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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
Table of Contents LITERARY / HISTORICAL INFORMATION The Way of the World (1700) is Congreve’s best experimental comedy even though he employs a typical plot formula for a Restoration comedy of manners. The world of the play reflects Congreve’s own society and revolves around a witty young man winning a lady and her fortune after overcoming the obstacles posed by antagonistic parents and other suitors. Both Mirabell and Millamant wish to marry each other and still enjoy the six thousand pounds inheritance that she will receive if she marries the suitor chosen by her aunt. The plot is complicated by the ways of the world. Mirabell has offended Lady Wishfort and is opposed by Fainall and his mistress, Mrs. Marwood. Fainall is a fortune hunter who has set his eyes on Millamant’s money and hopes to have the money pass to Mrs. Fainall so that he can reach it. Both Fainall and Mrs. Marwood undertake a couple of their own schemes to acquire this money. Mirabell and Mrs. Fainall also devise plots of their own to achieve their objective. Finally, Mirabell wins Millamant, and the complex action reaches its resolution. The theater was revived after the restoration of Charles II to the English throne in 1660. The King and his courtiers, who had returned after their exile in France, brought with them French manners and promoted indulgence in frivolous pleasures, causing a collapse of the Puritanical moral code that had existed in England. The sexually permissive court of Charles II set the temper for Restoration literature in general, and theater in particular. The court wits were dramatists themselves and mirrored the polite society in their plays. Dryden aptly described this period as "a very Merry, Dancing, Drinking, / Laughing, Quaffing, and Unthinking Time" (The Secular Masque, Dryden, 1700).
After theaters were reopened in 1660, a new kind of comedy, the comedy of manners, immediately came into being for the aristocratic class of society and flourished until 1700. The focus of these comic plays was on manners rather than on morals. Since women were allowed on stage for the first time to play the female parts, there was much preoccupation in the plays with the theme of sexual relationships. A few dramatists examined the sexual theme in great detail, earning the wrath of Puritan groups. Jeremy Collier attacked the loose morals depicted in the theater in his pamphlet, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698). The pamphlet generated much controversy about the morality of the Restoration comedies, which seemed to take an unrestrained delight in mocking religion and morality. Collier’s fault lies in his holding the dramatists responsible for the views of their characters and failing to make allowances for satiric realism in the plays. Ironically, the plays condemned by Collier are the best reflection of true Restoration society. By contrast, the tragic dramatists of the Restoration, such as John Dryden, were far removed from reality. They presented a fictitious ideal of heroism, which appealed to an entirely unheroic age. Although the tragic plays enjoyed widespread popularity during the Restoration, they are almost forgotten now. It is in the comedies that one finds, if not the faithful mirror of the age, at least a reflection of the intrigues and frivolous conversation that formed the reality of the Restoration aristocratic society. In 1665, following the death of Charles II, James II ascended the throne. After only three years, James II was defeated by William of Orange and his Queen Mary in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. A period of relative calm and stability began in England. 1688 was also the year of Congreve’s arrival in England. Although Congreve is described as a Restoration dramatist, in reality he invented a new kind of comedy. Unlike his predecessors, who merely depicted the age as they saw it, Congreve employed satirical realism, subverting the Themes and conventions of the Restoration comedy of manners. Congreve, therefore, becomes a link to the playwrights of the eighteenth century, such as Goldsmith and Sheridan. Table of Contents | |
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