45 pages • 1 hour read
William CongreveThe Way of the World
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1700A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Sociohistorical Context: The End of the Restoration Period
In 1649, Charles I of England was executed by the Parliamentarians, who opposed the absolute rule of Charles I and the Royalists, or Cavaliers. Charles I’s son, Charles II, was restored to the throne in 1660, beginning the Restoration Period, which arguably lasted until the end of the Stuart Dynasty with the death of Queen Anne in 1714. However, the Restoration was punctuated by the Glorious Revolution, also called the Bloodless Revolution, in 1688, which displaced James II & VII on the same grounds as the Parliamentarian cause. The Glorious Revolution established the power of Parliament more firmly, spurring the Financial and Administrative Revolutions that followed. Amid these changes, the upper classes consolidated greater power, including power outside the aristocracy among the budding bourgeoisie.
At the same time, women were finding new roles in the economy, with Aphra Behn commonly considered the first woman to earn a living by writing. While only men were allowed to act before and during the Interregnum, women began acting in the Restoration period. The beginnings of globalization prior to the Industrial Revolution were largely enacted through imperialism, of which England was a major participant. The economic and cultural boundaries of daily life were consistently expanding, and William Congreve’s characters operate within this seemingly limitless landscape. The need for money, power, and control shared by all the characters in the play reflects the needs of the English people. Similarly, the immoral means by which some characters pursue their desires reflect the sometimes unsavory methods of both English subjects and their government.
Literary Context: The Comedy of Manners and Jeremy Collier
The comedy of manners is a satirical, comedic genre of drama that explores the social and cultural norms and behaviors of its time. The genre was most popular in the Restoration period, and it utilizes predominantly archetypical, or stock, characters. By maintaining these characters within rigid social conventions, playwrights exposed flaws and foolishness in the unspoken rules that govern society. In the dedication, Congreve pays homage to the original playwrights of the genre, the Greek Menander and Roman Plautus and Terence. The comedy of manners is not exclusive to English and Classical drama, however, with Molière, a French playwright, figuring prominently in the canon of the genre. What unites these different works is satire of the upper classes specifically, who are often treated as hypocritical, vain, shallow, and conceited. Congreve notes throughout the dedication, Prologue, and Epilogue how The Way of the World makes fun of the highest social and economic class, but he is always careful, too, to mask these jests with satire.
Jeremy Collier’s 1698 “Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage” drastically shifted the nature of English comedic drama, however. During the Interregnum period, all art was banned except that which related to distinctly Christian religious worship, and, in the Restoration, a boom of sexually explicit and “pagan” art developed. The plays of Behn, Wycherley, and even Congreve’s earlier works were all included in Collier’s criticism of the English theater for being lewd and bawdy. Congreve is known as one of the few playwrights who adapted to the change in the social perception of comedy by modifying his approach toward a more distinct comedy of manners, in which the characters do not discuss sex or sexuality often or directly. Subsequent to Collier’s writing, many of the plays of the Restoration period were banned or shunned, including Behn’s The Rover, only to be recovered years later in the aftermath of the Victorian era.
