Restoration comedy

“ Vicious as the stage was when it opened its doors again on the fall of the Commonwealth it only reflected the general vice of the day. The Comedy of the Restoration borrowed everything from the contemporary Comedy of France save the poetry, the delicacy, and good taste which there veiled its grossness. Seduction, intrigue, brutality, cynicism, debauchery, found fitting expression on the English stage in dialogue of a studied and deliberate foulness, which even its wit fails to redeem from disgust. Wycherly, the popular playwright of the time, remains the most brutal among all dramatists ”

“ The ton of society and that of comedians may have a reciprocal influence, and the revolution having tended to degrade the performance of the latter, the consequences may recoil on the former. But here I must stop.—I shall only add that it is not to the revolution that the decline of the art, either in tragedy or comedy, is to be imputed. It is, I understand, owing to intrigue, which has, for a long time past, introduced pitiful performers on the stage of the Théâtre Français, and to a multiplicity of other causes which it would be too tedious to discuss, or even to mention. ”

“ This is the comedy of artificial life, of wit and satire, such as we see it in Congreve, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, etc. To this succeeds a state of society from which the same sort of affectation and pretence are banished by a greater knowledge of the world or by their successful exposure on the stage; and which by neutralising the materials of comic character, both natural and artificial, leaves no comedy at all—but the sentimental. Such is our modern comedy. ”

“ On the other hand, the comic dramatists tried to disparage purity in men and women, and the sparkle of their comedies is unwholesome. In the opinion of many sober minds the dramatic literature of the Restoration is a blot upon our national history, while the gloomy productions that delighted the sentimental contemporaries of Charles Lamb are offences against dramatic art. ”

“ Such were the comic and tragic ingredients of the New Comedy, or Comedy in general. There is yet a third, however, which in itself is neither comic nor tragic, in short, not even poetic. I allude to its portrait-like truthfulness. The ideal and caricature, both in the plastic arts and in dramatic poetry, lay claim to no other truth than that which lies in their significance: their individual beings even are not intended to appear real. Tragedy moves in an ideal, and the Old Comedy in a fanciful or fantastical world. ”

“ Some theorists, indeed, have been sanguine enough to expect a regular advance from grossness to refinement on the stage and in real life, marked on a graduated scale of human perfectibility, and have been hence led to imagine that the best of our old comedies were no better than the coarse jests of a set of country clowns—a sort of comedies bourgeoises, compared with the admirable productions which might, but have not, been written in our times. I must protest against this theory altogether, which would go to degrade genteel comedy from a high court lady into a literary prostitute. ”

“ English comedy was certainly greatly reformed, in some senses of the word reform, during the period which followed the publication of “The Rehearsal,” and, in the hands of writers like Wycherley, Shadwell, Congreve, and D’Urfey, the dulness of the Howards was exchanged for an extreme degree of vivacity. The plot was as little considered as ever—it was a mere peg on which to hang scenes brilliant with wit and repartee. The small intrigue is often but a frame for a great picture of society in its forms then most open to caricature, with all the petty intrigues inseparable from it. ”

“ But when the pleasant impertinent of comedy, in a piece purely meant to give delight, and raise mirth out of whimsical perplexities, worries the studious man with taking up his leisure, or making his house his home, the same sort of contempt expressed (however natural) would destroy the balance of delight in the spectators. To make the intrusion comic, the actor who plays the annoyed man must a little desert nature; he must, in short, be thinking of the audience, and express only so much dissatisfaction and peevishness as is consistent with the pleasure of comedy. ”

“ The New Comedy may, in certain respects, be described as the Old, tamed down; but in productions of genius, tameness is not generally considered a merit. The loss incurred by the prohibition of an unrestricted freedom of satire the new comic writers endeavoured to compensate by a mixture of earnestness borrowed from tragedy, both in the form of representation and the general structure, and also in the impressions which they laboured to produce. ”

“ All is merriment in the Midway. It is to the great Fair what the variety stage may be [Pg 273] in connection with theatricals in general. People go to tragedy to be instructed—to learn of human passions. They look at comedy to see life as it occurs—to weep with misery, to rejoice over the triumph of virtue; but when, wearied with business cares, and anxious to forget trouble for the time being, they desire to laugh, it is farce to which they turn. That is why the variety theater has gained such a hold upon the masses. ”

“ The idea of the Old Comedy is a fantastic illusion, a pleasant dream, which at last, with the exception of the general effect, all ends in nothing. The New Comedy, on the other hand, is earnest in its form. It rejects every thing of a contradictory nature, which might have the effect of destroying the impressions of reality. It endeavours after strict coherence, and has, in common with Tragedy, a formal complication and dénouement of plot. ”

“ Man, the new philosophy taught, is essentially good; human nature is of itself inclined to virtue; if it strays through force of circumstance into vice or folly, should not its errors be viewed with sympathy, with tenderness? Thus comedy grew serious, and tragedy put off its exalted airs; the genius of tragedy and the genius of comedy were wedded, and the comédie larmoyante, which might be named more correctly the bourgeois drama, was born of this union. ”

“ The old tragedy moved in an ideal world,—the old comedy in a fantastic world. As the entertainment, or new comedy, restrained the creative activity both of the fancy and the imagination, it indemnified the understanding in appealing to the judgment for the probability of the scenes represented. The ancients themselves acknowledged the new comedy as an exact copy of real life. The grammarian, Aristophanes, somewhat affectedly exclaimed:—“O Life and Menander! which of you two imitated the other?” In short the form of this species of drama was poetry, the stuff or matter was prose. ”

“ But it being suggested to him that the change of manners, produced partly by the stage itself, and the total disappearance of the characters which before formed the very life and 554soul of Comedy, might have something to do with the decline of the Stage, he will not hear a word of it, but says, that this circumstance, so far from shewing why our modern Comedies are not so good as the old ones, proves that they ought to be better; that the more we are become like one another, or like nothing, the less distinction of character we have, the greater discrimination must it require to bring it out ”

“ But how shall we reconcile our sympathy with his dream and our perception of its absurdity? The situation is contradictory. We are drawn to some different point of view, from which the comedy may no longer seem so amusing. As humour becomes deep and really different from satire, it changes into pathos, and passes out of the sphere of the comic altogether. The mischances that were to amuse us as scoffers now grieve us as men, and the value of the representation depends on the touches of beauty and seriousness with which it is adorned. ”

“ The privileged merry-maker, who, under different names, has appeared on almost all stages, whose part is at one time a display of shrewd wit, and at another of coarse clownishness, has inherited something of the licentious enthusiasm, but without the rights and privileges of the free and unrestrained writers of the Old Comedy. Could there be a stronger proof that the Old Comedy, which we have described as the original species, was not a mere Grecian peculiarity, but had its root and principle in the very nature of things? ”

“ The modern Comedies have certainly more Wit and Humour in their Composition, than the ancient; more Art in working up, and unravelling their Plots; and a greater Variety of Persons concern'd in them: And especially in genteel Comedy, our Characters have more good Breeding, and Politeness; and even in Low Life, our comical Figures are more ridiculous. ”

“ In the name of art, as well as in the name of virtue, we protest against the principle that the world of pure comedy is one into which no moral enters. If comedy be an imitation, under whatever conventions, of real life, how is it possible that it can have no reference to the great rule which directs life, and to feelings which are called forth by every incident of life? If what Mr. Charles Lamb says were correct, the inference would be that these dramatists did not in the least understand the very first principles of their craft. ”

“ Where the spirit of comedy has departed, company becomes constraint, reserve eats up the spirit, and people fall into a penurious melancholy in their scruple to be always exact, sane, and reasonable, never to mourn, never to glow, never to betray a passion or a weakness, nor venture to utter a thought they might not wish to harbour for ever. ”

“ The peculiar quality and charm of our comedy is that, deriving from sources not only distinct, but remote in literary habitat,—scriptural, allegorical, farcical, pastoral, romantic, classical, historical, or purely native and social,—it has not dissipated itself in a thousand streamlets, but has carried down deposits from each tributary at its best. In Love's Labor's Lost, Two Angry Women, As You Like It, Old Wives' Tale, Every Man in His Humour, we find, as in a miner's pan, 'colours' from vastly different soils. ”

“ In England, as in Athens of old, perfect comedy arose gradually out of the personalities of the rude dramatic attempts of an earlier period. Such productions as Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton’s Needle were mere imperfect attempts at, we may perhaps rather say feelers towards, comedy itself—that drama, the object of which was to caricature, and thus to dissect and apply correctives to, the vices and weaknesses of contemporary society. ”

“ Humour, Satire, Irony, pounce on it altogether as their common prey. The Comic spirit eyes but does not touch it. Put into action, it would be farcical. It is too gross for Comedy.
Incidents of a kind casting ridicule on our unfortunate nature instead of our conventional life, provoke derisive laughter, which thwarts the Comic idea. But derision is foiled by the play of the intellect. Most of doubtful causes in contest are open to Comic interpretation, and any intellectual pleading of a doubtful cause contains germs of an Idea of Comedy. ”

“ An old satire written at the time of the Reformation brings together actors, dustmen, jugglers, conjurers, and sellers of indulgences.
But we want something more than wits and drolleries, and even public performances, to complete our idea of Comedy. We must have literary composition and artistic construction. ”

“ Not the veriest ghost of a smile, it is likely, flickered across our faces. But reproduced by the subtle humour of the artist, the inherent comedy of the situation stands revealed, and we chuckle. And our enjoyment is the greater for the skill with which the means are concealed by which this magical transformation is effected. We feel that we have discovered the comedy ourselves, not that it has been shown to us. The characters are so perfectly natural, so precisely as we know them and have seen them day after day. The secret lies in the artist's power of restraint. ”

“ Although it has taken up its abode in the soul and become master of the house, none the less it remains a stranger. Far different would be avarice of a tragic sort. We should find it attracting and absorbing, transforming and assimilating the divers energies of the man: feelings and affections, likes and dislikes, vices and virtues, would all become something into which avarice would breathe a new kind of life. Such seems to be the first essential difference between high-class comedy and drama. ”

“ And because there is, even the unreconciled--reconcilable--difference or conflict is not serious. That is why true Comedy seems to find its best field in a developed social life. The incongruities of human nature hurt is they are pressed too deep, because they are irreconcilable; they too quickly edge the tragic gulf. But the incongruities of the conventional life do not hurt when pressed. To change our metaphor, adjustment to the middle way is here so easily credible and possible, that it is the very hunting-ground for the Comic Spirit. ”

“ So we were probably right in saying that comedy lies midway between art and life. It is not disinterested as genuine art is. By organising laughter, comedy accepts social life as a natural environment, it even obeys an impulse of social life. And in this respect it turns its back upon art, which is a breaking away from society and a return to pure nature. ”

“ Now we have seen that in “Court and City” there is little action: hence it may be supposed that the brilliancy of the dialogue it was that tempted the author to brush away the well-deserved dust under which the “Discovery” and the “Tender Husband” have been half-a-century imbedded. But this supposition would be entirely erroneous. The courtiers and citizens themselves were but dull company: it was chiefly the acting that kept the audience on the benches and out of their beds.
Without action or wit, what then renders the comedy endurable? ”