Comedy of Manners
Comedy of Manners

Author: David L. Hirst

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-20

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 1351629905

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First published in 1979, this book traces comedy of manners from the 1660s to the then present — a scope beyond the traditional focus on the Restoration and early twentieth century. It uncovers an underestimated subversive potential and socially critical force in this particularly English dramatic form, emphasising the distinctive subjects and style that distinguish it from more general forms of witty social satire. The author discusses the major comic dramatists of the post-Restoration period; reassesses the significance of Sheridan, Wilde and Coward; and examines the continuation of the tradition in modern writers. This book will be of interest to students of English literature and drama.

The Contrast
The Contrast

Author: Cynthia A. Kierner

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2007-04-01

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 0814783430

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“The Contrast“, which premiered at New York City's John Street Theater in 1787, was the first American play performed in public by a professional theater company. The play, written by New England-born, Harvard-educated, Royall Tyler was timely, funny, and extremely popular. When the play appeared in print in 1790, George Washington himself appeared at the head of its list of hundreds of subscribers. Reprinted here with annotated footnotes by historian Cynthia A. Kierner, Tyler’s play explores the debate over manners, morals, and cultural authority in the decades following American Revolution. Did the American colonists' rejection of monarchy in 1776 mean they should abolish all European social traditions and hierarchies? What sorts of etiquette, amusements, and fashions were appropriate and beneficial? Most important, to be a nation, did Americans need to distinguish themselves from Europeans—and, if so, how? Tyler was not the only American pondering these questions, and Kierner situates the play in its broader historical and cultural contexts. An extensive introduction provides readers with a background on life and politics in the United States in 1787, when Americans were in the midst of nation-building. The book also features a section with selections from contemporary letters, essays, novels, conduct books, and public documents, which debate issues of the era.

The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest

Author: Oscar Wilde

Publisher: First Avenue Editions ™

Published: 2014-08-01

Total Pages: 93

ISBN-13: 1467756547

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Jack Worthing gets antsy living at his country estate. As an excuse, he spins tales of his rowdy brother Earnest living in London. When Jack rushes to the city to confront his "brother," he's free to become Earnest and live a different lifestyle. In London, his best friend, Algernon, begins to suspect Earnest is leading a double life. Earnest confesses that his real name is Jack and admits the ruse has become tricky as two women have become enchanted with the idea of marrying Earnest. On a whim, Algernon also pretends to be Earnest and encounters the two women as they meet at the estate. With two Earnests who aren't really earnest and two women in love with little more than a name, this play is a classic comedy of errors. This is an unabridged version of Oscar Wilde's English play, first published in 1899.

Interpreting Ladies
Interpreting Ladies

Author: Pat Gill

Publisher:

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 9780820316642

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Interpreting Ladies explores the defense by the Restoration comedy of manners of an ideal of aristocratic, conservative, English masculinity against the heavily satirized encroachments of French foppishness and the pretensions of the aspiring merchant class. Using Freud's theory of obscene wit, in which obscene jokes become reassuring testimonies of male privilege, as well as more recent theoretical descriptions of the discursive processes of meaning and desire, Gill considers the position of both the female protagonists and the female spectators in Restoration satire. She sketches the historical events and issues that create the link between morality and rhetoric and that serve to connect each to class and status. Gill posits that the moral indeterminacy and slippage in satiric language is closely linked to male uneasiness about female honesty, and the dramatists' arguments in defense of their satiric treatments of female hypocrisy, duplicity, and sexual desire expose the gap in the moral premise of Restoration comic satire. It is a gap, Gill contends, that has everything to do with women - with female characters and putative female spectators - and it is why she states that "any reading that proposes to account for the equivocal satiric practice of Restoration comedy must therefore of necessity include a feminist critique".

Marriage A-La-Mode
Marriage A-La-Mode

Author: John Dryden

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-06-13

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 1408144263

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Dryden's audiences in 1671, both aristocratic and middle-class, would have been quick to respond to the themes of disputed royal succession, Francophilia and loyalty among subjects in his most successful tragicomedy. In the tragic plot, written in verse, young Leonidas has to struggle to assert his place as the rightful heir to the throne of Sicily and to the hand of the usurper's daughter. In the comic plot, written in prose, two fashionable couples (much more at home in London drawing-rooms than at the Sicilian court) play at switching partners in the 'modern' style. The introduction of this edition argues that Dryden's own ambivalence about King Charles and his entourage, on whom he came to rely more on more for patronage, manifests itself in both plots; most of all perhaps in the excessively Francophile Melantha, whose affectation cannot quite hide her endearing joie-de-vivre.

This Much Huxley Knows
This Much Huxley Knows

Author: Gail Aldwin

Publisher:

Published: 2021-07-08

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9781684337316

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Seven-year-old Huxley searches for a best friend but life is confusing when he doesn't know who is trustworthy.

Good Intentions
Good Intentions

Author: Agnès Desarthe

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 118

ISBN-13: 9780007100958

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a sly, wry novel about how hard it is to do good Sonia is finally settling down. With her husband Julian, she buys a flat in an apartment block in an up-and-coming quarter of the city. And she is pregnant with her first child. Family life begins and it feels good. Yet her new apartment, it is soon obvious, is not the haven she had hoped. And Sonia's beliefs in a decent, peaceful world, her disgust over racism, over poverty, soon make life very difficult for her as she allows herself to be drawn into a vicious and deeply unpleasant war between the odious apartment caretakers and a sad, lost widower who reaches out to her for help. When the threats and bullying slide beyond her control, Sonia is forced to realise that the cruelty of the world cannot simply be covered up with good intentions. With sly wit and a misleadingly light touch, Agnes Desarthe has created an unsettling picture of the world through an apartment building and shown how, with the best will in the world, it can sometimes be the hardest thing of all to tell the good guys from the bad guys.