Restoration comedy
Restoration Comedy
Restoration comedy is the name given to a particular type of witty sex comedy, associated with the reign of King Charles II of England but usually defined as the comedy written during the entire period 1660-1700. During the rule of Oliver Cromwell, the theatres had been closed, and they enjoyed a resurgence under the new reign.
Restoration comedy peaked twice. In the 1670s, the witty aristocratic comedies of John Dryden, William Wycherley, and George Etherege reflected the atmosphere at the new court and celebrated a lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest exemplified by such real-life Restoration rakes and courtiers as the Earl of Rochester. The second wave in the 1690s, with the "softer" comedies of William Congreve, and John Vanbrugh, reflected the social change and changing cultural perceptions of these tumultuous few decades. The playwrights of the 1690s set out to appeal to more socially mixed audiences without abandoning wit, for instance by moving the war between the sexes from the arena of intrigue into that of marriage. Public opinion was changing even faster than the comedy style, however. When Jeremy Collier attacked Congreve and Vanbrugh in his well-known pamphlet Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage in 1698, audience tastes were already ahead of him, and the tolerance of respectable Londoners for Restoration comedy was running out. It would soon be replaced by a drama of sententious morality, and 18th-20th century literary critics' distaste for the sexual explicitness of Restoration comedy would keep it in a critical poison cupboard for nearly three centuries.
Well-known Restoration Comedies:
- The Country Wife by William Wycherley in 1675
- The Man of Mode by George Etherege in 1676
- The Rover by Aphra Behn in 1677
- The Way of the World by William Congreve 1700