The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer The Newsletter of the EC/ASECS N.S. Volume 33, Number 1: March 2019 James E. May, editor 1423 Hillcrest Road Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17603 U.S.A. The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer, March 2019 85 The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer N.S. Volume 33, Number 1: March 2019 and “assess the complex technique by which Voltaire fashions new material Published by the East-Central American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies through extensive copying and borrowing from his earlier publications.” Our archaeology desk received a link from Hugh Ormsby-Lennon to an Editor: James E. May illustrated BBC News web-posting 31 October: “Blenheim Palace Dredging 1423 Hillcrest Road Project Reveals Hidden Rooms.” Thirty rooms, long hidden within the Lancaster, PA 17603 bridge at Blenheim, were uncovered during the removal of 400,000 tons of silt [email protected] from the lake about the bridge. These rooms, many with fireplaces and including what looks to be a theater, were built c. 1708 under the direction of Executive Secretary: Peter Staffel Sir John Vanbrugh, but there is no evidence they were ever used. (Vanbrugh’s Humanities Dept., West Liberty University expenses led to his falling out with Sarah Duchess of Marlborough and he was 208 University Dr., CUB #130, banned from the property.) Experts suppose the “habitable viaduct” was West Liberty, WV 26074 flooded after Lancelot “Capability” Brown “created lakes on the estate in the [email protected]; Tel. 304-336-8193 1760s.” The dig discovered sunken boats and graffiti dating back to 1760s. The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer is distributed twice a year (spring and fall) to The Intelligencer needs reviewers for: James G. Buickerood (ed.), From members of the East-Central American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. For Enlightenment to Rebellion: Essays in Honor of Christopher Fox (Bucknell membership information, contact Executive Secretary, Peter Staffel, at his address UP, 2018), pp. xix + 302; frt; 4 illus.; index; 17 essays on medieval to modern above. Annual dues are $25 for regular members; $15 for students; $40 for joint literature--only those on the long 18C should be reviewed. Also: Beyond 1776: member-ships. For information about the EC/ASECS, see the current EC/ASECS Globalizing the Cultures of the American Revolution, ed. by Maria O’Malley homepage, www.ec-asecs.org (maintained by Susan Cherie Beam). The next and Denys Van Renen (U. of Virginia Press, 2018), pp. x + 259; index; 10 submission deadline is 15 September 2019. essays treating such consequences of the Revolution as the flow of ideas to the Continent and “surprising exchanges in . the West Indies and in the first Through this newsletter, scholars and teachers can pass along to colleagues news, penal colonies of Australia.” Also: Memoirs on the Life and Travels of Thomas opportunities, and practical tips normally not communicated in scholarly journals. Hammond, 1748-1775, ed. by George E. Boulukos (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018); Members are encouraged to submit book reviews, notes and essays, notices, pp. lxix + 303; illus.; index--the first publication of Hammond’s MS, accounts of travel, conferences, concerts, and exhibitions, pedagogical advice, light illustrated with his own drawings (from England, he traveled in France, Spain, verse, and queries. They are asked to report news of their publications, lectures, and Italy)—Kristina Straub notes that this “fascinatingly diverse life” offers grants, and on-going projects. Please submit contributions as an attachment in Word insights into the status system, entertainment and sports, and the experience of 2003 or in RTF or on paper. Contributions to these pages may be reproduced in the religious differences. Also: Annika Mann, Reading Contagion: The Hazards newsletters of ASECS Affiliate Societies unless the article states that the author's of Reading in the Age of Print (U. of Virginia Press, 2018), pp. xiii + 257; one permission must be obtained. Pertinent articles are indexed in The Annual reviewer calls it an “energetic study of contagion as both metaphor and Bibliography of English Language & Literature, MLA International Bibliography, medico-descriptive term for writers”; another notes its connections between The Scriblerian, and Year's Work in English Studies. “science, medicine, and book culture.” Also: Anton M. Matytsin and Dan Edelstein (eds.), Let There Be Enlightenment: The Religious and Mystical The EC/ASECS gratefully acknowledges financial support from Robert D. Hume, Sources of Rationality (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018); pp. [vi] + 304; illus.; index; Evan Pugh Professor of English, Pennsylvania State University. The EC/ASECS 12 essays from a 2014 symposium, including such essays as Matytsin’s “The Newsletter was founded in January 1978 by Leland D. Peterson and later edited by Struggle for Light in the French Enlightenment,” Edelstein’s “The Aristotelian W. R. McLeod (1981-1983) and Kevin Berland (1983-1986). The newsletter was Enlightenment,” William J. Bulman’s “Secular Sacerdotalism in the Anglican entitled The East-Central Intelligencer from 1988 until February 2005. Indices for Enlightenment, 1660-1740,” Jo Van Cauter’s on Spinoza & the Quakers, and preceding volumes appear in the issues of May 1992, September 1996, September Jeffrey D. Burson on “Alternate Genealogies of Enlightenment”). Also: Trevor 2001, January 2005, January 2008, and October 2011; the January 2005 contains a Ross, Writing in Public: Literature and the Liberty of the Press in Eighteenth- register of EC/ASECS newsletters 1978-2004. Penn State University Library has Century Britain (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018); pp. vi + 301; index. archived n.s. Vols. 1-33; Old Dominion University has archived issues from 1987- 2009. Issues for May 2007 through March 2018, the indices for 1992-2011, and a Cover illustration: We gratefully reprint Giuseppe Maria Crespi’s Tarquin table of contents for issues since December 1986 are all available at the Newsletter and Lucretia (c. 1695-1700), oil on canvas, 88 x 79.5 inches, from the Samuel Archive of the EC/ASECS website noted above. H. Kress Collection in The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Gallery 30). / Focus Section—Italian Painting of the 17th and 18th Century / NGA Online Editions, https:// nga/collection/ art-object-page.41640.html. The Man of Mode and Its Influence on 18th-Century Comedy (The EC/ASECS Presidential Address, 27 October 2018) By Matthew Kinservik The Man of Mode is among the most famous English stage comedies, partly because it endured in the repertory well beyond its initial run and era and partly because it seems so neatly to represent that era, for good or for ill. That representative function of The Man of Mode is what interests me today because it figures into the play’s significance at a key moment of generic change: the early eighteenth century. Most obviously, Etherege’s play was central to the dispute between Sir Richard Steele and John Dennis, who used it as a negative and positive example, respectively, of English comedy. And as recent scholarship has shown, this was more than just a literary debate about the comic genre; rather, it was a dispute laden with political significance. It occurred at a moment of generic change as satiric comedy was moving away from the model offered by Etherege and his contemporaries, but (perhaps surprisingly) this moment also saw an increase in the number of annual performances of The Man of Mode and other “Restoration Comedies.” That seems counterintuitive. And it raises the question of what, exactly, early eighteenth-century theatergoers saw in the play that amused them? It seems so inconsistent with all of the values and comic emphases of the newer plays of the era. Who would possibly confuse an Etherege play with a play by Farquhar or Centlivre or Steele? And this question gives rise to another. Was amusement even the basis of the play’s enduring popularity in the early eighteenth century? In posing this question, I mean “amusement” in a very specific sense. Did the play give rise to comic laughter in the audience based upon the same terms that other, more contemporary plays did? In one sense, there is no way to answer this question. We don’t have reviews or diary entries that can help us to answer this question. But even so, I think we can venture an educated guess based upon two data points: (1) the critical debates about comedy in the early decades of the eighteenth century; and (2) our own responses to last night’s performance of the play by the American Shakespeare Center at the Blackfriars Playhouse. In short, I’m interested in looking at why The Man of Mode was, and remains, an important play because it is, to my mind, an oddly unfunny play. It’s a comedy that does not occasion much laughter nowadays, and, perhaps, never did. Why, then, has it endured? And given that, why were you, like me, so grateful to be a spectator at last night’s performance? The answer I will venture is that The Man of Mode has always been a costume drama. From its premiere, it has functioned as a period piece meant to challenge and please its initial audience by presenting a stylized portrait of a certain sort of high life in London. Ever since, it has done the same for critics and audiences who have found that portrait to be compelling, repulsive, or simply convenient for their own purposes. Theatre historians might object to the generic phrase “Restoration Comedy” because it is based on a small, unrepresentative sample of late seventeenth-century plays, yet it has proven to be a powerful concept that endures in classroom editions of English drama. 2 The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer, March 2019 The characters, values, dialogue, and plot of The Man of Mode seem designed to make it serve as the representative play of its era.