Sentimental comedy : theory & practice
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Sentimental comedy : theory & practice
（Cambridge studies in eighteenth-century English literature and thought, 10）
Cambridge University Press, 1991
- Other Title
-
Sentimental comedy : theory and practice
Available at / 23 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Sentimental comedy became a distinctive dramatic form on the London stage in the eighteenth century, featuring a complex blend of humour and pathos. Frank Ellis's authoritative study of the genre expounds a theory of sentimental comedy derived from detailed knowledge of a comprehensive range of plays in this period. Women, the lower classes, money and the past are shown to be typical objects of sentimental attitudes, which are not always merely comic, but also potentially indicative of social revolutions such as the growing sympathy towards negro slaves. The practice of sentimental comedy is illustrated by detailed analysis of sentimental attitudes in ten popular plays from 1696 to 1793. An appendix comprises the texts of The School for Lovers by William Whitehead (1762) and Elizabeth Inchbald's Every One Has His Fault (1793). This major study, providing a wealth of fascinating detail about eighteenth-century performance and stage production, will also appeal to scholars interested in revising the current understanding of sentimentalism.
Table of Contents
- Part I. Theory: What is sentimental?
- What is comedy?
- What is sentimental comedy?
- Part II. Practice: Colley Cibber, Love's Last Shift (1696)
- Colley Cibber, The Careless Husband (1704)
- Richard Steele, The Conscious Lovers (1722)
- Edward Moore, The Foundling (1748)
- William Whitehead, The School for Lovers (1762)
- Hugh Kelly, False Delicacy (1768)
- Richard Cumberland, The West Indian (1771)
- Elizabeth Inchbald, Every One Has His Fault (1793)
- Aftermath
- Conclusions
- Appendix
- The text of The School for Lovers (1762)
- The text of Every One Has His Fault (1793).
by "Nielsen BookData"
