COPYRIGHTED by flE WAYNE CORDER 1959 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE THE RESTORATION 7/AY OF THE ÏÏORLD: A STUDY OF RESTORATION COMEDY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY JIMMIE w! CORDER Norman, Oklahoma 1958 THE RESTORATION WAT OF THE WORLD: A STUDY OF RESTORATION COMEDY APR r DISSERTATION COMMITTEE ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to express my appreciation to the Graduate Faculty of the English Department of the University of Oklahoma for an environment both helpful and stimulating. In particular, I wish to express my gratitude for the scholarly, kind, and untiring assistance of Dr. John M. Eaines and Dr. John Paul Pritchard, whose interest nurtured and sustained this work from its inception as a paper in their classes to the present completed dissertation, and whose Tuaderstending made plain the attractions of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION.......................... 1 II. THE INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND.............. 2$ Previous Studies................... 24- Social Climate..................... 28 Intellectual Climate ............... $1 III. TEE LITERARY BACKGROUND................ 54- General Characteristics.............. 55 Criticism.......................... 58 Rules and Conventions............... 68 Wit, Judgment, Fancy, Decorum......... 75 17. NOTES ON C0Ü3DY AND TEE FORIiî AND FUNCTION OF RESTORATION COMEDY......... 88 Previous Studies........ 88 Notes on Comedy..................... 97 Tragedy and Comedy.............. 99 Source of Comedy .............. 108 Form of Comedy................... 109 Function of Comedy................ 115 Form and Function of Restoration Comedy ............... 116 Source ............ 118 F o r m ............................ 119 Function........................ 126 V. ETHEREGE............................... 135 Introduction........................ 155 Love in a Tub........................ 139 8he Wou'cE If She Cou'd................ 146 The Man oflïode. ..................... 155 iv Chapter Page VI. LESS3R COMEDIES OF THE RESTORATION......... 176 Introduction........................ 176 Action in the Plays................... 179 Characterization in the Plays.......... 187 The Effect of the Plays................ 202 VII. \TYCHEELET............................... 215 Introduction........................ 215 Love in a W o o d ....................... 220 The GentTeman Dancing-Master.......... 226 The Country~Wife . 7 ^ I I T ........... 252 The Plain Dealer..................... 24-9 VIII. THE MIDDLE GROUND AND THE DECAY OF CO'âEDY. 263 General Characteristics................ 265 The Squire of Alsatia................. 267 ^ve's hast Shift..................... 273 ÿhe Relapse.......................... 278 l!he I'rovok'd Wife..................... 285 The Beata: Stratagem................... 288 The Conscious Lovers ............... 293 IX. CONGREVE............................... 296 Introduction ...................... 296 The Old Batchelor..................... 299 jhe bouble Dealer. ................ 507 Love for Love.........................319 g?he Way of the W o r l d ................. 527 Conclusion.......................... 54-3 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................... 54-5 TES EESTOEATION WAY OF THE WORLD; A STUDY OF RESTORATION COMEDY CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The English comedies of the Restoration have suffered strange fortunes, both on the stage of their own time and with the critics later. Conceived and produced with boldness and vigor, they have since been viewed, if at all, with hesitation and timidity. Even before Jeremy Collier's attack the morality of the comedies had been questioned, and since that time there has been a consis­ tent and almost constant refusal to approach the comedies on their own terms. With the possible exception of Wal­ pole's short essay, there has been scarcely a single study, from 1700 to yesterday, to examine the comedies by their own standards and by the standards of their time without the prejudicial influence of early moralistic denuncia­ tions. As a result, little justice has been done to a group of plays that, at their best, represent the last great English comedy, and, at their peak moments, rank 1 2 with the monimente of English literature of any period, any form or impulse. Despite denials, especially among the more modem critics, most criticism of Restoration comedy has fallen into one of two extremes — the extremes hest represented by the comments of Lamb and Macaulay. Once the moral view of the comedies had been questioned by Collier and others of his time and by Macaulay later, many students felt ob­ ligated, perhaps justifiably, to defend that view. Most critics, however, have tried to answer such men as Collier and Macaulay instead of looking where the real morality of the plays lies. Consequently, they were defeated from the start, because, granted their assumptions, Macaulay and Collier cannot be refuted. Consequently we have the pheno­ menon of a student such as Hicoll, for example, who, though presumably in a position for a more reasoned view, ends by voicing sentiments closely akin to the earlier attacks, that is, by lamenting the immorality of the Res­ toration stage. The only real alternative to this view so far pro­ posed, and one which is just as far from the truth, is the position taken by Lamb. According to this approach, the reader of Restoration comedy will recognize the setting as a make-believe world and will then find amusement and pleasure in these excellent representations of life in Cloud-Cuckoo Land. Some of the best and most recent studies of the comedies — those, for instance, of Ddbree and Pujimura — while valuable, differ from Lamb's view only in degree. In sources contemporary with the comedies them­ selves, the most spectacular remarks upon Restoration comedy occur in the various documents associated with the Collier controversy, documents which, in one way or an­ other, have been responsible, or partly so, for the ill repute into which Restoration comedy has fallen at various times in its history. Counter to these more or less vio­ lent attacks and vastly more important are the calmer views available in prefaces and dedications to some of the plays and the comments of several critics of the time, especially John Dryden and John Dennis. Since that time opinions have been many and varied, consistent only to the degree that they fall into the two extremes of criticism of Restoration comedy as artificial merriment or obscene jest. Rot until the nineteenth cen­ tury do the opinions begin to appear which, second in im­ portance only to the documents contemporary with the comedies, are particularly associated with the history of the criticism of Restoration comedy. In 1819 Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Comic Writers appeared, including a lecture on Wycherley, Con­ greve, Vanbrugh, and Farguhar. Introducing that lecture, Hazlitt suggested the artificial note that was to be so frequently sounded later as characteristic of the English comedies of the Restoration: Comedy is a 'graceful ornament to the civil order; the Corinthian capital of polished society.' Like the mirrors which have been added to the sides of one of our theatres, it reflects the images of grace,of gaiety, and pleasure double, and completes the per­ spective of human life. To read a good comedy is to keep the best company in the world, where the best things are said, and the most amusing happen. The wittiest remarks are always at hand to give birth to the happiest conceptions. Sense makes strange havoc of nonsense. Refinement acts as a foil to affecta­ tion, and affectation to ignorance. Sentence after sentence tells. We don't know which to admire most, the observation, or the answer to it. We would give our fingers to be able to talk so ourselves, or to hear others talk so. In turning over the pages of the best comedies, we are almost transported to another world, and escape from this dull age to one,that was all life, and whim, and mirth, and humour. The discussions which follow of four of the principal writers of the period are of value, but the tone had al­ ready been set. It was a tone further defined by Lamb in his essay "On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Age." The comedies of the last age, according to Lamb, are "a passing pageant, where we should sit as unconcerned at the issues, for life O or death, as at the bafctle of the frogs and mice." They ^William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Comic Writers, Toi. TT of The Complete Wor^s of William Hazlitt, ed. P. P. Howe (London: J, M. Dent ancT3ons, ltd., ly^lj, p. 70. 2 Charles Lamb, "On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Age," in The Dramatic Essays of Charles Lamb, ed. Brander Matthews (London: Obatto and windus, 1891), p. 154-. 5 are not to "be judged., he further indicates, by our usages, since "No reverend institutions are insulted by their pro­ ceedings, for they have none among them."^ Lamb's essay, which is still the best exposition of the artificial land of merry make-believe found by so many in Restoration comedy, continues: They are a world of themselves almost as much as fairyland. The Fainalls and the Mirabels, the Dorimants and the Lady Touchwoods, in their own sphere, do not offend my moral sense; in fact, they do not appeal to it at all. They seem engaged in their proper element. They break through no laws or conscientious restraints; they know of none. They have got out of Christendom into the land — what shall I call it?