John T. Harwood - Critics, Values, and Restoration Comedy
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English drama--Restoration, 1660-1700--History and criticism, English drama (Comedy)--History and criticism, Literature and morals, Criticism.
publication date
:
1982
lcc
:
PR698.C6H3 1982eb
ddc
:
822/.0523
subject
:
English drama--Restoration, 1660-1700--History and criticism, English drama (Comedy)--History and criticism, Literature and morals, Criticism.
Page ii
A typical scene in Restoration comedy, taken from a 1761 edition of Vanbrugh's The Provok'd Wife. Courtesy of The Pennsylvania State University Library
Page iii
Critics, Values, and Restoration Comedy
John T. Harwood
Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale and Edwardsville
Page iv
Copyright 1982 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Edited by Stephen W. Smith Designed by Quentin Fiore
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Harwood, John T. Critics, values, and Restoration comedy. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. English dramaRestoration, 16601700History and criticism. 2. English drama (Comedy)History and criticism. 3. Literature and morals. 4. Criticism. I. Title. PR698.C6H3 1982 822.0523 81-18397 ISBN 0-8093-1049-X AACR2
Page v
For Elizabeth and Benjamin
Page vii
Contents
Preface
ix
1. "This lubrique and adult'rate age": The Attacks on Restoration Comedy
1
2. "The Usefulness of the Stage": Restoration Comedy Moralis and the Raliste Tradition
10
3. "Escape from this dull age": The Artificielle Tradition
35
4. Literature and Moral Persuasion: The Critics' Dilemma
50
5. "Deep-Breathing Sex" and Critical Practice
77
6. "Duels, Claps, and Bastards": The Problem of Sympathy and Judgment
115
Notes
145
Selected Bibliography
163
Index
175
Page ix
Preface
Restoration comedy has been a bte noire for literary critics and historians for several centuries. No other literature seems as likely to propel its critics either into paroxysms of moral indignation or rhapsodies of lyrical praise. The vigorous and contentious dispute about the moral issues raised by the comedies is especially interesting, for in the last three centuries critics have argued vehemently for or against such diverse theses as: 1) Restoration comedy exposes the reader to the infectious disease of moral turpitude with which the dramatis personae are terminally ill; 2) Restoration comedy is entertaining (or boring) but nothing more; 3) Restoration comedy is a bracing tonic, a healthful and stimulating criticism of sterile and repressive social conventions; 4) Restoration comedy allows the reader to enter a rarefied world of gallantry and rococo mannerssuch an escape from the mundane world is salutary; and 5) Restoration comedy is a treasure chest for the historian who wants an accurate picture of late seventeenth-century social conditions, values, and mores in England. The first four theses pertain directly to the moral effect of imaginative literature, in this case Restoration comedy, on the reader; the fifth attempts to avoid the moral issue by focusing entirely on the sociological and historical relation of drama and society, though few of these "neutral" critics can avoid waffling on the moral issue. But despite the abundance of moral judgments about the comedy, no critic has examined closely the critical and moral assumptions behind other critics' ethical responses or, more broadly, has analyzed thoroughly the assumptions behind an ethical judgment of litera-
Page x
ture. A need exists, therefore, for a clarification of the critical presuppositions of the major critics of Restoration comedy and particularly of the criticism in which moral judgments are inextricably embedded in the critical commentary.
My purpose is not as polemical as the redoubtable Mr. Bateson's, who concludes a survey of modern critics thus: "all lively and all wrong."1 My thesis has three broad interests: first, I survey the major rhetorical strategies by which many "objective" critics transform themselves, at least momentarily and perhaps unconsciously, into moralistic critics when they deal with Restoration comedy. Second, I consider the various moral responses in a broader critical context by analyzing how critics have traditionally handled the aesthetic problems which an ethical evaluation of literature inevitably entails. And third, I analyze in some detail the moral dimensions of four controversial Restoration comedies, each presenting different moral visions and critical problems. While my essay begins with a survey of the critical responses to Restoration comedy, its ultimate concern is with a question posed by Santayana some years ago, a question that reflects on the value of all imaginative literature. ''It is in the world, however, that art must find its level. It must vindicate its function in the human commonwealth. What direct acceptable contribution does it make to the highest good?"2
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