Evaluate the dramatic achievements
of one writer of the comedy of manners, and one other creator of heroic
tragedy, during
England’s Restoration Age.
If the age of the
Restoration (1660-1700) is one of the most splendid periods in the annals of
English drama, it is primarily on account of the comedy of manners. This kind
of comedy-brilliant, witty, albeit a little licentious here and there-was an
authentic reflection of the society of the age. The so-called heroic tragedy
which had a brief run concurrently with the comedy of manners had also a
modicum of popularity, but was too stilted and artificial and. to some extent,
merely a transplant from the French soil. A heroic tragedy of the Restoration
(for example, Dryden's The Conquest of Granada or Tyrannic Love) is
much less representative of the ethos of Restoration society than a comedy of
manners.
In 1642 the theatres were closed by the authority of
the parliament which was dominated by Puritans and so no good plays were
written from 1642 till the Restoration (coming back of monarchy in England with
the accession of Charles II to the throne) in 1660 when the theatres were
re-opened. The drama in England after 1660, called the Restoration drama,
showed entirely new trends on account of the long break with the past.
Moreover, it was greatly affected by the spirit of the new age which was
deficient in poetic feeling, imagination and emotional approach to life, but
laid emphasis on prose as the medium of expression, and intellectual, realistic
and critical approach to life and its problems. As the common people still
under the influence of Puritanism had no love for the theatres, the dramatists
had to cater to the taste of the aristocratic class which was highly
fashionable, frivolous, cynical and sophisticated. The result was that unlike
the Elizabethan drama which had a mass appeal, had its roots in the life of the
common people and could be legitimately called the national drama, the
Restoration drama had none of these characteristics. Its appeal was confined to
the upper strata of society whose taste was aristocratic, and among which the
prevailing fashions and etiquettes were foreign and extravagant..............................
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