Restoration Comedy
Restoration Comedy

Author: Edward Burns

Publisher: Springer

Published: 1987-07-28

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1349187607

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What is Restoration comedy? What pleasure does it offer its audience, and what significance does it find in exploring that pleasure? Edward Burns here provides a new account of the origins and nature of Restoration comedy as a distinct genre. The book enlarges the usual focus with a wider range of writers than the conventional ossified canon taking in a revaluation of many rarely studied dramatists, a reconsideration of pastoral, and the instatement of women writers as major contributors to the culture of the age. It offers a substantial and original interpretation of one of the most intriguing of seventeenth-century literature forms.

The Way of the World by William Congreve "The Annotated Classic Edition" (A Restoration Comedy For All Ages)
The Way of the World by William Congreve

Author: William Congreve

Publisher:

Published: 2020-09-05

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13:

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One of the greatest of all Restoration comedies, "The Way of the World" William Congreve's masterpiece - a rich and knowing comedy of manners that not only satirizes the falsity, pretense and shallowness of the London society of his day, but also offers a depth of feeling, sensitivity, and polished phrasing that elevates the play far above other efforts in the genre. Delightfully entertaining, The Way of the World abounds in brilliant word play, delicious verbal battles of the sexes (some consider the famous scene between Mirabell and Millamant as one of the most profound analyses of the marriage relation ever written), and scheming villains of both genders. First presented in London in 1700, this comedy has charmed audiences for over 300 years.

The Old Bachelor
The Old Bachelor

Author: William Congreve

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-09-25

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13: 9781977623706

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he Old Bachelor is the first play written by British playwright William Congreve, produced in 1693. The 'Old Bachelor' is Heartwell, 'a surly old pretended woman-hater', who falls in love with Silvia, not knowing her to be the forsaken mistress of Vainlove, and is lured into marrying her, only discovering her true character afterwards, from the gibes of his acquaintances. The parson who has been brought in to marry them, however, is in fact Vainlove's friend Belmour, who has assumed the disguise for the purpose of an intrigue with Laetitia, the young wife of an uxorious old banker, Fondlewife; and Heartwell is relieved to discover that the marriage was a pretence. The comedy includes the amusing characters of Sir Joseph Wittol, a foolish knight, who allows himself to be really married to Silvia, under the impression that she is the wealthy Araminta; and his companion, the cowardly bully, Captain Bluffe, who under the same delusion is married to Silvia's maid. The success of this comedy was in part due to the acting of performers Thomas Betterton and Anne Bracegirdle