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She Stoops to Conquer an Anti-Sentimental Comedy

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She Stoops to Conquer an Anti-Sentimental Comedy She Stoops to Conquer An Anti-Sentimental comedy What is a sentimental comedy? The sentimental comedy of the ۱۸th century was a reaction against the comedy of manners which had been vogue during the Restoration period. It appeals especially to our feelings of sorrow, pity and sympathy. It produces tears rather than laughter. Anti-Sentimental comedy: • Anti-Sentimental comedy is a reaction against sentimental comedy. • The comedy of humor, which Oliver Goldsmith cultivated in the .۱۸th century was a reaction against sentimental comedy • Goldsmith opposed “sentimental comedy” because he wanted to regain the sense of humor, wit and laughter, lost at the hands of sentimental comedy, which was more of a tragedy than a comedy. • Anti-sentimental comedy is a kind of comedy representing complex and sophisticated code of behavior current in fashion circles of society. The prologue • The basic premise of the prologue is that the comic arts are passing away, and that Dr.Goldsmith might prove the doctor, and she stoops to conquer the medicine that will cease its death. Mr. Wood ward enters and speaks apologue. He is drying his eyes as though he has been crying. In verse , Woodward laments to the audience that “the comic muse , long sick , is now a dying !” as an actor trained in comedy , he intuits that his own career will pass away along with comedy itself , since he “can as soon speak Greek as sentiments!” unable to tell moralistic, sentimental stories , he fears for the fate of himself and his brethren. He attempts to tell a moral poem beginning with “all is gold that glitters”, but performs poorly and stops himself. He offers one final hope for his problem – “a doctor this might of medium. He urges the audience to accept the doctor’s comic medicine willingly, to laugh heartly, and stresses that should the doctor’s goal not be achieved, and then they can hold it against him and deny him his fee. ● Analysis: The play’s prologue is useful in the way it provides insight into Goldsmith’s purpose in the play. Obviously, the most elicit purpose is to make the audience laugh. The speaker- Mr. Woodward, who would have been portrayed by a different actor-comes out in mourning, already having been crying, which in a way poses a challenge to the play. If we, as actors and audience, are in a state of sadness, can the play lift out spirits? However, most relevant is the state of affairs sculpted here. The prologue mirrors the trends in theater that writers like Goldsmith were desperately trying to change. At the time of she stoops to conquer, popular theater comedy termed “sentimental comedy” and “laughing comedy”. The former was concerned with bourgeois (middle-class) morality and with praising virtue. The latter, which dated back to the Greeks and Romans and through Shakespeare, was more willing to engage in “low” humor for the sake of mocking vice. It’s worth reviewing the “about ‘An Essay on the theater “section this classic note that explains in more detail the context of the theater of the time, since it will provide an even more in-depth understanding of the purpose suggested in this prologue. But even without such extensive historical research, the prologue brings the audience in with a particular question: can this play remind us that true comedy, which is willing to be silly and unpretentious; is the most entertaining of all? Conclusion: Anti-sentimental comedy this forms is becomes popular with the comedies that were presented by Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘she stoops to conquer’ it’s a kind of comedy representing complex and sophisticated code of behavior correct in fashionable circle of the society. The title of this novel refers to the “stooping down” of Kate Hardcastle from her position in high society to the position as a barmaid. She does this in order to test the feelings of Marlow, to make sure that he loves her for herself and not for her money. In the end, she gets what she wants, and proves a point. She learns that Marlow’s feelings are genuine and demonstrates that love is not controlled by social position. By “stooping down”, she conquered society. She Stoops to Conquer Analysis vexing the kittens. And, Hardcastle says, “It was but yesterday he fastened my wig to the back of my chair, and when I went to make a bow, I popt my bald head in Mrs. Frizzle’s face.” Type of Play ....... .......Now as a young man, Tony has become a fat slob who She Stoops to Conquer is a stage play in the form of a spends most of his time at the local alehouse. Soon he will comedy of manners, which ridicules the manners (way of come of age, making him eligible for an inheritance of 1500 life, social customs, etc.) of a certain segment of society, in pounds a year with which to feed his fancies. Mrs. Hardcastle this case the upper class. The play is also sometimes wants to match Tony with her niece and ward, Constance termed a drawing-room comedy. The play uses farce Neville, who has inherited a casket of jewels from her uncle. (including many mix-ups) and satire to poke fun at the As Miss Neville’s guardian, Mrs. Hardcastle holds the jewels class-consciousness of eighteenth-century Englishmen and under lock and key against the day when Constance can take to satirize what Goldsmith called the "weeping sentimental legal possession of them. comedy so much in fashion at present." .......While Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle discuss the London trip that is not to take place, Tony passes between them and sets Setting off for the alehouse, The Three Pigeons. Mrs. Hardcastle chases out the door after him, saying he should find Most of the action takes place in the Hardcastle mansion in something better to do than associate with riffraff. the English countryside, about sixty miles from London. .......Alone, Mr. Hardcastle laments the follies of the age. Even The mansion is an old but comfortable dwelling that his darling Kate is becoming infected, for now she has become resembles an inn. A brief episode takes place at a nearby fond of “French frippery.” When she enters the room, he tells tavern, The Three Pigeons Alehouse. The time is the her he has arranged for her to meet an eligible young man, eighteenth century. Mr. Charles Marlow, a scholar with many good qualities who “is designed for employment in the service of the country.” Title Marlow is to arrive for a visit that very evening with a friend, The title refers to Kate's ruse of pretending to be a barmaid Mr. George Hastings. Young Marlow is the son of Hardcastle’s to reach her goal. It originates in the poetry of Dryden, friend, Sir Charles Marlow. Kate welcomes the opportunity to which Goldsmith may have seen misquoted by Lord meet the young man, although she is wary about her father’s Chesterfield. In Chesterfield's version, the lines in question description of him as extremely shy around young ladies. .......By and by, Constance Neville comes in for a visit. When read: Kate tells her about young Mr. Marlow, Constance tells her "The prostrate lover, when he lowest lies, But stoops to that her own admirer, Mr. Hastings, a friend of the Marlow conquer, and but kneels to rise." family. Miss Neville welcomes the attentions of Hastings but laments Mrs. Hardcastle’s attempts to pair her with her Plot Summary . “pretty monster,” Tony, in an effort to keep Miss Neville’s .......In a downstairs room of their old mansion, Dorothy jewels in the family. Tony and Constance despise each other. Hardcastle tells her husband that they need a little diversion—namely, a trip to London, a city she has never Tony Plays Trick visited. Their neighbors, the Hoggs sisters and Mrs. Grigsby, .......Meanwhile, at the alehouse, Tony is having a ripping spend a month in London every winter. It is the place to see good time singing and drinking when Hastings and young and be seen. But old Hardcastle, content with his humdrum Marlow come in asking for directions to the Hardcastle home. rural existence, says people who visit the great city only bring Having just arrived in the area from London after a wearisome back its silly fashions and vanities. Once upon a time, he says, trip, they have lost their way. Tony, who resents Mr. London’s affectations and fopperies took a long time to reach Hardcastle’s treatment of him lately, sees a way to get even: the country; now they come swiftly and regularly by the He tells Marlow and Hastings that Hardcastle is an ugly, coach-load. cantankerous fellow and that his daughter is a “tall, trapesing, .......Mrs. Hardcastle, eager for fresh faces and conversations, trolloping, talkative maypole.” But, he says, Hardcastle’s son says their only visitors are Mrs. Oddfish, the wife of the local (meaning himself) is a “pretty, well-bred youth that minister, and Mr. Cripplegate, the lame dancing teacher. everybody is fond of.” Marlow says he has been told What’s more, their only entertainment is Mr. Hardcastle’s old otherwise, namely, that the daughter is “well-bred and stories about sieges and battles. But Hardcastle says he likes beautiful; the son, an awkward booby, reared up and spoiled everything old—friends, times, manners, books, wine, and, of at his mother’s apron-string.” course, his wife. .......Taken aback, Tony can only hem and haw. Then, deciding .......Living in their home with them is their daughter, Kate, a to work a mischief, he tells them the Hardcastle home is too pretty miss of marriageable age, and Tony, Mrs.
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