Four Restoration marriage plays
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Four Restoration marriage plays
（Oxford world's classics, . Oxford English drama）
Oxford University Press, 1998
Available at / 3 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
"First published as a World's classics paperback 1995"--T.p. verso
Contents of Works
- The soldiers' fortune / Thomas Otway
- The princess of Cleves / Nathaniel Lee
- Amphitryon : or The two Sosias / John Dryden
- The wives' excuse : or, Cuckolds make themselves / Thomas Southerne
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Marriage and its discontents lie at the heart of Restoration comedy. In all four of the great plays gathered here for the first time, a married woman confronts her would-be seducer. Each dramatist, however, totally reinterprets that situation. Thomas Otway's The Soldier's Fortune converts adultery into political revenge. Nathaniel Lee's The Princess of Cleves offers a potent and perplexing portrait of a libertine in action at the sixteenth century French court. John Dryden's Amphitryon, set in ancient Thebes, retells the story in which Jupiter lures the virtuous Alcmena into cuckolding her husband by a stratagem which throws into doubt the nature of human identity. Thomas Southerne's The Wives' Excuse reinvents, for the new circumstances of the 1690s, the familiar Restoration plot of a wife spurred towards infidelity by her partner's failings. Rich, diverse, and inventive, these plays demonstrate the intensity and vigour with which the institution of marriage was interrogated in the post-1660 playhouses. The texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation. In addition there is a scholarly introduction and detailed annotation.
Table of Contents
- Includes: The Soldier's Fortune, by Thomas Otway
- The Princess of Cleves, by Nathanial Lee
- Amphitryon, by John Dryden
- The Wives' Excuse, by Thomas Southerne.
by "Nielsen BookData"