlier volume, and there is an extensive introduction by Professor Latt which surveys the historical shifts in critical opinion of Dryden. The new volume incorporates all of the listings contained in the first one. The entries include works that focus directly on Dryden, those that discuss Dryden's works in the context of other writers, and those that investigate material of general importance to Dryden studies. Dissertations from American, German, English, and French universities are included. Complete bibliographic information is provided for virtually every entry. The listings are grouped in nine categories, and there is an additional section which covers festschriften and other collections of essays. Works of exceptional value and those which develop new points of view are so designated. The publishing history of each item is included along with the standard bibliographic information. The index includes topical as well as author entries.
If the Renaissance was the Golden Age of English comedy, the Restoration was the Silver. These comedies are full of tricksters attempting to gain estates, the emblem and the reality of power in late feudal England. The tricksters appear in a number of guises, such as heroines landing their men, younger brothers seeking estates, or Cavaliers threatened with dispossession. The hybrid nature of these plays has long posed problems for critics, and few studies have attempted to deal with their diversity in a comprehensive way. Now one of the leading scholars of Restoration drama offers a cultural history of the period's comedy that puts the plays in perspective and reveals the ideological function they performed in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century. To explain this function, J. Douglas Canfield groups the plays into three categories: social comedy, which underwrites Stuart ideology; subversive comedy, which undercuts it; and comical satire, which challenges it as fundamentally immoral or amoral. Through play-by-play analysis, he demonstrates how most of the comedies support the ideology of the Stuart monarchs and the aristocracy, upholding what they regarded as their natural right to rule because of an innate superiority over all other classes. A significant minority of comedies, however, reveal cracks in class solidarity, portray witty heroines who inhabit the margins of society, or give voice to folk tricksters who embody a democratic force nearly capable of overwhelming class hierarchy. A smaller yet but still significant minority end in no resolution, no restoration, but, at their most radical, playfully portray Stuart ideology as empty rhetoric. Tricksters and Estates is a truly comprehensive work, offering serious critical readings of many plays that have never before received close attention and fresh insights into more familiar works. By juxtaposing the comedies of such lesser-known playwrights as Orrery, Lacy, and Rawlins with those of more familiar figures like Behn, Wycherley, and Dryden, the author invites a greater appreciation than has previously been possible of the meaning and function of Restoration comedy. This intelligent and wide-ranging study promises is a standard work in its field.