Ghent University Faculty of Arts and Philosophy Reading the Material Culture and the Poetics of Superfluity in The Man of Mode Paper submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of “Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde: Engels-Spaans” Arnaud Thaler August 2013 Prof. Dr. Sandro Jung Content 1 Literature Review .................................................................................................................... 3 What is Restoration Comedy? ................................................................................................ 4 Historical Contextualisation ................................................................................................... 9 Who is the Man of Mode? .................................................................................................... 12 “The man at Westminster” ................................................................................................... 14 "The world’s a stage” ........................................................................................................... 17 2 Extensive Characterisation .................................................................................................... 21 Wits and Non-Wits ............................................................................................................... 23 The Fop and the Rake ........................................................................................................... 28 3. Textuality, Materiality and Performativity ........................................................................... 37 4. A Life of Luxury: Reading the Material Objects in The Man of Mode ............................... 46 The Mirror ............................................................................................................................ 49 The Fan ................................................................................................................................. 56 The Periwig .......................................................................................................................... 63 The Cravat ............................................................................................................................ 71 5. Works Cited .......................................................................................................................... 80 2 1 Literature Review 3 The Man of Mode or Sir Fopling Flutter is a comedy written by George Etherege in 1676 and is widely regarded to be a prime example of a Restoration comedy. The playwright utilised his understanding of Restoration society to convincingly portray and criticise some members of the court while simultaneously creating a play filled with wit and eloquence. This thesis aims to provide some insight into the methods employed by Etherege and the influence of the culture of excess on The Man of Mode. To achieve this goal, the thesis will be divided into four chapters. The first of these will consist of a literature review, encompassing contrasting academic views on the nature of Restoration comedy, the importance of events leading up to the Restoration, the identity of the titular “Man of Mode”, the influence of religion and the relation between life and the theatre. The second chapter will discuss the oppositions between, firstly, the wit characters and the non-wit characters and, secondly, the character of the fop versus that of the rake, while still contrasting academic opinions on the matter. A relatively short penultimate chapter will focus on the changing views on textuality, performativity and materiality, while a concluding chapter will apply all previously discussed matters to The Man of Mode. This final chapter will utilise case-studies of material objects employed in the play to provide the necessary contextualisation. In general terms, this thesis aims to provide some introductory research into the importance of material culture and luxury as part of aristocratic and Middling Class self-fashioning in the Restoration period. What is Restoration Comedy? Prior to discussing the material culture, a sound theoretical framework must be established. This will be achieved, firstly, by comparing a selection of scholarly texts on Restoration comedy, and Etherege in specific. After introducing this first section by defining and delimiting the term Restoration comedy, a historical overview of the social environment in which the play was written will be provided. Following this, a selection of ideas which are 4 frequently discussed in Restoration scholarship will be compared and assessed. The ideas which featured most prominently in scholarship and were, therefore, selected for discussion are the identification of the titular “Man of Mode”, the religious language and criticism expressed in the play, and the cross-pollination of theatre and everyday life. The second part of the theoretical chapter will oppose some terms and characters of the play. This will involve the extensive characterisation of the rake and fop, with the aim of creating a set of characteristics and attributes which will enable the connection of certain characters to their respective metaphorical readings. The oppositions that shall be scrutinised are, firstly, the wits in contrast to the non-wits, and secondly, in relation to the first opposition, the stock character of the fop as opposed to the rake. One point that will become blatantly obvious is the inherent lack of research on the actual material culture in the Restoration period. Before one can discuss research on Restoration comedy, some introduction on the nature and content of this dramatic sub-genre must be provided. In other words, what is Restoration comedy, how can one differentiate it from other forms of drama in the same period and why has relatively little research been done on the subject? While many scholars discuss some aspect of Restoration comedy, either as predecessor to modern drama or as a field of study as such, few take the time to define the characteristics of the genre. Robert D. Hume admits that the categorisation of Restoration comedies poses some difficulties and, in his article “Theory of Comedy in the Restoration”, he concludes that “[n]ot the most capacious of pigeonholes will accommodate more than a limited selection of ‘Restoration comedies’” (318). This difficulty of defining and characterising Restoration comedy was also encountered by numerous other scholars (amongst others Powell, Nicoll and Wilkinson) and finds its origin in the relative diversity between the plays. Paradoxically, some authors such as Michelle Blaser argue that once authors had found dramatic devices that appeared to be popular, they reused these plot devices. This custom resulted in “formulaic” plays where the 5 audience rejoiced, not as a consequence of the originality of the story, but for “the wit and sexual antics involved” (8). A comparison to modern Hollywood blockbusters is hardly necessary to emphasise further. Hume provides an extensive identification of sub-categories of Restoration comedy, borrowed from Allardyce Nicoll, but also points out the “incongruous bases” and “awkwardly” identified plays (304). According to Nicoll, all comedy of the period can be divided into 6 categories: Jonsonian, intrigue, Dryden, manners, farce, and sentiment. Hume emphasises that the bases for some of these categories appear somewhat arbitrary and the distinctions between each category are less straightforward than they are being represented. In Hume’s words: “Dryden was neither sui generis nor consistent; many Jonsonian plays have ‘intrigue’ plots [and] so do farces” (304). The problematic nature of Nicoll’s categorisation becomes more apparent in the light of Powell’s, seemingly, equally valid division. Throughout her article “George Etherege and the Form of a Comedy”, Powell utilises such terms as comedy of judgement, comedy of criticism, comedy of manners and comedy of experience without clarifying or differentiating between each individual concept. Does this signify that, according to her, there are clearly visible and generally known differences between each category? I would argue that this is not the case and that Powell classifies plays according to a set of characteristics relating to the plot or plot devices. This distinguishes her from Nicoll in the sense that the latter takes into account properties, not only of plot, but of style, ideology and ancestry. In the article “Etherege and a Restoration Pattern of Wit”, David R.M. Wilkinson suggests another collection of categories, all of which, according to his vision, are “clearly- defined categories” (497). He provides a, “by no means exhaustive”, list including the comedy of intrigue, of humours, of manners, of Spanish romance, the festive comedy, social, political and anti-puritan comedy. Some of these categories correspond with divisions proposed by Nicoll, but additional, politically based characteristics for classifying and differentiating 6 Restoration comedies have been added such as the comedy of Spanish romance and anti- puritan comedy. This leads back to the earlier questions regarding the definition of Restoration comedy. As exemplified above, various divisions of Restoration comedy have been provided, each as valuable in its respect. It suffices to remark that the general tendency in scholarly research is to utilise both Restoration comedy and comedy of manners as synonyms, although Powell’s division emphasises a considerable inaccuracy in doing