Restoration drama as a mirror of restoration england

Materie:	Tema
Categoria:	Inglese
Voto:	2 (2)
Download:	203
Data:	03.07.2007
Numero di pagine:	2
Formato di file:	.doc (Microsoft Word)

A strong politics against puritans and their beliefs was lead by Charles II who, in 1662 signed the Act of Uniformity penalizing all kinds of puritan opinion in contrast with Anglicanism and finally in 1673 with the Test Acts, puritans were forbidden to candidate themselves for public positions.
The complete elimination and rejection of puritan inspired laws and beliefs lead to a more decadent artistic and cultural atmosphere for the upper-classes.
Fortunately theatres after the censure were reopened in 1660 and born a new type of drama: the comedy of manners.
This motion from the common tragedy to this successive sophisticated social comedy was justified by the public wish of joking about upper-classes exaggerated manners, opinions and of course behaviors.
Therefore the new comedy of manners could be considered as a mirror of restoration England, of a society dominated by “bon-ton” modes and sometimes ridiculous tradition widespread in upper-classes.
The idea of the comedy of manners was inspired by European influences such as, Moliére whose satire “Les Precieuses Ridicules” upon a too fashionable and sophisticated private circle born in Paris could be considered as the beginning of Comedy of Manners tradition, the Italian popular comedy “Commedia dell’arte” and last but not least the Spanish Calderon De la Barca.
The vision of these new plays was restricted to people of fashion and elegant refinement, this justifies the use of wit, a particular emphasis and quick humour usually based on word-games.
This attention focused more to the style and the use of elegant words than to the plot and the final message; for this reason the comedy of manners was superficial and empty of well values.
To sum up, the austerity of Puritanism, embodied by the puritan literature was rejected for a new conception of aesthetic values represented in restoration drama and, generally speaking, literature.
Moreover theatres were roofed, painted and had a rudimental system of stage lighting in order to offer a luxury theatre for an aristocratical audience.
Surely the greatest practitioner of comedies in this period was William Congreve, whose masterpiece is both a reflection and a critique of the excessive attention given to luxury and appearance in high-classes world.
The plot of the Way of the world is extremely intricate, it concerns the story of two parallel lovers couples.
In this play we can understand two different conceptions of love; on one hand we have a true, constant, burning love and on the other hand a cynical and opportunist false love.
In terms of language and style this work is so much elaborated! It is characterized by the use of a sophisticated verbal humour and many names of the characters are symbolic of their personality traits.
After William Congreve, the Comedy of manners will start its decline, mostly because the immorality of the Restoration age started to be openly rejected by the middle class.