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A Re-Evaluation of Vanbrugh
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Vanbrugh's position in the history of drama has never been adequately defined. He and his successor, Farquhar, have suffered more than any other dramatists of their period from the ill effects of biassed criticism, which has viewed their work solely in the light of a particular tradition, the Comedy of Manners; and the resulting deformity, caused by the failure of their work to fit the mould, is condemned by the very critics who have produced it. They have recognized that the work of Vanbrugh is no longer typically of the Comedy of Manners genre, but they have neglected to analyze the difference in an individual study, and have contented themselves with regarding as inferior any divergences or deviations from the accepted Comedy of Manners norm. These deviations, moreover, have been taken to point toward sentimental comedy, and Vanbrugh, having been dubbed a “transition” figure, has suffered the penalty of “not belonging.”
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1934
References
1 Attempts have been made of late, notably by Professor L. A. Strauss (Belles Lettres Series, 1914) and W. Archer (Mermaid Series, and in The Old Drama and the New, 1926) to divorce Farquhar from the company of his fellows in the Comedy of Manners, with a resulting intensification of condemnatory emphasis against Congreve, Wycherley, and Vanbrugh.
2 J. Palmer, The Comedy of Manners (1913), p. 139.
3 B. Dobrée, Restoration Comedy: 1660–1720 (1924), p. 153.
4 Ibid., p. 152.
5 H. T. Perry, The Comic Spirit in Restoration Drama (1925), p. 90.
6 E. Bernbaum, in The Drama of Sensibility, (1925), definitely places Vanbrugh in the earlier tradition of true comedy: “Immediately after the appearance of sentimental comedy, its conception of human nature was attacked by Sir John Vanbrugh's The Relapse, in which Loveless and Amanda were represented from the comic point of view. Vanbrugh would have been a thoroughly consistent upholder of the traditional standard, if he had not introduced in his play an episode in which a lover of Amanda, repulsed by her, speaks in a seriously penitent strain; but the passage is brief, and does not defeat the author's purpose, which was to cast a doubt upon the perfection of Amanda and the perfectibility of Loveless.” (p. 77). In a note, Bernbaum adds: “It should be noted, however, that immediately after his penitent mood, the lover remarks: ‘How long this influence may last, Heaven knows.‘ (Note 2, p. 77). Bernbaum distinguishes Vanbrugh from the sentimentalists on the basic difference in their attitudes toward human nature; Vanbrugh upholds the orthodox view of the frailty of human nature, while the sentimentalist exalts the nobility and perfectibility of human nature.
7 Letter to Tonson, June 18, 1722, no. 139. Dobrée and Webb, edd., The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh (1927), iv, 146.
8 Palmer, op. cit., p. 139.
9 Ibid., p. 224.
10 Ibid., p. 241.
11 See An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, p. 114.
12 Leslie Hotson (in The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, 1928) has unearthed a list of plays seen by Lady Penelope Morley from 6 November, 1696, to 9 June, 1701, which reveals that The Relapse was first produced in November and not December, 1696.
13 His vehment ejaculation has hit the core of the situation, but so amusingly that his predicament produces only laughter. Be it remembered, that this is still the comedy of laughter and not of tears. The audience is not supposed to be moved either to intellectual cogitation or to sympathetic lachrymosity.
14 Archer, ed., Farquhar (Mermaid Series), pp. 28–29.
15 See “The Influence of Milton's Divorce Tracts on Farquhar's Beaux' Stratagem” PMLA, xxxix (1924), 174–178.
16 Letter to Jacob Tonson, Nov. 29, 1719. Dobrée and Webb, edd., op. cit., iv, 122.
17 A Short Vindication of The Relapse and The Provok'd Wife, from Immorality and Prophaneness, in Dobrée and Webb, edd., op. cit., i, 208.
18 Ibid., pp. 207–208.
19 She refers to Sir John, of course,
20 Cibber's Advertisement to the Reader, The Provok'd Husband, in Dobrée and Webb, edd., op. cit., iii, 179.
21 Perry, op. cit., p. 90.