Unit Three “Rakes and Poets”

1. Unit Three“Rakes and Poets” Lesson Four: Masters of Comedy

2. Classical Drama • Basically religious • The choric yearnings of a people to find meaning.

3. English Drama • ca. 1100 is also religious • not in touch with classical sources.

4. Quen Queritas • Latin for ”who are you looking for?” • Performed on Easter morning, the three women looking for Jesus in the tomb. • There were also a number of traditional Bible stories (Noah and Abraham especially interested them) to help the illiterate people learn the Bible.

5. Everyman • Written 1450 • tradition culminates with this play • An allegory.

6. Classical Drama Translated • In the late 1400s Greek and Roman plays finally translated to English • This is infused to the natural English dramatic tradition

7. Seneca’s Influence in the Renaissance • classical writer wrote tragedies almost always about revenge. • -blood • -daggers • -poison • -ghosts • -moral

8. Flourishing Theater • In the 1600s the English theater is flourishing • Shakespeare • Jonson • Beaumont & Fletcher • Webster • Marlowe

9. Comedy of Humours • In the early 17th century, comedies based on characters who had an overflow of one of the “humours” or bodily fluids. • Jonson is very famous for this type of play • For good disposition, all of the humours should be balanced in the body.

10. Blood/Sanguine • The traits are • kindly • joyful • amorous

11. Phlegm/Phlegmatic • The traits are • cowardly • unresponsive • lacking intellectual vitality

12. Yellow Bile/Choleric • The traits are • obstinate • vengeful • impatient • easily aroused to anger

13. Black Bile/Melancholic • The traits are • excessively contemplative • brooding • affected • gluttonous • satiric

14. Then Theaters Closed • By 1642, it’s over. The theaters are closed for the Civil War and interregnum. • In 1660, the theaters reopen and many plays are resurrected from the 1630s, especially Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher and Ford are favorites.

15. Drama Was Wide Open • The old crop of plays was mainly concerned with asking big questions. • The new drama tends to be amoral and focus on manners. • Perhaps it was the harshness of the wars and the interregnum or living under strict Puritan rules and always thinking. No one really wanted to do that anymore.

16. The London Stage. • Emmett L. Avery and Arthur H. Scouton • One of the best sources of information on the theater of this period is • Five parts made up of eleven volumes covering almost daily the stage of this period. • Covers financing, the theater company, what the theaters were like, how characters were developed.

17. Introductions to the London Stage • The introductions of the work are available separately and give an excellent overview of the Restoration theater. • Vol 1, 1660-1700 • Vol 2, 1700-1729 • Vol 3, 1729-1757 • Vol 4, 1747-1776 • Vol 5, 1776-1800

18. Seminal Work • Another volume to learn about the period is Robert D. Hume’s The Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century. • If you’re at all interested in this material, Hume’s work is a must-read.

19. Dens of Vice • Often the “sparks” would fight and yell in the pit. • Lots of prostitutes and “orange women,” who did sell oranges to quench the thirst, but also sold themselves sometimes. • Lots of dark corners in which to hide. • Noisy and crowded places.

20. Women and the Theater • Women on the stage for the first time. • Opens up the sexual issues in the plays • Breeches roles are popular, and we see them in Fidelia and Margery Pinchwife • Could show off a pretty leg!

21. Third Nights/Publication • Playwrights made their money on the third night a play was presented. They earned that night’s box office. • Also earned the sixth, ninth, twelfth night and so on. Rare to go beyond a sixth night. • Also made some money on the play’s publication if it was popular • sometimes as much as £50--more than a teacher made in a year

22. Role of Drama • During this period subject to large debate. • Is it exemplary or is it entertainment? • Almost all sided with exemplary, but the playwrights pushed the envelope

23. Sex Comedies • Restoration drama has a reputation for being sexy and frank, even to the point of being crude • The 1670s were the worst. • There was a definite run of what are now known as the “sex comedies” with playwrights pushing further and further the limits of what they could show on stage.

24. Comedy of Manners • “A comedy concerned with the intrigues, usually amorous, of witty, sophisticated members of an aristocratic society. The actions of those who oppose or ineptly imitate the manners of that society are the subjects of much raillery and laughter.” (Beckson and Ganz)

25. Two Waves • Popular in two waves during the Restoration, from 1668-1676 • Etherege and Wycherely are the masters, and when they stopped writing the form died out • Then again in 1691 through about 1700 • most famous example The Way of the World

26. “The Gay Couple” • the witty lovers who are never seen acting much like lovers. • To us they seem rather brittle and artificial.

27. The Rake • A male character who loves wine, women and song. • You can’t trust them around your wives and daughters • In most comedies, they are “reformed” through the love of a good woman. • You can’t help but like them as they usually aren’t bad. Just Cavalier.

28. The Fop • The fool who apes society and men of wit, but who is rather stupid and in love with himself. • There are a variety of Fops, but for today we saw Etherege’s Fopling and Wycherley’s Sir Foppish.

29. Names Give Clues • Pay attention to the names in a Restoration play. • They often give us a clue to the personality of the character. • Horner makes “horns” (the sign of a cuckold) • Fidelia is faithful • Mr. Sparkish is spark-ish, but not a true spark (the opposite of fop)

30. Debate about the Plays • As time goes on, more recent critics have been arguing that Restoration drama has deep philosophical questions at its heart, or perhaps deep social introspection. • Hume argues against this, and I do as well. • Wit was the important thing for the Court writers we are looking at. • People like Etherege and Wycherley were displaying their own brilliance for the most part.

31. Some Biography • Born around 1635 • Became ward of grandfather when father died in exile in France during the Protectorate. • Apprenticed to a lawyer and admitted to the Inns of Court 1659 • By 1663 had left law, become friends with Charles Sackville

32. Restoration Ideal • After his first play 1663/64 season admitted to the “Merry Gang” • Not a professional writer. Mostly a diplomat • Several mission for Charles II • Spent most of James II’s reign as Resident to the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire in Ratisbon, Germany.

33. Final Days • Went into exile to France after Revolution of ’88 • He died in relative obscurity in Paris sometime around 1691.

34. Plays • The Comical Revenge (1664) • She Would if she Could (1668) • The Man of Mode (1676)

35. First Performance • First performance Dorset Garden theater on 11 March 1676, with King Charles II in the audience • Betterton acted Dorimant and Mrs. Betterton, Bellinda; • William Smith, acted Sir Fopling Flutter. • Elizabeth Barry is listed as having played Loveit;

36. Rocherter-Dorimant? • Casting may have been to encourage the audience to identify Dorimant with the earl of Rochester. • Barry was then Rochester's mistress; • Rochester was as fond of quoting Edmund Waller as is Dorimant; • Betterton "dressed himself to resemble Rochester."

37. Extremely Influential • Dorimant became almost the prototypical courtier-rake • Sir Fopling Flutter is surpassed by only one of the fops who followed, Vanbrugh’s Lord Foppington from The Relapse (1696).

38. Questions to Ask • What kind of play is it? • It’s a comedy of manners, yes, but is it satire? • Is it meant to instruct, or be used as an exemplum? • The question is: Is Dorimant meant to be admired?

39. Richard Steele on the Play • acknowledged in Spectator no. 65 (1711) that the play is widely considered the pattern of genteel comedy • cited selection of incidents and speeches to argue Dorimant considerably less than "a fine Gentleman ... honest in his Actions, and refined in his Language." • Rather, he is "a direct Knave in his Designs, and a Clown in his Language" and "this whole celebrated Piece is a perfect Contradiction to good Manners, good Sense, and common Honesty; ... there is nothing in it but what is built upon the Ruin of Virtue and Innocence.... I allow it to be Nature, but it is Nature in its utmost Corruption and Degeneracy."

40. John Dennis on the Play • Replied that corrupt and degenerate nature were proper subjects of ridicule and ridicule the proper subject of comedy. • Comedy does not exhibit moral patterns; it invites laughter. • Dorimant pleases because he is true to life; "a young Courtier, haughty, vain, and prone to Anger, amorous, false, and inconstant. He debauches Loveit, and betrays her; loves Belinda, and as soon as he enjoys her is false to her." The play gives "a true Resemblance of the Persons both in Court and Town, who liv'd at the Time when that Comedy was writ," as is proved by everyone then having remarked that Dorimant was a true picture of the earl of Rochester.

41. Fundamental Similarities • Steele and Dennis, fairly typical representatives of the two sides, agree on several fundamental points.: • Dorimant is an accurate representation of a court wit of the period--the play "mirrors" its age. • Dorimant morally reprehensible. • plays can and do seriously influence the behavior of audiences and readers.

42. Where they Disagree • They disagree primarily about whether comedy should be exemplary or satiric, about whether it presents patterns for emulation or characters which provoke corrective laughter.

43. Four Centers of Interest: • Fopling, who’s not necessarily connected to the rest of the play; And what do we make of him? Is he a figure of satire or just of comedy? • Dorimant’s affairs with Loveit and Bellinda; • Courtship of Dorimant and Harriet; • The marriage of Young Bellair and Emilia

44. What do we do with Dorimant? • He seems to have fallen for Harriet, the “good woman,” but at the same time he’s promising to go to the country to court her, he’s trying to make another assignation with Bellinda and telling Loveit that he’s only interested in Harriet for her money. (See also II, 263) But he is also undeniably glamorous.

45. Loveit and Bellinda • But we also have to look at Mrs. Loveit and Bellinda with the gaze of contemporary readers. • Loveit is far too unreasonable in her passion. Many times Bellinda and Dorimant point this out to her. This is a terrible lack of self-control. • Bellinda knew what Dorimant was like--she even says “Had you seen him use Mrs Loveit as I have done, you wou’d never endure him more” (2:226), so her fall in inexcusable. Why should we pity her when she walked into trouble deliberately. She should have had more control. Control is a very important quality during this period.

46. Harriet • Very self-controlled. • She might love Dorimant, “but he shall never know it” (2: 235) • Montague Summers, a rather eccentric Edwardian critic called her “a perfectly callous little baggage with a vile tongue.” • She’s certainly able to manipulate her mother and she’s an expert at social games (see her interaction with Young Bellair 3:1) • she’s quite nasty to Loveit at the end of the play.

47. William Wycherley • “problematic because the history of Wycherley studies hinges upon a bitter paradox. In his own day Wycherley was considered to be a moral satirist of the seriousness and stature of Juvenal; yet from the nineteenth century to the present he has been thought successively to be: a monster of moral depravity; a writer of artificial comedies of manners that are "holidays from the sublime ... and the real"; a closet Savaranola, who restrained his neurotic rage while he was writing his first three plays only to have it burst forth in his "truly disturbing" last play; and, most recently, a writer of sex farces.” (Dictionary of Literary Biography)

48. Early Function of Drama • change in the understanding of how a drama functions in relation to its audience. In the Restoration and very early eighteenth century a satiric play was thought to operate by displaying vice and folly and exposing them to make them ridiculous in the sight of the audience. The play, it was thought, holds up images of vice, and the spectator, recognizing them, laughs them to scorn and contempt. The underlying assumption in this kind of moralistic writing was, as Pope put it, that "Vice is a monster of so fearful mien/ As, to be hated, needs but to be seen."

49. Drama in the Age of Sensibility • “18th c progressed, theories of associationism that had been formulated by John Locke and popularized by Joseph Addison led playwrights and critics to hold an entirely different view of how drama operates upon the minds and sensibility of an audience. From the eighteenth century, we have thought that audiences imitate in their own behavior what they see on a stage. Therefore, if we see on stage attractive characters who behave immorally, we are drawn to emulate their behavior with the consequence that we become immoral. We commonly hold this view still, for we think that watching violence in a film makes us violent,” (DLB)

50. “Manley” Wycherley • Famous for his “plain dealing”. • Supposedly a very warm and kind person.