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Unit 18: Richard Sheridan: The School for Scandal—Introduction to the Author and the Text

Fill in the blanks: Notes
6. After his marriage Sheridan turned to the theatre for a ...... .
7. Sheridan was recognized as one of the most persuasive ...... of his time.
8. Sheridan’s financial difficulties were largely brought about by his own ...... and
procrastination.
9. Sheridan was one of the orator who manages the unsuccessful impeachment of ...... .
10. What Sheridan learned from the Restoration dramatists can be seen in his play ...... .
State whether the following statements are true or false:
11. The School for Scandal does contain two subtle portraits in Joseph Surface and Lady Teazle.
12. The Critic, which since its first performance in October 1779 has been thought much funnier
than its model, The Rehearsal (1671), by George Villiers.
13. After his marriage Sheridan turned to the theatre as he was very fond of play writing.
14. Richard Sheridan was intimately associated with Covent Garden Theatre.
15. Sheridan had become member of Parliament for Stafford in September 1780.

18.2 The School for Scandal—Introduction to the Text

The School for Scandal opened at the Drury Lane Theatre in London, England, in May of 1777. It was
an enormous success. Reviews heralded the play as a “real comedy” that would supplant the
sentimental dramas that had filled the stage in the previous years. While wildly popular in the
eighteenth century, the play has not been as successful with contemporary audiences. The play
suffered with anti-semitism and appears artificial in the characters’ speech, dress, and motivations.

Elucidate that The School for Scandal is a sentimental drama.

18.2.1 A Real Comedy

A comedy is usually a light, rather amusing, play that deals with contemporary life and manners.
Such a drama often has a satirical slant, but ends happily. Among the many sub-genre under comedy,
we find the comedy of manners, which originated in France with Molièr’s “Les Precieuses Ridicules”
(1658). Molièr saw this comic form as a way to correct social absurdities.
In England, the Comedy of Manners is represented by the plays of William Wycherley, George
Etherege, William Congreve, and George Farquhar. This form was later classed “Old Comedy” but
is now known as Restoration Comedy because it coincided with Charles II’s return to England. The
main goal of these comedies of manners in the period of Restoration is to mock society, or in other
ways lift up society for scrutiny, which could cause negative or positive results. In the end, if the
playwright has been successful, the audience will leave the theater feeling good (or at least feeling
something), having laughed at themselves and society.
The definition of comedy and the background of the Restoration Comedy helps explain the themes
that run throughout these plays. One of the major themes is marriage and the game of love. However,
if marriage is a mirror of society, the couples in the plays show something very dark and sinister
about order. Many critiques of marriage that we see in the play are devastating, but the game of
love is not much more hopeful. Although the endings are happy and the man invariably gets the
woman (or at least that is the implication), we see marriages without love and love affairs that are
rebellious breaks with tradition.

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