Name :
Dodiya Mehul Maheshbhai Roll
Number : 29 Sem :
1 Enrollment number :
2069108420180011 Submitted
to : Puja Ma’am Paper
Name : The
Neo-Classical Literature University :
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University
Question: What
is Anti-sentimental comedy? Write a note on the reflection of society in R. B.
Sheridan’s Play?
If we want to know what is Anti sentimental comedy, first of all we have to know its begging. Its term started to the age of Neo-Classical Age. The term Neoclassicism is a combination of two words: Neo and Classic. The word neo has been derived from a Greek word neos, which means young or new, while the word classic, according to the Webster Dictionary, refers to the style and works of the ancient authors of Greece and Rome. To combine these words, we get the meaning of Neoclassicism as the rebirth and restoration of Classicism. Hence, Neoclassicism is the movement in the history of English literature, which laid immense emphasis on revival of the classical spirit during the period between 1680 and 1750 in the age of Pope and Dryden. It is a prototype of Classicism. Writers of this period immensely endeavoured to follow the footpaths of the writers of the period of Augustus, emperor of Rome, which produced unparalleled writers as Horace, Virgil and Ovid. That is the reason; the age of Pope and Dryden is also called Augustan Age.
Neoclassical
Poetry is a type of poetry, which follows the pattern of poetry authored by the
poets of ancient time i.e., Greek and Rome. Pope and Dryden were the leading
writers, who deviated from the traditional schools of poetry and sought
guidance in the works of ancient Greek and Roman writers. They tried to follow
the writers of the antiquity in letter and spirit in the Augustan Age. According
to Britannica Encyclopaedia:
"Classicism and Neoclassicism, in the arts, historical
tradition or aesthetic attitudes based on the art of Greece and Rome in
antiquity. In the context of the tradition, Classicism refers either to the art
produced in antiquity or to later art inspired by that of antiquity;
Neoclassicism always refers to the art produced later but inspired by
antiquity. Thus the terms Classicism and Neoclassicism are often used
interchangeably."
The
period we are studying is known to us by the name, the Age of Queen Anne; but,
unlike Elizabeth, this “meekly stupid” queen had practically no influence upon
English literature, so the name Classic or Augustan Age is more often
heard because the poets and critics of
this age believed in the works of the Latin writers, as Pope writes in Essay in
Criticism:
“Learn
hence for ancient rules a just esteem
To copy nature is to copy them.”
Poetry of the Classical school is the product of the intelligence
playing upon the life. It is exclusively a ‘town’ poetry made out of the
interests of ‘society’ in the great centres of culture, which makes it an age of prose and reason.
It was now a fashion with the poets to follow (human) Nature, and Pope was its
greatest protagonist:
“First follow Nature, and your judgement frame
By her just standard,
which is still the same”.
The qualities such as mystery, imagination, romanticism, came to be
discounted and replaced those related to reason and logic. It was for the first
time that theoretical as well as practical criticism of drama, poetry, essay,
and novel appeared, such as Pope’s
Essay In Criticism, Addison’s Spectators, Johnson’s Preface To Shakespeare.
“The idea of the modern novel seems to have been worked out largely”, says
Long, in Augustan Age, in which, the classic Heroic couplet was perfected by
Pope whose “ten thousand verses’ marvellously varied within their couplets,
crown the experiments of a century,” Tillotson in The Rape of the Lock and The
Dunciad. However the percept and epigram, the satire and the Mock-heroic of the
Age might have been discarded by the subsequent generations of the writers, but
its gift of novel continued long after the Augustan Age had gone out of
fashion.
o
The
Sentimental Comedy
The sentimental comedy did not last long. The
sentimental soon degenerated into sentimentality. This change gradually
manifested itself in the advent of sensibility to replace wit and immorality in
the comedy. In this sentimental comedy of Colley Cibber and Steele there was
conventional morality and sentimentality in place of grossness of the
restoration comedy. These dramatists dealt with the problems, of conduct,
family and marriage in a tone that will no longer shock decorum and by virtue
of tears they cause to flow, they contributed to the edification of souls.
These dramatists aimed at preaching some moral lessons by restoring suffering
innocent virtue to happiness and converting rogues into good characters. Thus
these comedies lost the true spirit of comedy. There are no gaiety and innocent
mirth created by wit and fun. Instead, these plays served the false morality of
the middle class.
o
The
Anti Sentimental Comedy
An anti-sentimental comedy is
also called “Comedy of Manners”. When Sentimental comedy did not last long,
that time anti-sentimental comedy was created by “Oliver Goldsmith” and
“Richard Sheridan”. It is an artificial comedy, arose during 18th century. The
dramatist of this period wrote plays according to middle class family and their
interest. It is kind of comedy representing
complex and sophisticated code of behaviour current in fashionable circles of
society, where appearance count for more than true moral character. Its plot
usually revolves around intrigues of lust and greed, the self-interested
cynicism of the characters being masked by decorous preteens Oliver Goldsmith’s
“SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER” and Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s “THE RIVALS”&
“SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL “are from the Anti-sentimental comedy. We can see that
Sheridan’s play how they reflect the Society.
“The
Rivals” is a Comedy of Manners by Irish-born dramatist and statesman Richard
Brinsley Sheridan. The five-act play first premiered in 1775, marking
Sheridan’s work as a standout piece of eighteenth-century theater. The comedy
was not always so well-received, however. After its initial premier, it was
roundly criticized and dismissed as subpar craft. Needing funds and intent on
his writing, Sheridan learned from his mistakes with the initial premierence.
He cut the work by an hour, strengthened the characters and premiered a practically
new comedy, which was well a received, and which is the version now performed
and read. Comedies such as“The Rivals” are a product of their time, often in fused
with the prevailing thought of the day. As such, one would expect Sheridan’s play
to be filled with the moralezing sentimentalism that much of eighteenth-century
theater produced. Sheridan departed from this didactic form of comedy, however,
creating what Oliver Goldsmith himself labeled as “laughing comedy.” This new
type of comedy trumped the dismal sentimental comedy, providing audiences with
a fresh take on morals and a new manner of viewing life. The characters in “The Rivals” are
stock caricatures. As such, they represent various aspects of human folly. For
an eighteenth-century play on morals, however, Sheridan’s play is still as
fresh and funny today as when it brought audiences to laughter in Sheridan’s
day. Indeed, the term “malapropism,” which is still in use to this day, was actually
coined from one of the characters in the play, Mrs. Malaprop. As the term
suggests, Mrs. Malaprop is known for using sophisticated words or fancysounding
ones in the wrong contest.
The play itself makes good work of satirizing
the pretensions of its day. The larger tropes of false identities and romantic
complicacy, along with parental disapproval, are played out against ridicouslly
sentimentality. In addition to Mrs. Malaprop, the characters include Lydia
Languish, whose head has been inundated with nonsense from her penchant for
romantic novels; Captain Jack Absolute, who is in love with Lydia; Sir Anthony
Absolute, Jack’s father; Sir Lucius O’Trigger, a rambunctious Irishman; and Bob
Acres, who is Jack’s neighbor and somewhat of a simpleton in love with Lydia. Captain
Jack wishes to woo Lydia, and so attempted to do so by pretending to be a
penniless ensign named Beverley. This ruse almost causes Bob Acres and Captain
Jack to fight one another in a duel. The deception also causes a number of
other comical turns. Captain Jack is also rejected by Lydia’s aunt, Mrs.
Malaprop, who provides much of the comedy with her misuse of words. Things are
eventually resolved in true dramatic form, but not before the caricatures of
human folly weave their tale of comical farce.
Sheridan’s “The Rivals” provides many themes
both in its creation as a work and its reception as a well-liked piece of
literature. Sheridan’s own struggles with failing and then succeeding show just
how important it is not to give up on one’s dreams. Had it not been for
Sheridan’s tenacity, “The Rivals” would not exist as it does, and more likely
than not, would have been lost to time like many other plays of the
eighteenth-century. The work itself shows how deception and attempts to be
other than what one is can often have poor consequences. Instead of duping
others with one’s character or words, it is best to approach situations with
the truth. It is the truth that is eventually revealed at the end of an ordeal,
and it is the truth, at least according the “The Rivals,” that furthers the
plot of one’s life in the direction it is meant to go.
Sources
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