RAMANANDA CENTENARY COLLEGE

NAME – AMIT MANDAL

ROLL NO – 121351-1815525

SEMESTER – V

REG NO– 014621

SUBJECT– ENGLISH(HONS)

SESSION– 2020-21
 Course Title: History of English
Literature
Course Code: BENGDSHT1

▪ Write a note on Restoration comedy.

Restoration comedy is the most literary

output of the restoration society.
Restoration comedies are English plays,
performed between 1660-1710. The
influence of the returned king and his circle
of friends on the literature of the period is
seen in the comedy of time. Restoration
comedy was mainly inspired by the native
dramatic tradition which flourished before
the closing of the theatre in 1642.it was
indebted to Beaumont and Fletcher and to
Ben Johnson. It was greatly influenced by
Moliere and Spaniard Calderon. Moliere
provided the restoration comedies with
ideas for plots and situation and with an
example of fine comic characterization. The
foreign influences, though important, were
not the predominant factors in the evolution
of restoration comedy.
Restoration comedy abounds in plots and
sub-plots which centre mainly upon
amorous intrigues. Restoration comedy is a
class drama to a degree that no earlier
English drama not even the citizen comedy
of the Elizabethan period has been. It
represents the way of life cultivated by the
upper class society of the time. Etherege’s
the man of mode and Congreve’s the way of
the world are class dramas. They were
drawn from and appealed to a tiny minority
of the English society. Restoration comedy
didn’t burst out without any literary
inspiration. It found inspiration from two
sources. In the first place, there was the
influence of the comedies of humour of Ben
Johnson. But the comic spirit of the
restoration theatre is not at all found
exhausted in the rise and development of
the comedy of manners. Sir Robert
Stapleton’s the slighted maid and the step
mother and sir Rodgers bowells Mr. Antony
may also be mentioned. At the centre of the
restoration comedy stands Dryden. But he is
found not as successful in comic plays as in
the tragic or heroic. The wild gallant is
somewhat popular as a play of intrigue and
humour. Dryden’s immediate successor Mrs
Aphra Behn, Nahum Tate and Edward
Ravenscroft may be mentioned. The first
named dramatist is particularly noted for her
comedies of intrigue as the forced marriage.
Tate’s A Duke and no Duke and cuckolds
haven or the sham doctor have enough
matierls For farcical comedies. The farcical
comedy of the age is also found effectively.
In restoration comedy the ordinary
standards of morality are treated with open
contempt. In Wycherley and others this
contempt often takes the form of gross
sensuality. The characters in restoration
comedies are largely types whose
disposition are sufficiently indicated by their
names , sir Fopling flutter, scrub, colonel
bully. They remind us of the characters of
Johnson’s comedies of humours. It is free
from any element of tragedy. It is also
satirical without being didactic. It was rarely
inspired with the desire to correct. It sole
aim was to amuse.