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British Drama

Notes to satirize the very people watching them. This was usually the middle to upper classes in society,
who were normally the only people wealthy enough in the first place to afford going to the theatre
to see a comedy of manners. The playwrights knew this in advance and fully intended to create
characters that were sending up the daily customs of those in the audience watching the play. The
satire tended to focus on their materialistic nature, never-ending desire to gossip and hypocritical
existence.

3.1.3 Development of the Comedy of Manners

Newell W. Sawyer has traced the development of the genre and relates it to the changes occurring
in society at large. The comedy of manners was first developed in the new comedy of the Ancient
Greek playwright Menander. His style, elaborate plots, and stock characters were imitated by the
Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence, whose comedies were widely known and copied during
the Renaissance. The best-known comedies of manners, however, may well be those of the French
playwright Moliere, who satirized the hypocrisy and pretension of the ancient regime in such plays
as L’École des femmes (The School for Wives, 1662), Le Misanthrope (The Misanthrope, 1666), and most
famously Tartuffe (1664).
In England, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing might be considered the first comedy of
manners, but the genre really flourished during the Restoration period. Restoration comedy, which
was influenced by Ben Johnson’s comedy of humours, made fun of affected wit and acquired follies
of the time. The masterpieces of the genre were the plays of William Wycherley (The Country Wife,
1675) and William Congreve (The Way of the World, 1700). In the late 18th century Oliver Goldsmith
(She Stoops to Conquer, 1773) and Richard Brinsley Sheridan (The Rivals, 1775; The School for Scandal,
1777) revived the form.
The tradition of elaborate, artificial plotting and epigrammatic dialogue was carried on by the Irish
playwright Oscar Wilde in Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).
In the 20th century, the comedy of manners reappeared in the plays of the British dramatists Noel
Coward (Hay Fever, 1925) and Somerset Maugham and the novels of P.G. Wodehouse, as well as
various British sitcoms.
Modern television sitcoms that use the mockumentary format, such as The Office and Modern Family,
use slightly altered forms of the comedy of manners to represent the daily and work lives of the
average people.

The Carry On films are direct descendant of the comedy of manners style.

3.1.4 Examples of Comedy of Manners

1. Congreve is considered by many critics to have been the greatest wit of the dramatists writing
in this vein; with his dialogue brilliant and his style perfect. The Old Bachelour (1693) was a
great popular success, as was Love for Love (1695). His last comedy, The Way of the World (1700),
is now considered his masterpiece but was not successful upon its premier. Although marriage
is at its center, the preoccupation is with contracts and negotiation of terms, not passionate
love.
2. Vanbrugh’s The Relapse: Or Virtue in Danger (1696) has two plots, only slightly connected, and
includes seduction, infidelity, impersonation, and the attempt to gain another’s fortune.
3. Farquhar’s comedies were written at the end of the Restoration period and serve as a transition
to later comedies, noticeable in their greater sensitivity to characters as individuals rather than

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