Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) was a late eighteenth-century British playwright of some renown, noted for helping to revive the English comedy of manners during the Restoration. This type of play depicts the amorous intrigues of people in the wealthier segment of society, and the best-known of Sheridan's plays analyze this territory with sharp wit and complex plots. He followed in the footsteps of William Congreve and William Wycherley and satirized his society in highly-polished plays like School for Scandal and The Critic.

The eighteenth century began as a period of relative calm after the ferment and political turmoil of the previous century, and this was marked by the Restoration, the return to a previous order. The political order of the previous century was embodied in Thomas Hobbes' work Leviathan, which could be seen as a justification for the rule of Cromwell and a challenge to the accepted order of royalty. In the eighteenth century, though the monarchy had been restored, power had clearly shifted to parliament to a great degree. Power had in a larger sense started shifting to the people at large, and this was seen in the increase in education and in the growth of a wider reading public than had ever existed before. The growing middle class included people with more and more leisure time, and they along with the upper classes turned more and more to literature as a diversion. New literary forms developed to replace the old, opening the way for satir

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ation comedy tends to draw attention to its own theatricality with references to the theater, and A School for Scandal begins with a traditional poetic introduction which does just that: Tell me, ye prime adepts in Scandal's school, Who rail by precept, and detract by rule, Lives there no character, so tried, so known, So deck'd with grace, and so unlike your own, That even you assist her fame to raise, Approve by envy, and by silence praise! Attend! a model shall attract your view Daughters of calumny, I summon you! You shall decide if this a portrait prove, Or fond creation of the Muse and Love. The dialogue is theatrical in the way it is shaped and honed to perfection so that the various back-biting characters can debase one another with language in an oral dance. This constant badinage causes Maria to leave the room at one point, after she has turned to the audience and states, "Their malice is intolerable" (Sheridan 66). Such asides are a theatrical tradition which also draws attention to the fact that this is a play by including the audience as part of the action--Maria is not speaking to herself but directly to the audience. Joseph and Charle

Category: Arts - R