Jeremy Collier, "A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage" (1698)
Jeremy Collier (1650–1726) was a clergyman who refused to swear allegiance to William III and Mary II after the revolution of 1688. In 1696 he was outlawed for publicly absolving two prisoners involved in a plot to assassinate William III. But he is remembered most for his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, in which he attacked writers such as William Congreve, William Wycherley, and John Dryden for their stage characters' sexual freedom and profane dialogue.
The business of plays is to recommend virtue and discountenance vice; to show the uncertainty of human greatness, the sudden turns of fate, and the unhappy conclusions of violence and injustice; 'tis to expose the singularities of pride and fancy, to make folly and falsehood contemptible, and to bring everything that is ill under infamy and neglect. This design has been oddly pursued by the English stage. Our poets write with a different view and are gone into another interest. 'Tis true, were their intentions fair, they might be serviceable to this purpose. They have in a great measure the springs of thought and inclination in their power. Show, music, action, and rhetoric are moving entertainments; and, rightly employed, would be very significant. But force and motion are things indifferent, and the use lies chiefly in the application. These advantages are now in the enemy's hand and under a very dangerous management. Like cannon seized, they are pointed the wrong way; and by the strength of the defense, the mischief is made the greater. That this complaint is not unreasonable I shall endeavor to prove by showing the misbehavior of the stage with respect to morality and religion. Their liberties in the following particulars are intolerable, viz., their smuttiness of expression; their swearing, profaneness, and lewd application of Scripture; their abuse of the clergy, their making their top characters libertines and giving them success in their debauchery. This charge, with some other irregularities, I shall make good against the stage and show both the novelty and scandal of the practice. And, first, I shall begin with the rankness and indecency of their language.
In treating this head, I hope the reader does not expect that I should set down chapter and page and give him the citations at length. To do this would be a very unacceptable and foreign employment. Indeed the passages, many of them, are in no condition to be handled. He that is desirous to see these flowers, let him do it in their own soil. 'Tis my business rather to kill the root than transplant it. But that the poets may not complain of injustice, I shall point to the infection at a distance, and refer in general to play and person.
Now among the curiosities of this kind we may reckon Mrs. Pinchwife, Homer, and Lady Fidget in the Country Wife; Widow Blackacre and Olivia in the Plain Dealer. These, though not all the exceptionable characters, are the most remarkable. I'm sorry the author should stoop his wit thus low and use his understanding so unkindly. Some people appear coarse and slovenly out of poverty. They can't well go to the charge of sense. They are offensive, like beggars, for want of necessaries. But this is none of the Plain Dealer's case; he can afford his Muse a better dress when he pleases. But then the rule is, where the motive is the less, the fault is the greater. To proceed. Jacinta, Elvira, Dalinda, and Lady Pliant, in the Mock Astrologer, Spanish Friar, Love Triumphant, and Double Dealer, forget themselves extremely; and almost all the characters in the Old Bachelor are foul and nauseous. Love for Love and the Relapse strike sometimes upon this sand, and so likewise does Don Sebastian.
I don't pretend to have read the stage through; neither am I particular to my utmost. Here is quoting enough unless 'twere better. Besides, I may have occasion to mention somewhat of this kind afterwards. But from what has been hinted already, the reader may be over-furnished. Here is a large collection of debauchery; such pieces are rarely to be met with. 'Tis sometimes painted at length too and appears in great variety of progress and practice. It wears almost all sorts of dresses to engage the fancy and fasten upon the memory and keep up the charm from languishing. Sometimes you have it in image and description; sometimes by way of allusion; sometimes in disguise; and sometimes without it. And what can be the meaning of such a representation unless it be to tincture the audience, to extinguish shame, and make lewdness a diversion? This is the natural consequence, and therefore one would think 'twas the intention too. Such licentious discourse tends to no point but to stain the imagination, to awaken folly, and to weaken the defenses of virtue. It was upon the account of these disorders that Plato banished poets his Commonwealth. And one of the Fathers calls poetry, Vinum Daemonum, an intoxicating draught made up of the Devil's dispensatory.
I grant the abuse of a thing is no argument against the use of it. However, young people particularly should not entertain themselves with a lewd picture, especially when 'tis drawn by a masterly hand. For such a liberty may probably raise those passions which can neither be discharged without trouble, nor satisfied without a crime. 'Tis not safe for a man to trust his virtue too far, for fear it should give him the slip! But the danger of such an entertainment is but part of the objection; 'tis all scandal and meanness into the bargain. It does in effect degrade human nature; sinks reason into appetite, and breaks down the distinctions between man and beast. Goats and monkeys, if they could speak, would express their brutality in such language as this.
Smuttiness is a fault in behavior as well as in religion. 'Tis a very coarse diversion, the entertainment of those who are generally least both in sense and station. The looser part of the mob have no true relish of decency and honor, and want education and thought to furnish out a genteel conversation. Barrenness of fancy makes them often take up with those scandalous liberties. A vicious imagination may blot a great deal of paper at this rate with ease enough. And 'tis possible convenience may sometimes invite to the expedient. The modern poets seem to use smut as the old ones did machines, to relieve a fainting invention. When Pegasus is jaded and would stand still, he is apt like other tits to run into every puddle.
Obscenity in any company is a rustic, uncreditable talent, but among women 'tis particularly rude. Such talk would be very affrontive in conversation and not endured by any lady of reputation. Whence then comes it to pass that those liberties which disoblige so much in conversation should entertain upon the stage? Do women leave all the regards to decency and conscience behind them when they come to the playhouse? Or does the place transform their inclinations and turn their former aversions into pleasure? Or were their pretenses to sobriety elsewhere nothing but hypocrisy and grimace? Such suppositions as these are all satire and invective. They are rude imputations upon the whole sex. To treat the ladies with such stuff is no better than taking their money to abuse them. It supposes their imagination vicious and their memories ill-furnished, that they are practiced in the language of the stews and pleased with the scenes of brutishness. When at the same time the customs of education and the laws of decency are so very cautious and reserved in regard to women—I say so very reserved—that 'tis almost a fault for them to understand they are ill-used. They can't discover their disgust without disadvantage, nor blush without disservice to their modesty. To appear with any skill in such cant looks as if they had fallen upon ill conversation or managed their curiosity amiss. In a word, he that treats the ladies with such discourse must conclude either that they like it or they do not. To suppose the first is a gross reflection upon their virtue. And as for the latter case, it entertains them with their own aversion, which is ill-nature, and ill-manners enough in all conscience. And in this particular custom and conscience, the forms of breeding and the maxims of religion are on the same side. In other instances vice is often too fashionable. But here a man can't be a sinner without being a clown.
In this respect the stage is faulty to a scandalous degree of nauseousness and aggravation.
For:
1. The poets make women speak smuttily. Of this the places before-mentioned are sufficient evidence, and if there was occasion they might be multiplied to a much greater number. Indeed the comedies are seldom clear of these blemishes. And sometimes you have them in tragedy. For instance, the Orphan's Monimia makes a very improper description, and the Royal Leonora in the Spanish Friar runs a strange length in the history of love. And do princesses use to make their reports with such fulsome freedoms? Certainly this Leonora was the first queen of her family. Such raptures are too luscious for Joan of Naples. Are these the tender things Mr. Dryden says the ladies call on him for? I suppose he means the ladies that are too modest to show their faces in the pit. This entertainment can be fairly designed for none but such. Indeed it hits their palate exactly. It regales their lewdness, graces their character, and keeps up their spirits for their vocation. Now to bring women under such misbehavior is violence to their native modesty, and a misrepresentation of their sex. For modesty, as Mr. Rapin observes, is the character of women. To represent them without this quality is to make monsters of them and throw them out of their kind. Euripides, who was no negligent observer of human nature, is always careful of this Decorum. Thus Phaedra, when possessed with an infamous passion, takes all imaginable pains to conceal it. She is as regular and reserved in her language as the most virtuous matron. 'Tis true, the force of shame and desire, the scandal of satisfying, and the difficulty of parting with her inclinations disorder her to distraction. However, her frenzy is not lewd; she keeps her modesty even after she has lost her wits. Had Shakespeare secured this point for his young virgin, Ophelia, the play had been better contrived. Since he was resolved to drown the lady like a kitten, he should have set her a swimming a little sooner. To keep her alive only to sullen her reputation and discover the rankness of her breath was very cruel. But it may be said the freedoms of distraction go for nothing, a fever has no faults, and a man non compos may kill without murder. It may be so; but then such people ought to be kept in dark rooms and without company. To show them or let them loose is somewhat unreasonable. But after all, the modern stage seems to depend upon this expedient. Women are sometimes represented silly, and sometimes mad, to enlarge their liberty and screen their impudence from censure. This politic contrivance we have in Marcella, Hoyden, and Miss Prue. However, it amounts to this confession, that women, when they have their understanding about them, ought to converse otherwise. In fine, modesty is the distinguishing virtue of that sex and serves both for ornament and defense; modesty was designed by providence as a guard to virtue, and that it might be always at hand 'tis wrought into the mechanism of the body. 'Tis likewise proportioned to the occasions of life and strongest in youth when passion is so too. 'Tis a quality as true to innocence as the senses are to health; whatever is ungrateful to the first is prejudicial to the latter. The enemy no sooner approaches, but the blood rises in opposition and looks defiance to an indecency. It supplies the room of reasoning and collection. Intuitive knowledge can scarcely make a quicker impression; and what, then, can be a surer guide to the unexperienced? It teaches by sudden instinct and aversion. This is both a ready and a powerful method of instruction. The tumult of the blood and spirits and the uneasiness of the sensation are of singular use. They serve to awaken reason and prevent surprise. Thus the distinctions of good and evil are refreshed, and the temptation kept at a proper distance.
2. They represent their single ladies and persons of condition under these disorders of liberty. This makes the irregularity still more monstrous and a greater contradiction to Nature and probability. But rather than not be vicious, they will venture to spoil a character. This mismanagement we have partly seen already. Jacinta and Belinda are farther proof; and the Double Dealer is particularly remarkable. There are but four Ladies in this play, and three of the biggest of them are whores. A great compliment to quality to tell them there is not above a quarter of them honest! This was not the Roman breeding. Terence and Plautus his strumpets were little people; but of this more hereafter.
3. They have oftentimes not so much as the poor refuge of a double meaning to fly to. So that you are under a necessity either of taking ribaldry or nonsense. And when the sentence has two handles, the worst is generally turned to the audience. The matter is so contrived that the smut and scum of the thought now arises uppermost, and, like a picture drawn to sight, looks always upon the company.
4. And which is still more extraordinary, the prologues and epilogues are sometimes scandalous to the last degree. I shall discover them for once, and let them stand like rocks in the margin. Now here, properly speaking, the actors quit the stage and remove from fiction into life. Here they converse with the boxes and pit and address directly to the audience. These preliminary and concluding parts are designed to justify the conduct of the play, and bespeak the favor of the company. Upon such occasions one would imagine, if ever, the ladies should be used with respect and the measures of decency observed. But here we have lewdness without shame or example. Here the poet exceeds himself. Here are such strains as would turn the stomach of an ordinary debauchee and be almost nauseous in the stews. And to make it the more agreeable, women are commonly picked out for this service. Thus the poet courts the good opinion of the audience. This is the dessert he regales the ladies with at the close of the entertainment. It seems, he thinks, they have admirable palates! Nothing can be a greater breach of manners than such liberties as these. If a man would study to outrage quality and virtue, he could not do it more effectually. But:
5. Smut is still more insufferable with respect to religion. The heathen religion was in a great measure a mystery of iniquity. Lewdness was consecrated in the temples as well as practiced in the stews. Their deities were great examples of vice and worshipped with their own inclination. 'Tis no wonder therefore their poetry should be tinctured with their belief, and that the stage should borrow some of the liberties of their theology. This made Mercury's procuring and Jupiter's adultery the more passable in Amphytrion. Upon this score, Gimnausium is less monstrous in praying the gods to send her store of gallants. And thus Chaerea defends his adventure by the precedent of Jupiter and Danae. But the Christian religion is quite of another complexion. Both its precepts and authorities are the highest discouragement to licentiousness. It forbids the remotest tendencies to evil, banishes the follies of conversation, and obliges up to sobriety of thought. That which might pass for raillery and entertainment in heathenism is detestable in Christianity. The restraint of the precept and the quality of the Deity and the expectations of futurity quite alter the case.
The lines of virtue and vice are struck out by nature in very legible distinctions; they tend to a different point, and in the greater instances the space between them is easily perceived. Nothing can be more unlike than the original forms of these qualities: the first has all the sweetness, charms, and graces imaginable; the other has the air of a post ill carved into a monster, and looks both foolish and frightful together. These are the native appearances of Good and Evil. And they that endeavor to blot the distinctions, to rub out the colors or change the marks, are extremely to blame. 'Tis confessed as long as the mind is awake and conscience goes true there's no fear of being imposed on. But when vice is varnished over with pleasure and comes in the shape of convenience, then the case grows somewhat dangerous; for the fancy may be gained and the guards corrupted and reason suborned against itself. And thus a disguise often passes when the person would otherwise be stopped. To put lewdness into a thriving condition, to give it an equipage of quality, and to treat it with ceremony and respect is the way to confound the understanding, to fortify the charm, and to make the mischief invincible. Innocence is often owing to fear, and appetite is kept under by shame; but when these restraints are once taken off, when profit and liberty lie on the same side, and a man can debauch himself into credit, what can be expected in such a case, but that pleasure should grow absolute and madness carry all before it? The stage seems eager to bring matters to this issue; they have made a considerable progress and are still pushing their point with all the vigor imaginable. If this be not their aim, why is lewdness so much considered in character and success? Why are their favorites atheistical and their fine gentlemen debauched? To what purpose is vice thus preferred, thus ornamented and caressed, unless for imitation? That matter of fact stands thus, I shall make good by several instances. To begin then with their men of breeding and figure. Wildblood sets up for debauchery, ridicules marriage, and swears by Mahomet. Bellamy makes sport with the Devil, and Lorenzo is vicious and calls his father bawdy magistrate. Horner is horridly smutty, and Harcourt false to his friend who used him kindly. In The Plain Dealer, Freeman talks coarsely, cheats the widow, debauches her son, and makes him undutiful. Bellmour is lewd and profane, and Mellefont puts Careless in the best way he can to debauch Lady Plyant. These sparks generally marry the top ladies, and those that do not are brought to no penance, but go off with the character of fine gentlemen. In Don Sebastian Antonio, an atheistical bully, is rewarded with the Lady Moraima and half the Mufti's estate. Valentine in Love for Love is (if I may so call him) the hero of the play. This spark the poet would pass for a person of virtue, but he speaks too late. 'Tis true, he was hearty in his affection to Angelica. Now without question, to be in love with a fine lady of 30,000 Pounds is a great virtue! But then abating this single commendation, Valentine is altogether compounded of vice. He is a prodigal debauchee, unnatural and profane, obscene, saucy and undutiful, and yet this libertine is crowned for the man of merit, has his wishes thrown into his lap, and makes the happy exit. I perceive we should have a rare set of virtues if these poets had the making of them! How they hug a vicious character, and how profuse are they in their liberalities to lewdness! In The Provoked Wife, Constant swears at length, solicits Lady Brute, confesses himself lewd, and prefers debauchery to marriage. He handles the last subject very notably and worth the hearing. There is (says he) a poor sordid slavery in marriage that turns the flowing tide of honor and sinks it to the lowest ebb of infamy. 'Tis a corrupted soil; ill nature, avarice, sloth, cowardice, and dirt are all its product—but then constancy (alias whoring) is a brave, free, haughty, generous agent. This is admirable stuff both for the rhetoric and the reason! The character of Young Fashion in The Relapse is of the same staunchness, but this the reader may have in another place.
To sum up the evidence. A fine gentleman is a fine whoring, swearing, smutty, atheistical man. These qualifications, it seems, complete the idea of honor. They are the top improvements of fortune and the distinguishing glories of birth and breeding! This is the stage-test for quality, and those that can't stand it ought to be disclaimed. The restraints of conscience and the pendantry of virtue are unbecoming a cavalier. Future securities and reaching beyond life are vulgar provisions. If he falls a-thinking at this rate, he forfeits his honor; for his head was only made to run against a post! Here you have a man of breeding and figure that burlesques the Bible, swears, and talks smut to ladies, speaks ill of his friend behind his back, and betrays his interest. A fine gentleman that has neither honesty nor honor, conscience nor manners, good nature nor civil hypocrisy; fine only in the insignificancy of life, the abuse of religion, and the scandals of conversation. These worshipful things are the poet's favorites. They appear at the head of the fashion and shine in character and equipage. If there is any sense stirring, they must have it, though the rest of the stage suffer never so much by the partiality. And what can be the meaning of this wretched distribution of honor? Is it not to give credit and countenance to vice and to shame young people out of all pretense to conscience and regularity? They seem forced to turn lewd in their own defense. They can't otherwise justify themselves to the fashion, nor keep up the character of gentlemen. Thus people not well-furnished with thought and experience are debauched both in practice and principle. And thus religion grows uncreditable and passes for ill education. The stage seldom gives quarter to any thing that's serviceable or significant, but persecutes worth and goodness under every appearance. He that would be safe from their satire must take care to disguise himself in vice and hang out the colors of debauchery. How often is learning, industry, and frugality ridiculed in comedy? The rich citizens are often misers and cuckolds, and the universities, schools of pedantry upon this score. In short, libertinism and profaneness, dressing, idleness, and gallantry, are the only valuable qualities. As if people were not apt enough of themselves to be lazy, lewd, and extravagant unless they were pricked forward and provoked by glory and reputation. Thus the marks of honor and infamy are misapplied, and the ideas of virtue and vice confounded. Thus monstrousness goes for proportion, and the blemishes of human nature make up the beauties of it.
The fine ladies are of the same cut with the gentlemen. Moraima is scandalously rude to her father, helps him to a beating, and runs away with Antonio. Angelia talks saucily to her uncle, and Belinda confesses her inclination for a gallant. And, as I have observed already, the topping ladies in The Mock Astrologer, Spanish Friar, Country Wife, Old Bachelor, Orphan, Double Dealer and Love Triumphant are smutty and sometimes profane.
Thus we see what a fine time lewd people have on the English stage. No censure, no mark of infamy, no mortification must touch them. They keep their honor untarnished and carry off the advantage of their character. They are set up for the standard of behavior and the masters of ceremony and sense. And at last, that the example may work the better they generally make them rich and happy and reward them with their own desires.
Mr. Dryden, in the Preface to his Mock Astrologer, confesses himself blamed for this practice: for making debauched persons his protagonists or chief persons of the drama; and for making them happy in the conclusion of the play, against the law of comedy, which is to reward virtue and punish vice. To this objection he makes a lame defense. And answers, that he knows no such law constantly observed in comedy by the ancient or modem poets. What then? Poets are not always exactly in rule. It may be a good law though 'tis not constantly observed; some laws are constantly broken and yet ne'er the worse for all that. He goes on and pleads the authorities of Plautus and Terence. I grant there are instances of favor to vicious young people in those authors, but to this I reply:
1. That those poets had a greater compass of liberty in their religion. Debauchery did not lie under those discouragements of scandal and penalty with them, as it does with us. Unless, therefore, he can prove heathenism and Christianity the same, his precedents will do him little service.
2. Horace, who was as good a judge of the stage as either of those comedians, seems to be of another opinion. He condemns the obscenities of Plautus and tells you men of fortune and quality in his time would not endure immodest satire. He continues, that poets were formerly admired for the great services they did: for teaching matters relating to religion and government; for refining the manners, tempering the passions, and improving the understandings of mankind; for making them more useful in domestic relations and the public capacities of life. This is a demonstration that vice was not the inclination of the muses in those days, and that Horace believed the chief business of a poet was to instruct the audience.
Lastly, Horace having expressly mentioned the beginning and progress of comedy, discovers himself more fully. He advises a poet to form his work upon the precepts of Socrates and Plato and the models of moral philosophy. This was the way to preserve decency and to assign a proper fate and behavior to every character. Now if Horace would have his poet governed by the maxims of morality, he must oblige him to sobriety of conduct and a just distribution of rewards and punishments.
Mr. Dryden makes homewards and endeavors to fortify himself in modern authority. He lets us know that Ben Jonson, after whom he may be proud to err, gives him more than one example of this conduct; that in The Alchemist is notorious, where neither Face nor his master are corrected according their demerits. But how proud soever Mr. Dryden may be of an error, he has not so much of Ben Jonson's comedy as he pretends. His instance of Face etc. in The Alchemist is rather notorious against his purpose than for it.
For Face did not counsel his master Lovewit to debauch the widow; neither is it clear that the matter went thus far. He might gain her consent upon terms of honor for aught appears to the contrary. 'Tis true, Face, who was one of the principal cheats, is pardoned and considered. But then his master confesses himself kind to a fault. He owns this indulgence was a breach of justice and unbecoming the gravity of an old man. And then desires the audience to excuse him upon the score of the temptation. But Face continued in the cozenage till the last without repentance. Under favor, I conceive this is a mistake. For does not Face make an apology before he leaves the stage? Does he not set himself at the bar, arraign his own practice, and cast the cause upon the clemency of the company? And are not all these signs of the dislike of what he had done? Thus careful the poet is to prevent the ill impressions of his play! He brings both man and master to confession; he dismisses them like malefactors and moves for their pardon before he gives them their discharge. But the Mock Astrologer has a gentler hand: Wildblood and Jacinta are more generously used. There is no acknowledgment exacted, no hardship put upon them. They are permitted to talk on in their libertine way to the last and take leave without the least appearance of reformation. The Mock Astrologer urges Ben Jonson's Silent Woman as another precedent to his purpose. For there Dauphine confesses himself in love with all the collegiate ladies. And yet this naughty Dauphine is crowned in the end with the possession of his uncle's estate, and with the hopes of all his mistresses. This charge, as I take it, is somewhat too severe. I grant Dauphine professes himself in love with the collegiate ladies at first. But when they invite him to a private visit, he makes them no promise, but rather appears tired and willing to disengage. Dauphine therefore is not altogether so naughty as this author represents him.
Ben Jonson's Fox is clearly against Mr. Dryden. And here I have his own confession for proof. He declares the poet's end in this play was the punishment of vice and the reward of virtue. Ben was forced to strain for this piece of justice and break through the unity of design. This Mr. Dryden remarks upon him. However, he is pleased to commend the performance and calls it an excellent fifth act.
Ben Jonson shall speak for himself afterwards in the character of a critic; in the meantime I shall take a testimony or two from Shakespeare. And here we may observe the admired Falstaff goes off in disappointment. He is thrown out of favor as being a rake and dies like a rat behind the hangings. The pleasure he had given would not excuse him. The poet was not so partial as to let his humour compound for his lewdness. If 'tis objected that this remark is wide of the point, because Falstaff is represented in tragedy, where the laws of justice are more strictly observed. To this I answer, that you may call Henry the Fourth and Fifth tragedies if you please; but for all that, Falstaff wears no buskins; his character is perfectly comical from end to end.
The next instance shall be in Flowerdale the prodigal. This spark, notwithstanding his extravagance, makes a lucky hand on't at last and marries up a rich lady. But then the poet qualifies him for his good fortune and mends his manners with his circumstances. He makes him repent and leave off his intemperance, swearing, etc. And when his father warned him against a relapse, he answers very soberly: Heaven helping me, I'll hate the course of Hell.
I could give some instances of this kind out of Beaumont and Fletcher, but there's no need of any farther quotation: for Mr. Dryden is not satisfied with his apology from authority. He does as good as own that this may be construed no better than defending one ill practice by another. To prevent this very reasonable objection he endeavors to vindicate his precedents from the reason of the thing. To this purpose he makes a wide difference between the rules of tragedy and comedy. That vice must be impartially prosecuted in the first, because the persons are great, etc.
It seems then executions are only for greatness and quality. Justice is not to strike much lower than a prince. Private people may do what they please. They are too few for mischief and too little for punishment! This would be admirable doctrine for Newgate and give us a general Gaol-Delivery without more ado. But in tragedy (says the Mock Astrologer) the crimes are likewise horrid, so that there is a necessity for severity and example. And how stands the matter in comedy? Quite otherwise. There the faults are but the sallies of youth and the frailties of human nature. For instance. There is nothing but a little whoring, pimping, gaming, profaneness, etc. And who could be so hard hearted to give a man any trouble for this? Such rigors would be strangely inhumane! A poet is a better natured thing I can assure you. These little miscarriages move pity and commiseration and are not such as must of necessity be punished. This is comfortable casuistry! But to be serious. Is dissolution of manners such a peccadillo? Does a profligate conscience deserve nothing but commiseration? And are people damned only for human frailties? I perceive the laws of religion and those of the stage differ extremely! The strength of his defense lies in this choice maxim, that the chief end of comedy is delight. He questions whether instruction has any thing to do in comedy. If it has, he is sure 'tis no more than its secondary end; for the business of the poet is to make you laugh. Granting the truth of this principle, I somewhat question the serviceableness of it. For is there no diversion to be had unless vice appears prosperous and rides at the head of success? One would think such a preposterous distribution of rewards should rather shock the reason and raise the indignation of the audience. To laugh without reason is the pleasure of fools, and against it, of something worse. The exposing of knavery and making lewdness ridiculous is a much better occasion for laughter. And this, with submission, I take to be the end of comedy. And therefore it does not differ from tragedy in the end, but in the means. Instruction is the principal design of both. The one works by terror, the other by infamy. 'Tis true, they don't move in the same line, but they meet in the same point at last.
Indeed to make delight the main business of comedy is an unreasonable and dangerous principle, opens the way to all licentiousness, and confounds the distinction between mirth and madness. For if diversion is the chief end, it must be had at any price. No serviceable expedient must be refused, though never so scandalous. And thus the worst things are said, and the best abused; religion is insulted, and the most serious matters turned into ridicule! As if the blind side of an audience ought to be caressed, and their folly and atheism entertained in the first place. Yes, if the palate is pleased, no matter though the body is poisoned! For can one die of an easier disease than diversion? But raillery apart, certainly mirth and laughing without respect to the cause are not such supreme satisfactions! A man has sometimes pleasure in losing his wits. Frenzy and possession will shake the lungs and brighten the face; and yet I suppose they are not much to be coveted. However, now we know the reason of the profaneness and obscenity of the stage, of their hellish cursing and swearing, and in short of their great industry to make God and Goodness contemptible. 'Tis all to satisfy the company and make people laugh! A most admirable justification. What can be more engaging to an audience than to see a poet thus atheistically brave? To see him charge up to the cannon's mouth and defy the vengeance of Heaven to serve them? Besides, there may be somewhat of convenience in the case. To fetch diversion out of innocence is no such easy matter. There's no succeeding, it may be, in this method, without sweat and drudging. Clean wit, inoffensive humour, and handsome contrivance require time and thought. And who would be at this expense when the purchase is so cheap another way? 'Tis possible a poet may not always have sense enough by him for such an occasion. And since we are upon supposals, it may be the audience is not to be gained without straining a point and giving a loose to conscience. And when people are sick, are they not to be humoured? In fine, we must not make them laugh, right or wrong, for delight is the chief end of comedy. Delight! He should have said debauchery. That's the English of the word and the consequence of the practice. But the original design of comedy was otherwise. And granting it was not so, what then? If the ends of things were naught, they must be mended. Mischief is the chief end of malice, would it be then a blemish in ill nature to change temper and relent into goodness? The chief end of a madman, it may be, is to fire a house; must we not therefore bind him in his bed? To conclude. If delight without restraint or distinction, without conscience or shame, is the supreme law of comedy, 'twere well if we had less on't. Arbitrary pleasure is more dangerous than arbitrary power. Nothing is more brutal than to be abandoned to appetite; and nothing more wretched than to serve in such a design.
The sections into which a play or other theatrical work have been divided, either by the playwright or by a later editor. Dividing plays into five acts became popular during the Renaissance, in imitation of Roman tragedy; modern works are sometimes divided into three acts.
A rhymed verse form based on six-beat measures, in which every second line rhymes with the one before. Alexandrines were used in French tragedy and comedy throughout the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century. They require highly skilled actors for their proper delivery.
Roles written or adapted for female actors in which they portray men or dress in male attire; especially popular during the English Restoration and throughout the eighteenth century, when men's trousers, or breeches, were form-fitting and reached only to the knee.
Originally, the choir of singing, dancing, masked young men who performed in ancient Greek tragedy and comedy. Treated in tragedy as a "character" within the story, the chorus often represents aggrieved groups (old men, foreign slaves, victims of the plague). The chorus berates, implores, advises, harasses, pursues, and sometimes even helps and commiserates with the main characters, but mostly bears witness to their doings and sayings. In Old Comedy, the chorus serves at times as the mouthpiece for the poet. It gradually disappeared from tragedy and comedy, but many attempts have been made to revive some version of it, notably during the Italian and English Renaissance, under Weimar Classicism, and by such twentieth-century playwrights as Jean Anouilh, T.S. Eliot, and Michel Tremblay. The singing and dancing chorus appears today most commonly in musical theatre, opera, and operetta.
A play written to induce joy or laughter in the audience. Unlike tragedy, which generally takes characters from a condition of prosperity to a state of destruction or loss, comedy usually begins with a problem, and ends with its happy resolution. Comedy ranges from laughing genres such as satire and comedy of manners, parody, farce and burlesque, to such weepy genres as sentimental and romantic comedy.
A type of comic play that flourished in the late seventeenth century in London, and elsewhere since, which bases its humour on the sexual and marital intrigues of "high society." It is sometimes contrasted with "comedy of character," as its satire is directed at the social habits and conventional hypocrisy of the whole leisured class. Also called Restoration Comedy; exemplified by the plays of Behn, Wycherley, and Congreve.
The wearing of the clothing of the opposite sex, either on stage or in life, is typical of many single-gender theatrical traditions, such as those of ancient Greece and Shakespearean England, in which only men performed. See also breeches roles.
A play or literary work composed of a series of separate and to some degree interchangeable incidents (rather than of a single, unified, and continuously unfolding narrative) is said to have an episodic plot.
Sometimes classed as the "lowest" form of comedy. Its humour depends not on verbal wit, but on physicality and sight gags: pratfalls, beatings, peltings with pies, malfunctioning equipment, unpleasant surprises, and sudden necessities to hide in boxes and closets. However, most comedy contains some elements of farce, which requires highly skilled actors for its effects. Also called "slapstick" in honour of the double-shafted baton carried by Arlecchino in commedia dell'arte, which, when struck against another actor in a simulated beating, made a loud slap.
Speech in a poetic drama that, with its unstressed/stressed rhythm (or short/long accent), most closely approximates the rhythm of everyday speech. Iambics were first used in Greek poetry in abusive poems that attacked particular individuals.
A contrast between what is said and what is known. Some speakers use it intentionally, as when Socrates feigned ignorance of things he knew quite well, to draw out other "philosophers." By contrast, dramatic irony occurs when characters utter statements whose full meaning is not understood by them (although it is clear to those who hear it, such as the audience or the other characters on stage). Many of Oedipus's remarks, which are true in ways he does not yet grasp, exemplify dramatic irony. Tragic irony, on the other hand, is said to occur when events turn out in an opposite way to what was expected and desired, yet so strangely fittingly that, in retrospect, it seems as if this outcome should have been predicted or known all along (see tragedy, with its "reversal and recognition"). Some forms of satire may also rely on irony.
Spectacular entertainments performed at royal courts as part of special celebrations such as weddings and feast-days, chiefly during the Renaissance. Consisting of music, dance, technical wizardry, and extravagantly opulent costumes, masques celebrated the virtues of the reigning monarch in terms, images, and allegories drawn from Classical mythology. Members of the royal family and their entourage took part by joining in the dancing or allowing themselves to be carried aloft on "clouds" animated by hidden machines. In England, Ben Jonson provided the poetry for famous masques created in collaboration with architect and scenographer Inigo Jones.
A type of storytelling that emerged in France and Germany in the wake of the French Revolution, and that is marked by many features of that event: a clear division of characters into the poor, weak, and good hero on one hand, often a child, woman, mute or slave; and a rich, powerful, and evil villain on the other, who schemes to exploit or harm the victim, but who is triumphantly overthrown at the last possible minute, usually in a sensational fire, fight, avalanche, or other violent cataclysm. Literally "music-drama," melodrama originally used background music throughout the action, much like film soundtracks do, to emphasize the characters' emotions, warn of approaching danger, and shape the spectator's emotional response (especially at the ends of acts and scenes, when actors assumed particularly pathetic or frightening postures and held them, frozen, in tableaux). Melodrama was the most popular narrative genre in Europe and North America in the nineteenth century. It still retains its popularity today, but it has long since left the theatre, taking up residence in the Hollywood film.
The principles, rules, and conventions of writing plays according to the precepts and ideals of neoclassicism. Often based on the so-called unities of time, place, and action.
Literally the "new classicism," the aesthetic style in drama and other art forms that dominated high culture in Europe through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in some places into the nineteenth century, or until it was swept away by Romanticism. Its subject matter was often taken from Greek and Roman myth and history; but more important than its subject matter was its style , which was based on a selective and often downright false image of the ancient world. It valued order, reason, clarity, and moderation; it rejected strong contrasts in tone, as well as, usually, the supernatural and anything that cannot be rationally motivated within the plot of a play (such as the appearance of gods, witches, or a dancing chorus). Racine's Phèdre is considered one of the most perfectly realized neoclassical dramas. See also unities.
A type of comic play that flourished in ancient Greece from the fourth century b.c.e., particularly under such playwrights as Menander. It was later imported into Rome, where its plots and characters were reworked in Latin. Replacing Old Comedy after Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War, it focused on private, everyday domestic situations involving parent-child disharmony, money, neighbours, and parental obstacles to love and marriage. Its young lovers, bad-tempered parents, scheming slaves, and golden-hearted prostitutes quickly achieved the status of stock characters. Also known as situation comedy.
The type of dramatic satire practiced in fifth-century Athens and equated today with the works of Aristophanes (see Frogs in this volume). The genre is known for its fantastical and unrealistic episodic plots, its frequent use of animal choruses (frogs, birds, wasps, horse-mounted knights), and particularly for its brilliant verbal wit, free obscenity, and fearless attacks on living Athenian politicians and other public figures (e.g., Euripides and Socrates). See also chorus.
A type of play invented during the Renaissance by members of Italian scholarly academies in an attempt to revive the satyr play of ancient Greece. Filtering the lusty, drunken goat-men, ecstatic maenads, and rustic settings of the satyr play though their Christian worldview, such writers created a new theatrical genre in which innocent shepherds, nymphs, and shepherdesses gambol in an idealized natural landscape free from the pressures of city life and the corruptions of civilization.
Not to be confused with the "story," the plot of a play or other literary work is the precise arrangement of incidents used to tell the story. The same story can give rise to countless plots, depending on the point at which the writer chooses to begin (at Oedipus's birth? or on the last day of his reign?), what he or she chooses to dramatize (the wedding night of Oedipus and Jocasta? the murder of Hamlet's father?), and how he chooses to bring the events about (a messenger? a lost letter? an epiphany? a gun-battle?).
The central character in a drama or other literary work; see ag¯on.
A genre of witty and sexually uninhibited drama associated with the London theatres in the decades after 1660, when King Charles II was "restored" to the English throne. It was known for its pungent satire, obsession with the habits of the upper classes, and cynical depiction of human customs, particularly the institution of marriage. Also see comedy of manners.
The pretended adoption of the identity or function of another person. All acting, of course, is a type of role-playing. The impersonation of others is a common theme in drama and appears within the plots of countless plays.
A humorous play or other work in which people, attitudes, or types of behaviour are ridiculed for the purpose of correcting their blameworthy qualities. Satirists differ from other types of comic writers in that they are often morally outraged by the follies and vices they depict. Of all types of comedy, satire is the most critical. It can also, paradoxically, be the most subtle, for satirists may mask their fury with humour so effectively that they can seem to be condoning the faults they abhor. Satire often makes use of irony and frequently targets politicians and other public figures. For this reason, satire tends to flourish in liberal societies where free speech is prized. See also Old Comedy and comedy of manners.
A Greek word believed to mean "song of the goat-singers" (see satyr play and dithyramb). Originating in the sixth century b.c.e., tragedy is the oldest dramatic genre and remains for many the "highest" form of poetry. Our knowledge of it derives mainly from the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, as well as from the little we know about the manner of its performance (see ag¯on, chorus, mask, orchestra, sk¯en¯e, and tragic tetralogy). Our understanding of it has also been shaped by Aristotle, whose description of Athenian tragedy in his Poetics remains a touchstone for tragic theory and practice to this day. According to Aristotle, tragedy is the imitation of an organically unified, serious action in which the plot, or arrangement of incidents, elicits the audience's pity and fear and then effects a catharsis, or purgation, of these and similar emotions. Tragic plots generally take the protagonist from a condition of good fortune to bad, often to his or her destruction, involve mental and/or physical suffering, and ideally take place within families, usually of a socially elevated or prominent type (royal families, for example). In Aristotle's view the most effective tragic plots also involve a simultaneous "reversal and recognition," a moment when the character's fortune turns for the worse, and when he or she is suddenly able to grasp a truth that was unavailable before. Tragedy has been reconceived by every subsequent age that has practiced it, beginning in the Renaissance. In the seventeenth century, it was reinvented according to the principles of neoclassicism; in the eighteenth according to those of the Enlightenment ("middle-class" or "bourgeois tragedy"). Romanticism in turn created its own tragic forms, often inspired by Shakespeare. Notable re-thinkings of tragedy in the modern age include Arthur Miller's essay "Tragedy and the Common Man." See also working-class tragedy.
A genre of drama in which many elements of tragedy are present, but which generally has a happy end. Corneille's The Cid is an excellent example of this genre, which was sometimes preferred to straight tragedy under neoclassicism. See Fuenteovejuna.
A doctrine invented by the theorists of neoclassicism, who considered "the three unities" an essential rule of proper tragedy. It stipulates that the plot, the span of time it represents, and the amount of physical terrain it covers must together approximate the true unity of real space/time conditions (i.e., the single location and continuous two-hour time-period that prevails on stage during performance, during which one can realistically represent only so much action and no more). The concept was based on a misreading of Aristotle and was soon ridiculed almost out of existence by writers such as G.E. Lessing and Samuel Johnson. But it did succeed in determining the form taken by tragedy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It also ensured that the un-unified plays of Shakespeare would remain beneath the contempt of many for over a hundred years. Despite the unities' poor grounding in ancient theatre practice and the rigidity with which their (mostly French) advocates enforced them, the unities remain a useful concept in drama. Works of theatrical realism and Naturalism, for example, tend to observe them instinctively.