Author: David L. Hirst Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351629905 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 138
Book Description
First published in 1979, this book traces comedy of manners from the 1660s to the then present — a scope beyond the traditional focus on the Restoration and early twentieth century. It uncovers an underestimated subversive potential and socially critical force in this particularly English dramatic form, emphasising the distinctive subjects and style that distinguish it from more general forms of witty social satire. The author discusses the major comic dramatists of the post-Restoration period; reassesses the significance of Sheridan, Wilde and Coward; and examines the continuation of the tradition in modern writers. This book will be of interest to students of English literature and drama.
Author: Kenneth Muir Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000579204 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
Originally published in 1970, this title starts with an introduction, in which Professor Muir distinguishes between the Comedy of Manners and other types of comedy and traces its origins in English and French literature, there are then chapters on the major writers – Etherege, Dryden, Wycherly, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar – and on Jeremy Collier’s attack on the immorality and profaneness of the plays. This is followed by a discussion of the reasons for the decline of comedy in the eighteenth century and an account of its revival by Sheridan and, belatedly, by Wilde. Professor Muir takes issue with a number of recent critics on the dramatic value of the plays.
Author: Oscar Wilde Publisher: First Avenue Editions ™ ISBN: 1467756547 Category : Drama Languages : en Pages : 93
Book Description
Jack Worthing gets antsy living at his country estate. As an excuse, he spins tales of his rowdy brother Earnest living in London. When Jack rushes to the city to confront his "brother," he's free to become Earnest and live a different lifestyle. In London, his best friend, Algernon, begins to suspect Earnest is leading a double life. Earnest confesses that his real name is Jack and admits the ruse has become tricky as two women have become enchanted with the idea of marrying Earnest. On a whim, Algernon also pretends to be Earnest and encounters the two women as they meet at the estate. With two Earnests who aren't really earnest and two women in love with little more than a name, this play is a classic comedy of errors. This is an unabridged version of Oscar Wilde's English play, first published in 1899.
Author: John Dryden Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1408144263 Category : Drama Languages : en Pages : 147
Book Description
Dryden's audiences in 1671, both aristocratic and middle-class, would have been quick to respond to the themes of disputed royal succession, Francophilia and loyalty among subjects in his most successful tragicomedy. In the tragic plot, written in verse, young Leonidas has to struggle to assert his place as the rightful heir to the throne of Sicily and to the hand of the usurper's daughter. In the comic plot, written in prose, two fashionable couples (much more at home in London drawing-rooms than at the Sicilian court) play at switching partners in the 'modern' style. The introduction of this edition argues that Dryden's own ambivalence about King Charles and his entourage, on whom he came to rely more on more for patronage, manifests itself in both plots; most of all perhaps in the excessively Francophile Melantha, whose affectation cannot quite hide her endearing joie-de-vivre.
Author: David Leavitt Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1620404893 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 391
Book Description
“Very funny and unexpected, a material response to our times, plush as velvet.” –Rachel Cusk “A wickedly funny and emotionally expansive novel about all the bewildering ways we seek solace from the people and things that surround us.” – Jenny Offill David Leavitt returns with his signature “coolly elegant prose” (O, The Oprah Magazine) to deliver a comedy of manners for the Trump era. It is the Saturday after the 2016 presidential election, and in a plush weekend house in Connecticut, an intimate group of friends, New Yorkers all, has gathered to recover from what they consider the greatest political catastrophe of their lives. They have just sat down to tea when their hostess, Eva Lindquist, proposes a dare. Who among them would be willing to ask Siri how to assassinate Donald Trump? Liberal and like-minded-editors, writers, a decorator, a theater producer, and one financial guy, Eva's husband, Bruce-the friends have come to the countryside in the hope of restoring the bubble in which they have grown used to living. Yet with the exception of one brash and obnoxious book editor, none is willing to accept Eva's challenge. Shelter in Place is a novel about house and home, furniture and rooms, safety and freedom and the invidious ways in which political upheaval can undermine even the most seemingly impregnable foundations. Eva is the novel's polestar, a woman who moves through her days accompanied by a roving, carefully curated salon. She's a generous hostess and more than a bit of a control freak, whose obsession with decorating allows Leavitt to treat us to a slyly comic look at the habitués and fetishes of the so-called shelter industry. Yet when, in her avidity to secure shelter for herself, she persuades Bruce to buy a grand if dilapidated apartment in Venice, she unwittingly sets off the chain of events that will propel him, for the first time, to venture outside the bubble and embark on a wholly unexpected love affair. A comic portrait of the months immediately following the 2016 election, Shelter in Place is also a meditation on the unreliable appetites-for love, for power, for freedom-by which both our public and private lives are shaped.
Author: David L. Hirst
Author: John Palmer
Author: John Palmer
Author: Kenneth Muir
Author: Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Author: Oscar Wilde
Author: John Dryden
Author: David Leavitt
Author: William Congreve
Author: Clarence Sibley Paine