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n 1700, when The Way of the World was performed on the English stage at Lincoln's Inn Fields (a new theatre that William Congreve managed), it was not a popular success. This was the last play Congreve was to write, perhaps for that reason. Since that time, however, this play has come to be regarded not only as Congreve's masterpiece, but as a classic example of the Comedy of Manners. The play is aptly named for two reasons. First, its action takes place in the "present," which means it reflects the same social period during which the play was originally performed. Second, as a comedy of manners, its purpose is to expose to public scrutiny and laughter the often absurd yet very human passions and follies that characterize social behavior. It therefore transcends its time by holding a mirror to the fashionable world in all of its frivolity and confusion while posing something more precious and sensible as an antidote.
As with all comedies of this type, the principle comic material consists of sexual relations and confrontations. Marriages are made for the sake of convenience and tolerated within precise social limits. Affairs are conventional, jealousies abound, lovers are coy, and gallantry is contrived. Dowries are the coin of the marriage realm and therefore they are of central concern in all contracts and adulterous intrigues. Congreve makes clear that the general way of the world may be funny but it is not particularly nice. In the way of all romantic comedies the "marriage of true minds" is finally achieved, but humiliation, cruelty, and villainy are the means by which the action goes forward. His comedy is not intended to remedy the world, of course, but to offer an insightful and amusing view of both its seedy and sympathetic aspects.

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Publié par	The Anglo-Egyptian Bookshop
Date de parution	01 janvier 2007
Nombre de lectures	7
EAN13	9796500118505
Langue	English

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CONGREVE

THE WAY OF THE WORLD WITH AN INTRODUCTION

By SAAD M. GAMAL Cairo University

THE ANGLO-EGYPTIAN BOOKSHOP

165 Mohamed Farid Street Cairo

'ĂŵĂů͕ ^ĂĂĚ ͘ dŚĞ tĂǇ KĨ dŚĞ tŽƌůĚ ĚŝƚĞĚ Ǉ ͬ ƌ͘ ^ĂĂĚ D͘ 'ĂŵĂů ĂŝƌŽ ͗ dŚĞ ŶŐůŽ ʹ ŐǇƉƚŝĂŶ ŽŽŬƐŚŽƉ ͕ ϭϯϭ W͘ ʹ ϭϰпϮϬ Đŵ ͘ / ʹ dŝƚůĞ ĞƉŽƐŝƚ EƵŵďĞƌ ͗ ϭϱϰϳ WƵďůŝƐŚĞƌ͗ dŚĞ ŶŐůŽ ŐǇƉƚŝĂŶ ŽŽŬƐŚŽƉ ĚĚƌĞƐƐ ͗ ϭϲϱ DŽŚĂŵĞĚ &ĂƌŝĚ ^ƚ͘ ĂŝƌŽ ʹ ŐǇƉƚ dĞů ͗ ;нϮͿ ;ϬϮͿ Ϯϯϵϭϰϯϯϳ &Ăǆ ͗ ;нϮͿ ;ϬϮͿ Ϯϯϵϱϳϲϰϯ ͲŵĂŝů ͗ ĂŶŐůŽĞďƐΛĂŶŐůŽͲĞŐǇƉƚŝĂŶ͘ĐŽŵ tĞďƐŝƚĞ ͗ ǁǁǁ͘ĂŶŐůŽͲĞŐǇƉƚŝĂŶ͘ĐŽŵ

THE WAY OF THE WORLD

INTRODUCTION RESTORATION COMEDY (1660-1720) I. Foreign and Native Influences. (1) Restoration Comedy even more than Restoration Tragedy owes its essential features to native influences, contemporary and Elizabethan, rather than to foreign influences. The influence of Mo-liere and of other contemporary playwrights, Italian and Spanish is recognisably there; but it is always limited and on the surface; and Restoration Comedy remains essentially English. The French thea-tre enlivened with a comedy that brimmed with the gayest wit, crowded with an audience that was "fearless, godless and royalist" was bound to enlist the sympathies of the courtiers of "The Merry Monarch", even if some of these had not spent years of exile in France. It would be vain if, in accounting for Restoration comedy, we ignored the influence of the Parisian theatre English play-wrights, inspite of an avowed classicism looked more directly to Paris and Rome than to ancient Italy and Athens. The student of Restoration comedy will not fail to quote whole scenes adapted from the French theatre ; passages are lifted up from the French and transplanted into the English theatre with as little change (2) as translation would permit . But while recognising these bonds between the French and English dramatic activity of the Restora-tion we would do well to realise certain basic differences. In the first place a foreign plot does not mean a foreign at-mosphere. In this respect Shakespeare's example is instructive.

1) See Introduction to All for Love in the same series. 2) "Note for example, the influence of Moliere's L'étourdi on Dryden's Sir Martin Mar-All (1667) and on the third act of The Assignation (1673). Le Dépit Amoureux supplied the basis of the garden scenes of An Evening’s Love (1668). Les Precieuses Ridicules fur-nished material for several plays of Etherege, Crowne, Shadwell and .Mrs. Behn. Shad-well also went to Les Facheux for several scenes of his The Sullen Lovers (1668). Tar-tuffe was s favourite and was not only translated into English but it provided many scenes for Dryden's Mr. Limberham (1678). and Congreve's The Double-Dealer. The list could be expanded, but if would be unnecessary; and the student who is interested in such comparisons mav start with Professor Nicoll's list in A History of Restoration Dra-ma (1660-1700). Cambridge 1928, pp. 171-177.

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Shakespeare borrowed his plots from the annals of ancient history and from the legends of antiquity, but in none of these plays (Mac-beth and Hamlet are good examples) are we aware of the limita-tions of a foreign plot. In the hands of Shakespeare what was for-eign and limited became universal and wide in appeal within, of course, the essentially Elizabethan conventions.

Similary, but with remarkably different results, the Restora-tion dramatists took the French plots as their framework but instead of reproducing the urbanity and finesse of the French, they repro-duced the sensuality and vulgarity of their own audiences. Thus we find in Wycherley, in Etherege and, to a lesser degree, in Con-greve a certain coarseness of manner, a certain rejoicing in flouting conventional morality which is happily absent in Moliere. With all the academic affinities between the French theatre and the English theatre of the Restoration, a deep chasm well-nigh impassable sep-arates the two. Moliere's gay and free laughter, his fine humanitari-anism was more than any of the English dramatists could catch, al-though Congreve at his best could come very near to it. The English. Restoration dramatists were too much of their own age, too much of their own circle, to achieve that broadness of sympa-thy which places Moliere close alongside Shakespeare in the ranks of dramatic writers. Nor did the English dramatists take the French framework as it was. The English temperament with its love for incident and ac-tion was bound to be dissatisfied with the classical orderliness of the French play. The English might avow their respect for classical example but when it comes to practice only a stage bustling with action will hold their attention. Their plots were, therefore, diversi-fied and made more complicated with underplots ; the unified har-mony of the French play fell into chaos in the hands of English Restoration dramatists. Thus we may say that the influence of Moliere and his com-panions, great as that might have been, was not enough to alter in any serious way the national tastes of the English audience or to di-vert the flow of the English dramatic tradition. That dramatic tradition we may trace back to Ben Jonson

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and Beaumont and Fletcher. Jonson's comedy has been called a comedy of "humours" and Restoration comedy, a, comedy of 'man-ners' and the difference in names has unhappily helped to empha-sise the distinctions between the two kinds while blurring the es-sential similarities between them. In the following pages I shall try to point out that while there are enough differences at the extreme points to justify the different names, there is between those two ex-treme points a common ground where the "humours" merge into the 'manners" and where no definite line of demarcation could be drawn between the two.

In 1660 the theatres were re-opened and the dramatic activity which had been suspended since 1642 was resumed. As in the case of tragedy, we find the theatres playing for the first few years after the Restoration nothing but Elizabethan or Jacobean plays. Profes-(1) sor Nicoll gives an impressive list of those Elizabethan and Ja-cobean plays which were favourite with English audiences during the first few years of the Restoration. Of these the most significant perhaps are two plays by Shakespeare (Twelfth Night and The Tempest), three by Beaumont and Fletcher (Maid in the Mill Wom-en Pleas’d and The Mad Lover) three by Shirley (The Grateful Ser-vant, The Witty Fair One, and The School of Compliments), and one by Brome (Sparagus Garden). Of Jonson's comedies seven were frequently acted by the Royal Troupe. These were : Volpone, Epicoene, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair, The Devil's an Ass, Everymas in his Humour and Everyman out of his Humour.

This list of plays shows the preferences of the Resto-ration audience. For Shakespeare's romantic comedy they had but little taste. Pepys thought Twelfth Night was "a silly play". But it is obvious that Beaumont and Fletcher and Jonson were frequently played ; at least Pepys calls Fletcher's The Wild Goose Chase, "the famous play" and it must have been acted pretty frequently to have justified Pepys's epithet. There is in this play the same witty dia-logue, the same relaxation of moral standards that makes such dis-tinct features of the comedy of manners. Professor Nicoll establish-

1) A History of Restoration Drama (1060-1700).

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es the connection between the Fletcher-Jonson tradition and the Restoration tradition when he writes ; "This type of play (The Wild Goose Chase) added to characteristics taken from Jonson gave the comedy of Dryden ; carried one step farther into the realm of aris-tocratic licentiousness, it produced the masterpieces of Congreve".

An unmistakeable Restoration note rings, if faintly in the comedies of these pre-rebellion dramatists. The attitude towards marriage, the tedium of the marriage state which is a distinct note in Restoration comedy makes the material for many scenes in the comedies of Marston, Massinger, Shirley and Brome. Thus Mars-ton's Crispinella anticipates Congreve's Millamant when she de-scribes a husband as a careless, domineering thing, that grows like coral, which as long as it is under water is soft and tender, but as soon as it has got its branch above the waves is presently hard, stiff, not to be bowed but burst ; so that when a husband is a suitor and under your choice, Lord how supple he is, how obsequious, how at your service, sweet lady..." And, again, a distinctly Restoration note rings when Crispinel-la bids Beatrice, "Prithee read no more. My stomach of late stands against kissing extremely. By the faith and trust I bear to my face, 'tis grown one of the most unsavoury ceremonies ; body o' beauty! 'Tis one of the most unpleasing, injurious customs to ladies . Admittedly, this attitude towards marriage which is at the ba-sis of Restoration comedy does not strike the main note in Marston, it comes sporadically and in the form of hints ; but they are signifi-cant hints since they indicate the swing away from Shakespeare's blissful marriages to the "boredom of matrimony" in Restoration comedy. The note rises even higher with Shirley and Brome. The attitude towards marriage as a stultifying institute becomes increas-ingly felt. Thus Rebecca in Brome's Sparagus Garden says, "I see whatsoever shift a woman makes with her husband at home, a friend does best abroad". Nothing could be nearer to the spirit of the Restoration. Swinburne was certainly justified when he spoke of the "gap between Etherege and Fletcher, a bridge on which Shir-ley may shake hands with Shadwell and Wicherley with Brome". But it is not only in the subject matter that we find the gap

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between pre-rebellion and Restoration dramatists bridged. The very conception of the nature and function of comedy is another bond which makes Jonson of the party of the Restoration. Jonson had de-clared that comedy was "a thing throughout pleasant and ridicu-lous, and accommodated to the correction of manners". And, again, in the preface to Epicoene the didactic purpose is emphasised. The ends of all. who for the scene do write. Are, or should be, to profit and delight. Shadwell in the period we are discussing did not have to go back as far as Horace when he declared : If poets aim at naught but to delight. Fiddlers have to the bays an equal right. Shadwell, an avowed admirer and disciple of Jonson had not only tried to revive the "humours" comedy but had stoutly taken up the moral attitude of his master. And Congreve, we feel, is only flatter-ing his audience when in the Prologue toThe Way of the World he professes that :

To please, this has been his sole presence

He'll not instruct lest it should give offence.

He had adopted the moral standpoint earlier in the preface to The Double Dealerwhere he said, 'it is the business of the comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind". With all the notorious licentiousness of Restoration Comedy, the dramatists of that period thought of comedy, in varying degrees of conviction, as "a social corrective". "To recommend virtue and discountenance vice" was its justification. How from this moral standpoint Restoration dram-atists produced notoriously immoral dramas is a subject which will be discussed later. What I should like to stress here is the fact that Jonson's conception of the function of comedy was adopted by Restoration dramatists. Swinburne might have added with full justi-fication that Jonson on one side of the gap shook hands with Shad-well and Congreve on the other.

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II. "Elizabethan" and "Restoration" In the foregoing pages an attempt was made to bring out to the light the ties which connect the pre-rebellion comedy with the Restoration Comedy in England. These ties, significant as they are, should not make us lose sight of the more fundamental differences between Elizabethan and Restoration, Comedy. In fact the gap be-tween Elizabethan drama and Restoration drama, in so far as there could be gaps in the development of a dramatic tradition is much wider than that between pre-rebellion and Restoration drama. We have seen how Pepys, a representative member of the Restoration audience, banishesTwelfth Nightas "a silly play", andA Midsum-merNights Dream "as a most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life". The attempts to adapt Shakespeare to the Restora-(1) tion taste are, in this respect, significant. We may trace the differ-ences between Elizabethan drama and Restoration drama in the fol-lowing points : 1) The first fundamental difference is one of stage condi-tions. The Restoration stage was changing by a gradual process of evolution from the simple Elizabethan stage with its "apron" and "inner" and "outer" stages to the more mechanised and complex modern stage. The Restoration theatre was roofed, artificial lights were used and a curtain was introduced to mark the end of scenes. Scenic effects of a gorgeous nature were used in abundance with (2) the result that words became subservient to scenery These new physical conditions could not but affect the dramatist who is never independent of the conditions of the stage to which he is writing. The introduction of scenery may be said to have deprived Restora-tion drama of the heights of poetic imagination which were the glo-ry of Elizabethan drama. 2) But apart from the changing stage conditions, Restoration Comedy was different from Elizabethan Comedy in essence.

1) See Introduction to All for Love in the same series. 2) The Tempest, adapted by Dryden and D'Avenant Troilus and Sressida, adapted by Dryden.

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Whereas Elizabethan Comedy tended to be creative and original, Restoration Comedy tended to be critical and imitative. The ele-ment of imitation is at the basis of Restoration Comedy. As a mat-ter of fact Restoration Comedy originated in imitating in a ridicu-lous way, the follies, snobberies and abuses of Restoration society. As a result it tended to remain on the surface and to be limited in scope. Elizabethan Comedy, especially Shakespearean Comedy, probes beneath the surface. Shakespeare might describe or ridicule manners but this does not constitute the essence of his drama. Shakespeare goes deeper than the surface of contemporary manners. He describes humanity of all times and all places. His dramas are peopled with characters which in spite of their Eliza-bethan trappings, are essentially human. Restoration drama has Restoration characters. Thus we may say that the distinction be-tween the two types of drama is that while Elizabeth an drama is universal and timeless, Restoration drama is local and contempo-rary.

3) The third point of difference is a corollary of the previous one. As Restoration Comedy set out to strip "the acquired follies" of men it tended to be more realistic, to look for those follies in contemporary society. With this tendency towards realism we find a corresponding disavowal of Elizabethan dramatic conventions. Poetry, the vehicle of the flights of fancy in a Midsummer Nights Dream and As You Like it is forsaken in favour of the more point-ed polished prose of The Man of Mode and The Way of the World. Elizabethan drama, acknowledgedly conventional in conception and structure, depended for its effect on flights of fancy; the use of poetry for its medium was, therefore, in perfect harmony with the whole conception of drama.

Restoration drama tended to reproduce the elegant prose of its society, although, of course, poetry as a medium of comic ex-(1) pression was not altogether discarded The use of prose as a me-dium of comic expression and the introduction of scenic effects on the stage are significant indications of the realistic trend Restora-tion comedy was following.

1) Dryden’s Comedies.