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The Development of Congreve Ti-Ie Dramatist in Relation to Restoration and Eighteenth- Century Comedy ‘

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The Development of Congreve Ti-Ie Dramatist in Relation to Restoration and Eighteenth- Century Comedy ‘ THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONGREVE TI-IE DRAMATIST IN RELATION TO RESTORATION AND EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY COMEDY ‘ Thesis. for the Degree of Ph. D. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY LAURENCE BARTLETT 1970 IIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I... 3 nflTIl'IIOOQfl 4210 LI B RA R Y THE‘E‘S Michigan State ' University w This is to certify that the thesis entitled THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONGREVE THE DRAMATIST DI RELATION TO RESTORATION AND EIGH TEEN 'IH-CEN TORY COMEDY presented by Laurence Bartlett has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for _Ph_‘D'__ degree in M I a //I ,- ‘ {5(4’V/x/4/zr 5C &%V Major professor 7/23-20 Date 0-169 Af'wf'” I“ ‘3 amgmc av ‘5 - - "OAS & WW 1 RAM Rmnrnv mr . : REMOTE STORAGE RSA PLACE l—tTRETUTTN BOX to remove this checkout from your record. TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due. DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE 20!! Blue 10/13 p:/CIRC/DateDueForms_2013.indd - pg.5 ABSTRACT 'HIE DEVELOPMMT OF CONGREVE ‘IHE DRAMATIST BI RELATION TO RESTORATION AND EIGHTEEN'D-i—CENTURY C(MEDY By Laurence Bartlett ‘Ihe comedies of William Congreve are invariably considered to represent the quintessence of Restoration correct, with the result that the plays are approached in terms of the Restoration social and intellectual milieux and dramatic conventions vhich reflect, if not the morale, the tastes of the predominantly aristocratic audience. Consequently, the plays' relationship to the kind of comecbr thich was to evolve in the first quarter of the eigiteenth century is frequently ignored. Because Congreve was an artist, sensitive to the changes that were taking place inside and outside the world of the theater, it is reasonable to suppose that his comedies contain evidence of and; transformations. This paper supports the thesis that Congreve's comedies gain in interest and meaning if they are related to both Restoration and eigi teenth-century comedy, and that Congreve's develOpment as a dramatist may be explained with reference to the plays' changing relationships to the two comic tralitions. The introductory chapter deals with sons of the major trends discernible in the criticism on Congreve. This is followed by a brief examination of Congreve's early work, the novel Incomita, which reveals a dramatic and critical mind at work, Laurence Bartlett later put to effective use in the comedies. The main body of the dissertation that examines the individual comedies with specific attention to plot, theme and characterization, and their relationship to Restoration and eigiteenth-century comedy. The discursive plot and the Iredominantly cynical attittde towards love and narriage expressed by conventional Restoration characters relate The Old Bachelgr to the earlier dramatic mode. But there is also some indication in the characterization that Congreve is moving towards a more indulgent and benevolent view of human nature. The Double Dealer, on the other hand, is similar in both concept and effect to eighteenth- century comedy. The overtly didactic purpose now controls all aspects of the play. The structure of the play is divided into two: the conflict between moral abs olutes is confined to the main plot, thile the Restoration elements are relegated to the subplots. The result is that the moral focus is clear and the play's seriousness intensified. In reversing many Restoration donne’s, Congreve also reflects a change in sensibility which comes to typify eighteenth-century comedy. These two plays, therefore, exemplify respectively two different approaches towards comedy which are reconciled in the last two comedies. The plot of Love for Love has all the variety of The Old Bachelor, but because all the lines of action arise directly from the young couple rho are now given greater dominance in the Laurence Bartlett play, a greater structural unity is achieved. The division between the main plot and subplots is also retained, but due to the fact that the young couple are themselves a blend of Restoration and sentimental traits, the difference between the two levels of action is less obvious. The theme also brings together the two modes. It deals not only with the courtship between the lovers but also with what was to become the predominantly eighteenth-century theme of the relationship between marriage and materialism. While the main characters possess many characteristics of their counterparts in eighteenth-century comedy, those in the subplots relate more readily to Restoration comedy. In as Way of the World, Congreve avoids the excesses of the first two comedies and refines upon the fusion attained in the third play. As the plot evolves around the young couple, who now serve as the centrifugal and centripetal force of the action, no division is felt between the different levels of action. The theme deals with the reSpective values of courtship and mrriage, but now a fine balance is maintained between a witty and materialistic attitude towards life so that there is no last-minute recourse to sentimentalism as in Love for Love. he characters belong to the same ambivalent universe which illustrates both cynicism and benevolence. Consequently, the plot, theme and characterization are so fully integrated that all the elements in the play belong to a world which demonstrates both the values of Restoration comedy and those which were to prevail in eighteenth-century comedy. THE DEVELOPMENT OF C CI‘IGREVE THE DRAl~iATIS T IN RELATION TO RESTCRA'HON AND EIQTTEENTH-CETTURX COI-‘IEDY By Image Bartlett A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOC TOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English m Tin .. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ... THE EARLY YEARS: INCOGNITA III. THE OLD BACHELOR ... THE DOUBLE DEALER 52 V. LOVE FOR LOVE ... .0. 9A THE'NAI OF THEIHORLD 0.. 136 CONCLUSION ... 176 BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 179 lN'IRGDUCTION To see William Congreve as anything other than a Restoration dramatist may be considered at worst irrelevant and at best casuistic. Ever since William Hazlitt's "Lectures on the English Comic Writers" (1819) Congreve has been grouped with William 1-.ycherley, Sir John Vanbrugh, George Farquhar and, since John Palmer's The Comedy of Manner-g (1913), with Sir George Etherege. It has been the general tendency to see the plays of Congreve as the apex in the triangular develOpment vhich Restoration comedy is thought to present, rising with the works of the insouciant Etherege and the mordant Wycherley, and descending from Congreve's plays to the more overtly mcral and sentimental comedies of Vanbrugh and Farquhar. mat Congreve brings to the comedies a more refined sensibility cannot be disputed, but because the critics are inclined to view his plays as the quintessence of Restoration comedy, they frequently ignore elements in them which anticipate many of 1 those foum in eighteenth-calmly comedy. Without simplifying 1. Recent critical works which approach the dramatists on their om terms are Dale Underwood's Etherege and the Seventeenth-Century Comedy of Planners—(New Haven, 1957); Rose A. Zimbardo's t-nLcherley's Drama (New York, 1965), and Eric Rothstein's George Farggar (New York, 1967). l and distorting the main tenor of their arguments, it is possible to distinguish four major trends in the varied and stimlating criticism on Congreve - the moral, aesthetic, formal and historical - all of which treat Congreve's plays within the context of the Restoration. Believing that the plays reflect the immorality of the age and the Jaded taste of the audience, the moralists concern themselves with content rather than form and stress the grossness and the apparent lewdness of the subject matter. Representatives of this school are J ereuy Collier's A Short View of the Innnoralitz, and Profaneness of the Enth Stage (1698): Samsl Johnson's life of Congreve in The Lives of the 2222 (1781), Horace Walpole's “Thoughts on Comedy“ (1798), and T. B. Macaulay's critique in "The Edinburgh Review“ (181.1) of Leigl Hunt' s introduction to The Dramatic Works of Excherlez, Omen. Vanbflgh, and Fgguhar ( 1840). But as Congreve and many of his contemporaries believed that the purpose of comedy was to reflect the follies and vices of their society, it was natural fcr than to reject the more overtly didactic comedy advocated by these critics. Charles Iamb's essay, "(n the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century" (1821), and Elmer Edgar Stoll's "Literature and Life" (1927). on the other hand, dispense with the problem of morality, but only at the expense of relegating the plays to m amoral world of art, remote from.everyday reality, with its om laws. Although Lamb does not necessarily dew the connection between the world of the plays and the social. life of the Restoration he, as well as Stoll, believes that the characters are there neither to instruct us not exalt us but simply to amuse us. Consequently, he supposes that our rural sensibilities are held in abeyance. Both Lab and Stall imply that the plays are created in vacuo, and so they reject the idea that a work of art is a statement made by an artist and, as such, reflects those attitudes and mores thich consciously or otherwise influence him. he formalists accentuate the scintillating wit so pepular with the Restaratim gallant, but they ultimately believe that the plays lack intellectual substance, depth of characterization, and a broad vision. Typical of this approach are William Hazlitt's "lectures on the English Comic Writers" (1819), W. M. Ihacbray's me Mb Humourists of the fighteenth Centm (1953), George Meredith's On Com and the Uses of the Comic Spirit (1877), and H. T. E. Perry's Tne Comic Spirit in Restaation Drama (1925). While appreciating the verbal dexterity of Congreve, these critics unfortunately over- 100]: the shaping hand of the dramatist who frequmtly uses the We to reveal the folly and virtue of the characters.
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