Page 45 - DENG403_BRITISH_DRAMA

Unit 3: Literary Terms: Comedy of Manners, Absurd Theatre, and Existentialism

types. The Recruiting Officer (1706) makes fun of some of the foibles of military heroes, while Notes
The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707) includes a remarkably modern-style divorce, due to the couple
failing to make each other happy.

Vanbrugh’s masterwork, The Provoked Wife (1697), became notorious because it
was given special attention by critic Jeremy Collier in his case against the immorality of
the stage. In keeping with the plays of the time, the names of the characters often reflect
their type: Heartfree, Sir John Brute, Constant, Lady Fanciful, and Colonel Bully.

4. Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith while wrote in the latter portion of the
eighteenth century, after the Restoration period, and after sentimental comedy had become the
dominant comedic form, they composed plays that revived and renewed the comedy of manners
genre. Sheridan’s The School for Scandal (1777) and Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer (1773), in
particular, received popular and critical acclaim when first produced, and have been
continuously staged to the present day.

Self Assessment

Multiple Choice Questions:
1. The comedy of manners is a genre of comedy, play/television/film that flourished
on the English stage during
(a) Restoration period
(b) industrial revolution
(c) class transformation
(d) 18th century.
2. Plays of the type of comedy of manners are typically set in the world of the
(a) lower middle class
(b) upper middle class
(c) high class
(d) both lower middle and high class.
3. The roots of the comedy of manners can be traced back to
(a) ancient Greek plays
(b) 16th century Shakespearean plays
(c) Moliere’s seventeenth-century French comedies
(d) 19th century playwrighters.
Fill in the blanks:

4. With witty dialogue and cleverly ........., comedies of manners comment on the
standards and mores of society.
5. Congreve is considered by many critics to have been the greatest wit of the dramatists
writing of ..........
6. Newell W. Sawyer has traced the ......... of the comedy of manners and relates it to
the changes occurring in society at large.

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