Question- Discuss the historical context of She Stoops to Conquer.

Answer -

Comedy of Manners

In England, and also in France, the most prominent type of drama in the later 17th century and the 18th century was the comedy of manners. This type of comedy is defined as a play that dramatizes and often satirizes customs, habits, and standards in contemporary society. A comedy of manners usually contains witty dialogue and satirically exposes human frailties and foibles. It differs from other types of comedies such as the romantic, which evokes pathos (sadness or pity) and sympathy.

Literary historians often assert that the comedy of manners was invented by Sir George Etherege (1635-92), but it would be more accurate to say the genre gradually developed over the four decades from 1660 to 1700. The form involved at least a half dozen playwrights, such as William Wycherley (1641-1716), John Dryden (1631-1700), George Etherege (1636-91), George Farquhar (1678-1707), John Gay (1685-1732), John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), Aphra Behn (c. 1640-89), and William Congreve (1670-1729). These English writers, commonly known as Restoration dramatists, operated in tandem with the French playwright Molière (1622-73), whose comedies of manners ruled the French stage in the mid-17th century. The term Restoration refers to the historical controversies surrounding the English monarchies King Charles I (1600-49), who battled with Parliament throughout his reign, and King Charles II (1630-85), who eventually restored the throne after his father was executed. It is no coincidence that the Restoration playwrights were influenced by Molière and French theater. As English royalists and aristocrats fleeing from Commonwealth rule by Parliament after the execution of Charles I, many writers spent their years of exile in France during the period of 1649-60, when Molière was coming to maturity as a dramatist.

During the 18th century, the comedy of manners flourished with such authors as John Gay, Oliver Goldsmith, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In fact, Sheridan's career displays a number of parallels to Goldsmith's. Both playwrights were Anglo-Irish, and both were partisans of "laughing," as opposed to "sentimental," comedy. Both also achieved popular success in London during the 1770s through their social satire and witty dialogue.

Allegorical names, or names that reflect a character's personality, also called speaking names, are one of the most prominent features of the comedy of manners. Restoration and 18th-century dramatists did not invent this device, which is as old as the ancient Greek comedies of Aristophanes and Menander in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. Ancient Greek comedy, in turn, set a pattern for the Latin comedies of Plautus (c. 254-184 BCE) and Terence (195-159 BCE), among which are many characters with speaking names. Imitation of this device by the playwrights of the Restoration and the 18th century reflected their admiration for their classical heritage. This is also reflected in the plays' attempts to adhere to the three unities: time, place, and action in which all the events take place in one location over the course of one day.

Most speaking names accurately signal their characters' stereotyped nature: for example, Lady Wishfort and Mrs. Fainall in William Congreve's comedy The Way of the World (1700), both of whom are more optimistic than practical. Some names point directly at a specific foible: for instance, Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Sheridan's The Rivals (1775), who habitually mishandles language because she confuses sound and meaning, as in, "She's as headstrong as an allegory"-a mistake for alligator-"on the banks of the Nile." There is likely another layer to the joke here, as it is crocodiles, not alligators, that inhabit the Nile. In She Stoops to Conquer Goldsmith plays with allegorical names for comic effect in minor figures-such as Mrs. Oddfish, little Cripplegate, and Aunt Pedigree-and in names invented by Tony Lumpkin, such as Quagmire Marsh and Crackskull Common. Major characters, such as Kate Hardcastle, Constance Neville and George Hastings, have names with more significance, with the associations of hard, constant and haste in their names.

The Age of Johnson

Just as Alexander Pope (1688-1744) has been said to typify many literary features of the early Enlightenment in England in which reason, science, and rationality became predominant, the second half of the 18th century is often referred to as the Age of Johnson. Samuel Johnson (1709-84), thanks to his own writings and to the massive biography of him written by James Boswell (1740-95), was the best known literary figure of his time. After a slow start and a significant amount of "hack work," Johnson became hugely productive in the decade between 1749 and 1759. Johnson used the satires of the ancient Roman poet Juvenal (late 1st-early 2nd centuries CE) as models for a series of poems in rhymed couplets, at least one of which, "The Vanity of Human Wishes," has become a classic. He wrote three series of periodical essays-The Rambler, The Adventurer, and The Idler-which are often, along with those of English writers Joseph Addison (1672-1719) and Richard Steele (1672-1729) earlier in the 18th century, considered exemplars of the form. Together with only a few assistants, Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language (1755), a landmark work that remained an authoritative reference book for decades. His short philosophical novel, Rasselas, appeared in 1759. Later on, Johnson published an edition of the plays of Shakespeare (1765) and a major series of critical biographies entitled The Lives of the Poets (1779-81). Both these works secured and enhanced his literary celebrity. He was also a prodigious conversationalist, as recorded by Boswell in The Life of Samuel Johnson.

Goldsmith's dedication of She Stoops to Conquer to Johnson, therefore, should be understood as a tribute to the greatest man of letters of the epoch. Johnson's adoption of Goldsmith as a protégé was an important advancement of the playwright's reputation and influence.

Actors and Playhouses

When Restoration drama made its way to London with the return in 1660 of Charles II from exile, playhouses had been closed down for 18 years in adherence to Puritan demand. The new theater scene featured a number of major changes.

For the first time in the history of the English theater, women played female roles. Traditionally, women's parts had been played by boys in Elizabethan and Jacobean theater. Actresses such as Nell Gwyn (1650-87) and Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) added immensely to the theater's popularity, and some of them-notably Gwyn-even caught the king's eye.

Playhouses, too, were greatly expanded. Around 1775 David Garrick (1717-79), the actor and producer who managed the Drury Lane Theater, enlarged it to accommodate around 2,300 spectators. In the early 1800s, after a disastrous fire, the capacity grew to more than 3,000. New forms of entertainment, such as ballet, pantomime, and circus acts, also took hold.

Across Britain, theaters were established in a number of towns, including Bath, Bristol, Bury St. Edmunds, and Stockton-on-Tees. Experts have estimated that by 1805 more than 280 venues for theatrical entertainment existed in England-as compared with only a few in the early 1700s. A surviving playbill, or program, attests that two years after its successful London premiere in 1773, She Stoops to Conquer was performed at the King Street Theatre in Bristol in 1775.

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