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"This is a study of the four plays of William Wycherley - long considered one of England's most important playwrights especially of the theatrically rich Restoration period, 1660-1700. The subject of many a study by the period's leading scholars, Wycherley has been perceived as a vigorous satirist, setting out "quite openly to teach his audience" about a multitude of personal and social sins." "This study takes issue with such impressions. It argues that Wycherley was not so much an attacking playwright but rather a thinking one - little concerned with larger social, political, and moral matters but one fascinated instead by the workings and motivations of fallible and insecure men and women - by that which is constant, pervasive and obsessive."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
If the Renaissance was the Golden Age of English comedy, the Restoration was the Silver. These comedies are full of tricksters attempting to gain estates, the emblem and the reality of power in late feudal England. The tricksters appear in a number of guises, such as heroines landing their men, younger brothers seeking estates, or Cavaliers threatened with dispossession. The hybrid nature of these plays has long posed problems for critics, and few studies have attempted to deal with their diversity in a comprehensive way. Now one of the leading scholars of Restoration drama offers a cultural history of the period's comedy that puts the plays in perspective and reveals the ideological functio...
Anthology of a selection of early modern works on memory.
This book examines the Laureateship as an exponent of complex relations between literature and the Monarchy, and defines the nature and mode of existence of laureate poetry in England from the Restoration up to the present day. With the Monarchy seen as a long-lasting foundation of Englishness, the institution of Poet Laureateship provides a symbolic component of national identity, an official link between literature, culture and the Monarchy.
William M. Cavert investigates the origins of urban air pollution, explaining how this problem arose during the early modern period.
The Reformation (1673), attributed to Joseph Arrowsmith, is an amusing satire on the libertine manners of the Stuart court. A group of young men in Venice set up a society to reform sexual mores “à la mode d’Angleterre” and liberate women from the tyranny of fathers and husbands. Described by a contemporary critic as “the Reverse to the Laws of Morality and Virtue”, the play was quickly withdrawn from the stage. The comedy also offers a burlesque portrait of Poet Laureate John Dryden, poking fun at his critical opinions and dramatic production. This is the firts critical edition of the play. The editors place it in its social and cultural context and present a fully annotated text, which enables today’s reader to enjoy and understand Arrowsmith’s lively picture of Restoration life.
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Using an outmoded term in an entirely new way, Preromanticism seeks the common ground of British literature from 1740 to 1798 not in foreshadowings of Romanticism but in incomplete discoveries and in impediments to expression that Romanticism was to lift. Featuring readings of masterpieces in all genres that draw widely on recent innovations in literary theory, it highlights the variety of experimentation in a transitional epoch.
Henry Care was a Restoration publicist who worked during the Exclusion Crisis and the reign of King James II. By exploring his life and work, this text offers insight into how the non-elite affected politics.