Paper-4 Goldsmith Sheridan & Antisentimental comedy

Vaghani Hitesh s

Roll no. - 38

SEM - I

Department of English

Paper no. – 4

Year – 2010-11

Topic:

Goldsmith Sheridan & Antisentimental comedy

                                                                        

                                                                           Submitted to Ruchira Dudharejiya

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Goldsmith Sheridan & Antisentimental comedy

Different forms of comedy:-

                                                        “Artificial comedy” is another name for the comedy of manners which reached the height of its achievement during the Restoration in England. In the history of British drama, the comic genius of the British nation has expressed it self in several distinct forms. Its most striking manidestation are: Romantic comedy; comedy of humours; comedy of manners etc.

Romantic comedy:-

                                         Romantic comedy achieved its greatest successes in the hands of Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s comedies are essentially romantic. They are romantic because there is in them a mingling of the romantic love-interest with mirth and fun; because they are also a mixture of serious or tragic elements and comic elements; and because they do not observe any of the classical unities of time, place and action. In addition to all this, these comedies are rich in characterization both as regards range or variety and depth. The Merchant of Venice, as you like it, and Twelfth Night are among the masterpieces of romantic comedy.

Comedy of Humours:-

                                              The comedy of humours reached the height of its success in the hands of Ben Jonson. Jonson tried to recall comedy from its romantic entanglements and to restore it to the position which it held in ancient Roman times. The characters in the comedies of Jonson represent certain well-marked traits which are known as humors. The boastful soldier, the clever servant, the greedy and jealous husband, the gay young man, the dupe-such are the characters in Jonson’s play, Every Man in His Humour.  Likewise, a vainglorious knight, a public jester, an affected courtier, a doting husband, and certain others exhibit their respective oddities or traits in the play, Every Man out of His Humour. Even in his masterpiece, Volpone, Jonson represents the characters of a miser-cum-sensualist, a clever servant, a shameless lawyer, a wiling cuckold who offers his wife in return for an inheritance, a foolish English traveler, and so on. This play is chiefly a satire on vice and has an obvious moral purpose. In fact, a moral purpose is the dominant motive behind Jonson’s comedy of humours.

Comedy of Manners or Artificial comedy;-

                                                                                     The comedy of manners, which is often described as artificial comedy, arose during the Restoration. The comic dramatists of this period wrote plays picturing the external details of life, the fashions of the time, its manners, its modes of speech, its interests. Their characters were chiefly men and women of fashion, and their plots and love-intrigues are developed with clever and witty dialogue. The scenes are laid in the drawing-rooms, the coffee-houses, the streets, and the parks and gardens of London. The Puritans had suppressed drama which was revived with the Restoration of monarchy in England. The comic plays of this period represent the reaction of the public and the authors against Puritanism. These plays represent social institutions especially marriage, in a ridiculous light. Social conventions are attacked and mocked at chiefly for the sake of witty raillery or to give point to an intrigue. The first of this school of comic dramatists was Sir George Etherege, who established the comedy of manners. He was followed by William Wycherley, William Congreve, Sir John Vanbugh, and George Farquhar. Congreve is easily the greatest writer of the comedy of manners. His masterpiece, the way of the world, carries the interest of dialogue, the verbal exchanges between character and character, to its extreme development. As a painter of the contemporary life of fashion and the manners of fashionable society, Congreve has no equal his use of irony and paradox in exposing the foibles of society masterly and his wit is unsurpassed.

The Revival of the comedy of Manners or the Artificial Comedy by Goldsmith and Sheridan:-

                                                                             Goldsmith and Sheridan wrote comedies free from the sentimentality and the moralizing which had overwhelmed the comic plays of their time. They did so by reviving the comedy of manners or artificial comedy of the Restoration. In this context, Sheridan occupies a commanding position with his plays, The Rivals and The School for sandal, the letter being his masterpiece. The school for scandal indeed represents almost the perfection of artificial comedy. This play reveals the selfishness, envy, and hypocrisy of the society of the time with a remarkable skill and a sure knowledge of theatrical effect. Here Sheridan captured the current forms of fashionable speech and heightened them with fine phrases and sustained wit. He built up a comedy of manners or an artificial comedy with more striking situations in it than any other play in English. It is without dispute the most brilliant artificial comedy written in the eighteenth century, and one of the most successful ever produced on the stage. It gives us a satirical picture of the contemporary scene-the love of fashion, the extravagant habits of young men, the love-intrigues, the exorbitant rates of interest charged by money-lenders, and the hypocrisy of fashionable men and woman. The author also pokes fun at contemporary journalism, with sarcastic references to “The Town and country Magazine” and to Mr. Snake.”

The Meaning of the Comedy of Manners:-

                                                                                    The comedy of manners is a phrase often used in literary history and criticism. It is particularly applied to the Restoration dramatists in England, and especially to Congreve and Wycherly; but it is a type of comedy which can flourish in any civilized urban society, and we see it again in Sheridan and in Oscar Wilde. This kind of comedy makes fun not so much of individual human beings and their humours as of social groups and their fashionable manners. It is generally satirical, though in a good-natured way. The comedy of manners is a highly articial form of drama and is generally full of verbal wit.  

The Themes and the Characters in the comedy of Manners:-

                      The comic dramatists of the Restoration in England devoted themselves to picturing the external details of life, the fashion of the time, its manners, its interests, and its mode of speaking. They depicted the fashionable drawing rooms, the coffee house, the streets gardens and parks of London. Their characters were chiefly people of fashion; and their plots were, for the most part, love-intrigues developed with cleaver dialogue.

What is Sentimental comedy:-

                                                            The period of the Restoration in England had witnessed the emergence and vogue of what came to be known as the comedy of manners. By the year 1700, this comedy ceased to flourish. The eighteenth century saw the rise and popularity of another kind of comedy known as the sentimental comedy. The sentimental strain in English comedy became in this century more marked than it had ever been before. The audiences in the middle years of this century wished to be moved not to laughter but to tears. They also expected some kind of moral enlistment by witnessing a comedy on the stage. In short, they loved something moral and pathetic, something edifying and genteel; they wanted an agreeable dramatic sermon with a happy ending. One of the principal writers of this kind of comedy was Richard Steele whose best play in this line was The Conscious LOVERS. Two dramatists of the eighteenth century, however, reacted against the sentimental comedies of the time. In the face of the sentimental comedy, Goldsmith and Sheridan attempted a revival of the Restoration comedy of manners without its coarseness and immorality; and they both succeeded because of their theatrical talents. However, even they were ultimately powerless against the tide of tears which flowed in response to scenes of touching distress and moving repentance in most comedies of the time.

What “The School for Scandal” Would Have Become in the Hands of a Sentimental Dramatist:-

                                                                                The School for Scandal is an excellent example of the anti-sentimental kind of comedy attempted by Sheridan. In this play there is no excess of feeling or emotion or sentiment in any scene. Sheridan shows a commendable restraint in his treatment of the subject. He moves us to laughter and never to tears; and the laughter is more or less intellectual. In the hands of another dramatist of that period, the theme of this play might have developed into sentimental drama. ‘The Teazles’ domestic life would have provided comic relief; Maria, a defenceless ward in Sir Peter’s household would have become the pathetic heroine slandered by the scandal-club and pestered by Joseph’s insidious attention. Sir Oliver, probably her father in disguise, would have appeared in the final Act to rescue her from persecution and to restore her to her faithful lover Charles who had plunged into dissipation because she was too modest to reciprocate his love. That Sheridan was quite capable of so tearful a treatment is proved by his Ode to Scandal   but here he confined himself, with admirable skill and judgment, to making vice ridiculous. Most of the character here exemplify some vice or weakness with that consistent exaggeration which provokes laughter because, on the stage, it seems true to life.

Joseph, the Hypocritical Man of Feeling:-

                                                                                   In this play Sheridan introduces no such sentimental scenes as are to be found between Julia and Faulkland in The Rivals. He presents Charles, the true man of feeling who gaily avoids fine sentiments, and Joseph, the hypocritical man of feeling who conceals malice under false moral or noble sentiments. The word “sentiment” or “sentimental” is repeatedly used in the play in relation to Joseph: thus Lady Sneer well refers to him as “a sentimental knave”, while Sir Peter, on more than one occasion, refers to him as “a man of sentiment”. The word “ sentiment “ or “ sentimental ”    here is intended to convey certain moral attitudes, but we know very well from the very outset that Joseph merely pretends to be a moral individual. Charles has a laugh at Joseph’s brand of morality when he says that, if a beautiful woman were to offer herself to him, he would borrow some of Joseph’s morality. Joseph’s intrigue with Lady Sneer well, his joining her in spreading slanderous stories about Charles in order to hinder Charles’s marriage with Maria, his making amorous advances to Lady Teazle when he is actually trying to win Maria as a wife, his presenting to be a well-wisher of  Sir Peter’s when he is at the same time trying to seduce Sir Peter’s wife, his ingratitude towards Sir Oliver who had sent him a large sum of money from India, his complete lack of feeling for a needy relative in distress, his complete want of any brotherly affection or regard for Charles-all these show him to be a complete hypocrite-cum-knave. Thus the question of any genuine sentiment in this man’s heart does not arise at all; nor does he have any moral scruple. Joseph himself is perfectly aware of his own hypocrisy and the mask which he wears in order to deceive people. After Sir Oliver, in the disguise of Mr. Stanley has left him, he shows this awareness in a soliloquy by clearly stating that his aim is “to gain the reputation of benevolence without incurring the expense”.