1660 — 1720
Bonamy Dobrée
Oxford
At the Clarendon Press
1924
Comments by Ferrick Gray
This book by Dobrée is one of those which is quite easy to read and understand. Even though today we may not be familiar with some of the writers he speaks about, it is still a very entertaining and informative book. This was his first published book and was in 1924. In this case his area of interest was Restoration comedy of the period 1660 to 1720.
Rather than propose any specific theory, Dobrée takes the reader through a lively excursion of the work of seven playwrights in this period of about sixty years. The playwrights he discusses in terms of their plays are Etherege, Wycherley, Dryden, Shadwell, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar.
Dobrée analyzes the plays after some introductory material explaining how these plays or their nature and style came about. For some time, many believed that Restoration comedy came about much to the French influence, but Dobrée demonstrates clearly that it was a natural development of late Elizabethan work. Hence, he uses these playwrights and their work in a manner of description and criticism.
After reading his introduction, the reader may think that what follows may be beyond their abilities to understand, but this is not the case. In fact, the introduction is likely to be the most difficult chapter to follow in the whole exposition. Still, apart from this, Dobrée is deeply knowledgeable in the area he is to write about.
In the second chapter, he briefly examines the circumstances in which this comedy grew and factors that allowed it to grow in the manner it did in their framework. Dobrée does not consider politics and religion individually since the prime factor was the change in social convention at the time which takes the other topics into account.
In the third chapter, Dobrée discusses The Comedy of Manners and its relation to The Comedy of Humors:
Whereas the comedy of humours searched out and displayed the hidden recesses of human passions and desires, the comedy of manners showed that these passions and desires were by no means confined in hidden recesses, but might be encountered daily.1
The comedy of humors appealed to as standard of morality, while the comedy of manners took that of the honest man of the time. Restoration Comedy did not only seek to amuse, but it dealt with everything more intellectually and much was considered as criticism.
The method of the ‘humour’ comedy was akin to that of moralities, that is, to clothe some abstract quality in the garb of a man, invest it with such realistic trappings as to make it appear passably like a human being, and set it amongst its fellows, the whole relieved often, as was Jonson’s way, against a background taken from real life. It tried to be critical, not of its own time but of humanity. It began with an attempted universality, leaving its immediate application to chance, or the spectator’s conscience. The comedy of manners applied an inverse method. It was immediately critical, and in so far as it aimed at universality, as any art worthy of the name must do, it aimed at it through the individual. The comedy of humours never attempted to paint the full man, moved by inconsistencies, urged by conflicting passions, whereas, in the main, the comedy of manners did; and the passions were by no means all on the superficial level of frills and sword knots, repartee, and bawdy talk that is often taken for granted as the characteristic note of Restoration work.2
Dobrée, in his fourth and concluding chapter of general discussion concerns the possible, or in some cases, disputed origins of Restoration comedy. The fact is that it is the subject matter characterizing Restoration comedy that is found in Elizabethan plays. The common occurrence of French plots does not imply that the sole influence is French. It is well known that playwrights, indeed any writer of form would take such things from any language. Take the good and adapt it to their liking. There was a clear difference in comedy prior to 1670, but the ‘newer’ was written for and by a different group of people.
In the next five chapters, Dobrée discusses seven playwrights from the period. These are Etherege, Wycherley, Dryden and Shadwell, Congreve and lastly Vanbrugh and Farquhar. For each he looks at several plays they had written: their strengths and weaknesses as Restoration playwrights. There may be some dispute over discussing Dryden and Shadwell in the same chapter, but when we read this, we can see that Dryden was the better writer. However, this was not really Dryden’s area of expertise and where we find one lacking, the other was not. Both had accepted the attitude of the day, and used common sense to repress exaggerations. Other than this, the similarities between the two were minor. Dobrée also considered Vanbrugh and Farquhar in a single chapter, but this was more with regards to their similarity with respect to Elizabethan plays.
In conclusion Dobrée gives us:
If we were to try to sum up what the comedy of this period as a whole achieved, it would be to say that it gave a brilliant picture of its time rather than a new insight into man.3
Dobrée has given us a wonderful and entertaining overview, and critical review of some of the best Restoration playwrights.