Restoration comedy: The Rover
“Life is a Tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think”
-Horace Walpole
Comedy-
The term comedy originated from ancient Greece, from a Greek word komodia. It is a Genre of fiction which is intended to induce laughter. Generally defined as literary work that is written to amuse or entertain a reader. Tragedy appeals to out heart and comedy appeals to our mind
The are different forms of comedy are-
Screwball Comedy
Black Comedy
Scatological Comedy
Race Humour
Comedy of Manners
Romantic Comedy
Among these we are going to deal with comedy of manners or restoration comedy.
Background of the Restoration comedy/ Comedy of manners:
The period from 1660- 1700 is known as the restoration period/ the age of Dryden. The restoration age starts with the restoration of King Charles II to the English throne after his exile. With this the theatres were reopened which remained closed in Puritan age.
In the restoration period the french influence was more dominant in literature as the king was brought in France. So the French writers were imitated by the English writers.
The Restoration drama was characterised by its intricate plots, sexual intrigues, moral duplicate and pretended identities.
Restoration comedy-
Comedy of Manners was popularised by the writers of the Restoration Period. Comedy of Manners is realistic and satirical. It questions manners and social conventions of a greatly sophisticated and artificial society, Restoration period. It is also known as an Anti-sentimental Comedy. It talks about the manners and ideals of Aristocratic/ upper class society.Generally the topics of this comedy are religion, Politics, love affairs etc. John Dryden, who was the representative of the Restoration period, was the first one to write comedy of manners.
Characteristics:
Unemotional treatment of sex.
Rich with wit and satire, appeals to our intellect.
Fashion of the time is reflected.
The manners of the upper class are presented realistically.
Realism, social analysis and satire.
Witty dialogues are given more importance than plot.
Aphra behn’s ‘The Rover’ both conforming to the genre, as well as cleverly bringing down it.
Aphra Bhen was not only the female professional writer but also the first female writer to earn from her writings. She was not only writing for money but to overthrow social norms and expectations. She was the one to introduce the women actors in the English drama. She herself was a revolutionary, a woman operating the world of literature which is in the domain of men. Even her female characters did the same, in her plays.
There was a growing tendency in theatre to serve the audience, who watched plays not for observation or learning but for leisure and fun. Aphra Behn did the same as other playwrights, he allowed the watcher to act as voyeur. It was the time when female writers were not given equal place as men. The society in which equal wages were not paid to female and male actresses also criticised them and were forced to become mistresses out of fear and poverty.
Some features of restoration drama:
The Rover is a metaphor of the restoration period and also overthrows its characteristics primarily by setting it in the Carnival which is considered to be lacking moral or legal restraints.
But it also serves to problematize behaviour as part of deception.
Even in the characters of Florinda and Helena we see figures of the aristocratic virgin and witty heroine. Florinda is afraid to rebel against her brother and enters the carnival to achieve her desires. She was very much aware about the value of her virginity and she protects it to the very end to present it to her beloved. The youthful respectable female revolt against marrying an old man is also a typical comedy of that time. Helena is significant for setting up the battles of wit. With her intellect she became the sole match for Willmore. Helena costs the best although she is lustful. Her power is based on her wit not on her lustfulness. Both the women characters are fighting against the society based on the institution of marriage. Aphra Behn’s women always put up a mighty fight against restrictive norms and mirror her own sense of agency.
Restoration comedies also portray the character who is disappointed in love or fortune, in The Rover Angellica Bianca is a model for it. A rich prostitute without chastity and modesty. She thinks it her privilege to seduce whomever she fancies. Angelica points out that men also prostitute themselves in market when the marry marry a girl for her money and not for love. It shows the double standard of the society. Sadly the courtesan wealth of Angellica cannot save her from her submissive bondage in which Willmore her love traps her.
Willmore plays the role of a rake, a model of king Charles II. he is an outsider not tied with social norms rope because he is a free spirit. The change in him occurs when he sees a charming woman.
The play ends with rather typical ways with, the prostitute returning to her trade, and the virgins being awarded with marriage- proverbial ‘happy ending’. However, all men, women and institutions pass through the marketplace and are valued, just as the text, and even its author, is.
The two Rovers of the play Willmore and Helena share the same density both are Frank about their temperament. Helena's attitude to female sexuality is as Natural as that of Willmore. She has a natural urge to have a man who she likes. In fact she is appropriately masculine because in her attempt to escape the nunnery. Willmore is undoubtedly the hero of Cavalier and flirts with women without any uneasiness of conscience but it is Helena who seems to be the real Rover in the Play.
Crisis in the aristocracy- of which Pedro's character is a function- is also turned on its head by his ultimate acceptance of Florinda and Belville’s marriage. At this point, it may be argued that the Belville- Florinda romance itself, though very generic and typical of comedies, is problematized through the repeated attempts at the rape of Florinda, which Belville reacts to a little too mildly, considering he has been set up the ‘knight in shining armour’* Belville’s friends act as typical rates by mocking his love for Florinda and claiming that women could only be used for sexual needs. Blunt initially seems to be purely a stock figure- one often found in restoration comedies. He is an English country gentleman, rich but foolish, a ‘country bumpkin’, fooled by a wily prostitute. His attempts at projecting himself as a wit evoke much laughter from the reader. However the same character later become a mouthpiece for violent horrific misogyny and his speech directed at Florinda where he threatens to rape her, beat her up and hang her from a window, disrupts the harmless bumpkin stereotype.
The Rake was the hero of most restoration comedies. In the rover Willmore is the hero of the play. Typically restoration comedies portray the life of Hedonistic young men who fill their leisure with drinking, whoring, theatre going and wit. They need money but have no resources for earning it except for marriage to earn it. The hero and his companions reject the conventions of the past and believe in fredon.
Restoration comedy also takes a look at the plans of its young women characters. When young man are shown to actively seeking out sex and money young women are depicted in a way to have a choice in a marriage partner. The heroine is rebellious, rebelling against an arranged marriage to an old man. As we see in the play rover Florinda is against marriage to the partners his father and brother choose for and and instead choose a partner for herself. Helena is also shown to have a mind of her own, when she decides her fate for herself, she chooses to marry instead of becoming a nun. However, it is important to note that when a heroine is allowed freedom of thought, freedom of action is confined to ensuring that she is a virgin when she gets married.
Characters are judged on the basis of their wit and intelligence. Trickery and deception are almost mandatory parts of the comedy. Intelligent characters like Willmore and Hellena are able to use deception to their advantage. However, foolish characters like Blunt are disadvantaged by the deception of the other characters of the play. Wit and Intelligence are shown to be important to navigating trickery and deception in these plays.
There is a tendency to bypass moral judgmental in the restoration comedies. Most characters in this play, play physical pleasures over intellectual stimulation. Another very popular feature of the restoration comedy was the use of body humour and sexually explicit language and theme.
Anand Prakash in his essay ‘Designing’ women socially and market- wise’: glimpses of the Restoration strategy in the Rover’, “...Bhen is not attempting in The Rover a typical Restoration comedy with fops and wit in the Fray out to merrily titillate us but a representation that focuses upon serious issues of freedom, identity and physicality particularly with respect to women”
These are the features of restoration comedy and an analysis of the rover as Restoration comedy.
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