AUGUSTAN / NEO CLASSIC DRAMA
The golden run of the English drama from the Elizabethan to the Jacobean period suffered a temporary setback during the Interregnum, as a result of the closure of the theatres in 1642. With the Restoration of 1660, the momentum picked up again, and heroic tragedies and comedies of manners enjoyed an unprecedented popularity.
Restoration comedy was characterised by unbridled licentiousness and overt sexuality, to which, towards the end of the century, a reaction was easily perceived. Jeremy Collier's pamphlet, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698), marked the first concentrated effort to bring about a change in dramatic trends. The new mind-set triggered a different kind of comedy in which pathos replaced wit, and the plays were full of sentimentality, melodrama and rhetorical bombast.
The 'sentimental comedy’, as this new type of drama came to be known, was a kind of reaction against what was regarded as immorality and licentiousness in Restoration comedy. It was rather anaemic by comparison and it arose because a rising middle class enjoyed this kind of drama in which, as Oliver Goldsmith aptly put it, 'the virtues of private life are exhibited, rather than the vices exposed, and the distresses, rather than the frailty of mankind. . . .' There was an excessive display of sensibility by the chief characters, and a strong moralistic strain in their utterances celebrating the triumph of good over evil. These plays were primarily tearjerkers. Although this genre occupied the English stage for almost half a century, it did not produce even a single lasting work—because it lacked wit, humour, verbal byplay and skilful characterisation, which are the essential ingredients of great comedy. The 'comedy of sensibility' as the sentimental comedy was also known, was thus notably short on laughter, but rich in sentimental warmth. In this respect, it was a precursor of the nineteenth-century melodrama and of the television sitcoms of the 1950s.
Many of the tragedies of the time were less in the English tradition than in the Franco-Roman strain. Other sources of eighteenth-century tragedies included oriental tales and English history, most often medieval. It is not that these tragedies were lacking in passion, but the passion was diluted by sentimentality and often weakened by flat details of middle-class life. There was a considerable amount of domestic pathos which undermined the true tragic spirit. Eighteenth-century writers of tragedy were limited in their literary abilities and most of them took refuge in gloomy stage settings and melodrama.
The decline of drama in the eighteenth century had several reasons, the main one being social. The Restoration theatre catered exclusively to a select court audience. The right of performance was restricted to two London companies, and as a result, theatre in London was out of bounds for the popular audience. The highly sophisticated and urbane comedies did not appeal to the new middle class. The growing reaction to the immorality of Restoration drama also augured a change in the tastes of the audience. A new group of comedy writers such as Susanna Centlivre, Steele and Colley Cibber began to write comedies that were moral and sentimental, and this trend could also be perceived in the writing of tragedies. Sentimental platitudes replaced sparkling wit and real entertainment, and old dramatic stereotypes were totally dismissed.
Since wit and humour disappeared from the plays, the standard of writing declined. Yet, paradoxically, these plays were technically excellent. Actors like David Garrick (1717-79) brought discipline into theatrical companies. English theatre suffered terribly from the Licencing Act of 1737, introduced by Walpole, because his corrupt administration was being mocked on the stage. Regular theatres were reduced to two again—the Drury Lane and the Covent Garden—and all plays became subject to the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain. Because of the new restrictive measures, many aspiring dramatists like Fielding turned their talents to other genres of literature.
In order to facilitate easy comprehension, the following sections will discuss the sentimental dramatists of the first half of the eighteenth century as a separate group, apart from the later reactionary anti- sentimental circle.
Mrs Susannah Centlivre (1669-1723)
Actress, dramatist, essayist and poet, Centlivre made her presence felt in a strictly anti-feminist environment, to become the most prolific dramatist of her day. Two of her comedies, The Busie Body (1709) and The Wonder: A Woman Keeps A Secret (1714), were among the most frequently performed plays of the time. She specialised in writing intrigue comedy and her plays suggested a thorough knowledge of French. A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1718) continued to be popular throughout the eighteenth century. Although, in some of her plays, she was thought to imitate Congreve, she celebrated marriage, and in this, she was closer to the writers of the sentimental genre. Eighteen of her plays were produced successfully during her lifetime. In plays like The Gamester (1705) and The Basset Table (1705), she attacked the fashionable vices of gambling and card¬ playing. She was closely associated with many of the literary figures of the period, including Farquhar, Steele and Cibber.
Colley Cibber (1671-1757)
Cibber's plays are defined by a provocative, and sometimes outrageous, good humour. Love's Last Shift: or, The Fool in Fashion (1696), his first play, heralded the long reign of sentimental comedy on the English stage. Other plays like The Careless Husband (1704), The Lady's Last Stake (1707) and The Provoked Husband (1728) revealed Cibber's understanding of contemporary theatrical tastes. From 1710 to 1733, Cibber was the dominant force in the management of Drury Lane Theatre. During a career of almost fifty years as a playwright, Cibber produced over twenty plays, most of which were well received. As a writer of comedy, he knew that he was no wit, and he depended on story and situation rather than on well-written dialogues. His skill as a playwright lay in creating adroit stage situations and in the rapid movement of his plots. While the absurdities of his plays were many, the crispness, variety and individuality of his work and his ability to create suitable roles for the leading members of the Drury Lane team made most of his comedies good theatre. Cibber's autobiography, An Apology for the Life of Mr Colley Cibber (1740), contains the best account of the theatre of his day and is an invaluable study of the art of acting as it was practised by his contemporaries.
Richard Steele (1672-1729)
Steele's first comedy, The Funeral (1701), was followed by two unsuccessful dramatic pieces — The Lying Lover (1703) and The Tender Husband (1705) — derived from French originals by Corneille and MoliSre. His best play, The Conscious Lovers, derived from Terence's Andreas, was presented in 1722. The play was not merely a storehouse of sentimental cliches, but a play of well- knit structure. The neatness of plotting and the naturalness of expression make the play the best sentimental comedy written before Kelly's False Delicacy (1768). The play's instant success was in part due to the publicity and acrimonious reactions provoked by the periodical The Theatre. It influenced the development of sentimental comedy by its high moral tone.
Henry Fielding (1707-54)
Fielding's abilities as a playwright have always been overshadowed by his prowess as a novelist. His first play, Love in Several Masques (1728), was a lively, light comedy. The Temple Beau (1730) revealed a more elaborate characterisation but failed to capture the popular imagination. The Modem Husband (1732) and The Universal Gallant (1735) recorded Fielding's condemnation of London high life. Miser (1733) was the best English version of Moli6re's L'Avare. Fielding's own dramatic experience introduced a new sophistication in both structure and the representation of comic character through dialogue. Though the plays themselves were largely forgotten, Shaw considered him 'the greatest practising dramatist, with the single exception of Shakespeare, produced by England between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century'. Fielding's dramatic thrust gradually became directed towards the writing of farce and burlesque, until he finally concentrated his energies on fiction.
Richard Cumberland (1732-1811)
Cumberland first achieved success with his comedy The Brothers (1769). His best comedy, The West Indian (1771), introduced an element noticeable in several of his plays — the defence of character types formerly treated as ridiculous. Cumberland's sentimental comedies or 'bastard tragedies', as Goldsmith called them, often averted disaster only because of a villain's unlikely change of heart in the fifth act. He wrote nearly fifty plays — among which were The Fashionable Lover (1772), The Jew (1794), The Wheel of Fortune (1795) and The Widow's Only Son, staged in 1810—that can best be read as transitional pieces carrying sentimental comedy towards melodrama.
Hugh Kelly (1739-77)
Kelly was the chief among the sentimental playwrights, with a career which was brief and very successful. His first comedy, False Delicacy (1768), was acted over twenty times in its first season, and around 10,000 printed copies were sold within that year. The plot employs a triple intrigue, giving rise to much complexity of situations. It revolves around the false delicacy of three ladies who are cured by two anti- sentimental characters who furnish the comedy in the play. The play scored a triumph in opposition to Goldsmith's The Good Natured Man, performed in the same year, thus pitting the two dramatists — one sentimental and the other anti- sentimental —against each other. Two other comedies, A Word to the Wise (1770) and The Man of Reason (1776), were unsuccessful. But his version of Molifire, The School for Wives (1773), met with success.
Tragedies
After enjoying the limelight during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, tragedy in the eighteenth century took a backseat. Of the tragic writers, Joseph Addison (1672-1719) deserves mention. His Cato (1713), written in blank verse, was one of the most esteemed tragedies of the first half of the century. It was staged in 1713, with definite political overtones. The play had nothing remarkable, except for noble Roman sentiments that appealed to the patriotic audience.
Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718)
Rowe wrote seven tragedies which were all successful and were based on English traditions. These include Tamerlane (1701) which is his mostfrequently performed play. 'Tamerlane' stands for King William III, and the play is a fine example of a political tragedy. Rowe started the vogue of 'she tragedies' with plays like jane Shore (1714) and Lady Jane Grey (1715), focusing attention on the distress of ladies. Thus he was working in the same vein as the sentimental playwrights who were producing lachrymose comedies.
George Lillo (1693-1739)
Lillo's most important works, The London Merchant: or, The History of George Barnwell (1731) and The Fatal Curiosity (1736), were pioneering examples of domestic tragedy. These plays abandoned the world of kings and courtiers, to insist on the seriousness of high emotion in ordinary people. In this respect, they express the same trend in theatre during the eighteenth century that is explicit in the engravings of Hogarth and in the novels of Richardson. Lillo became more important as an influence, than for absolute achievement. He was responsible, along with Fielding, for keeping alive the true theatrical instincts at a time when drama had become stereotypical and lacklustre.
Anti-sentimental Comedy: Goldsmith and Sheridan
The popularity of eighteenth-century sentimental comedy did not last very long. A reaction to it was soon evident, helmed by Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Sheridan (1751-1816). Goldsmith was deeply disturbed by the state of the theatre in his time, and in 1759, he attacked the sentimental dramatists of the day in his essay, The Present State of Polite Learning. In 1772, in another well-known essay, On the Theatre or A Comparison between Laughing and Sentimental Comedy, he exposed the weaknesses of sentimental comedy, and declared that this genre did not actually belong to dramatic literature, because it was neither true tragedy nor true comedy. Goldsmith continued his crusade against sentimental drama even in the preface of his first comedy, The Good Natured Man (1768). His concern was that this type of drama was affecting true tragedy adversely and also banishing genuine humour from the stage. Too much refinement had spelt doom for the French theatre, and Goldsmith was afraid that something similar might befall the English theatre. He felt that comedy should exhibit both humour and nature, and thought that the effective delineation of character would help to overthrow the emotional excesses of genteel or sentimental comedy.
In 1768, Goldsmith put his dramatic theories into practice with The Good Natured Man, which was a departure from convention, as it dealt with 'low' characters. Most of the plays of the period dealt with the foibles of fashion, but Goldsmith deliberately chose the humours and characters of ordinary persons who were not rendered alike by affectations. Honeywood is almost a self-portrait in his mixture of generosity and gullibility, but this play was rejected by the audience who showed a clear preference for Hugh Kelly's sentimental play, False Delicacy, which became a theatrical triumph.
Eighteenth-century comedy had become genteel and therefore had to frequently shun nature—and against this shunning, Goldsmith took his stand. He wanted to bring back to comedy not the wit of Congreve but the spirit of Shakespeare, and he expressed this fervent hope in the preface to his first play. It was here that he differed from Sheridan who was anxious only to restore the comedy of manners to its original elegance. Goldsmith was more progressive and proactive than Sheridan because he evolved a comedy which definitely marked the return to nature along with the reaction from sentimentality. Goldsmith's second play, She Stoops to Conquer or, The Mistakes of a Night (1773), was a far better play than The Good Natured Man. His friends were determined to make it a success, but the play's genuine merits won it acclaim. Dr Johnson put his seal of approval on it by declaring, 'I know of no comedy for many years that has so much exhilarated an audience.' The play's humour depends, in part, upon the audience knowing more about the situation of the characters, than they know themselves. It was stimulated partially by the desire to offer a counterblast to Cumberland's The West Indian (1771), a sentimental melodrama, and partially because Goldsmith wanted to successfully project his theories about nature and character on the stage. The play fulfils the true purpose of comedy — to give pleasure by evoking laughter and to amuse an audience with farcical circumstances. It is a light-hearted comedy that derives its charm from the misunderstandings which entangle the well-drawn characters. The forthright Kate Hardcastle, the bashful Marlow, the totally incompatible Mr and Mrs Hardcastle and the Falstaff-like Tony Lumpkin remain masterpieces of the comic art. Humorous mishaps occur, when Tony dupes Marlow and his friend Hastings into believing that Mr Hardcastle's home is an inn. Kate poses as a servant to win the heart of Marlow, who is uncomfortable in the company of well-born women, but is flirtatious with bar-maids. Through various deceptions, Tony releases himself from his mother's clutches and the two pairs of lovers are united.
Goldsmith's mastery over his form is also revealed in his delineation of the 'low' characters, who make the play so vibrant. She Stoops to Conquer struck a new chord in the jaded drama of the period. It is a play that is neither pretentious nor subtle, but arising so solidly from what is fundamental in human nature, that it remains irresistible to audiences of succeeding generations.
Sheridan's prose comedies, like The Rivals (1774), and his best play, The School for Scandal (1777), revived the brilliant spirit of the Restoration comedies without the immorality. The plots were ingenious and effective, but dependent largely on intrigue. His characters were drawn with great skill and his dialogue was brilliant, excelling in witty repartee. Characters like Mrs Malaprop, Sir Anthony Absolute, and Lady Teazle were memorable. But Sheridan was content to do better what others were trying to do; he merely restored, while Goldsmith created. Today, Sheridan's plays are noted as a link between the comedy of manners, as it had existed at the end of the seventeenth century, and as it was used by Oscar Wilde in the nineteenth century.
Goldsmith and Sheridan heralded a departure from the sentimental comedy of their time, a return to the true spirit of the earlier comedy, but they avoided its cutting edge by creating characters who proved to be gentler and more endearing. Their plays approach the earlier comedies, both Shakespearean and Restoration, in the way they exploit the resources of language. But in spite of their dramatic brilliance and success, the sentimentality and the element of moral improvement continued till the century's close. The importance of drama as a literary genre declined, until it was revived by Oscar Wilde in the nineteenth century.
As is usual with all phases of English literature, a reaction against the rationalism of the early- and mid-eighteenth century was slowly and steadily building up. Among the first manifestations of the new impulse were the revolutionary writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau in France, the emergence of the 'Sturm Und Drang' movement in Germany, and the burgeoning of the cult of sensibility and the Gothic novel in England.