Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Quick and Easy Sign Up!

It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.

Sign Up Browse

Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

  • Download on iOS
  • Download on Android
  • Download on iOS

The Way of the World

William Congreve
3.31/5 (3803 ratings)
Read Now Download Now
"LADY. With Mirabell? You call my blood into my face with mentioning that traitor. She durst not have the confidence. I sent her to negotiate an affair, in which if I'm detected I'm undone. If that wheedling villain has wrought upon Foible to detect me, I'm ruined. O my dear friend, I'm a wretch of wretches if I'm detected."

In 1700, when The Way of the World was performed on the English stage at Lincoln’s Inn Fields (a new theatre that William Congreve managed), it was not a popular success. This was the last play Congreve was to write, perhaps for that reason. Since that time, however, this play has come to be regarded not only as Congreve’s masterpiece, but as a classic example of the Comedy of Manners. The play is aptly named for two reasons. First, its action takes place in the “present,” which means it reflects the same social period during which the play was originally performed. Second, as a comedy of manners, its purpose is to expose to public scrutiny and laughter the often absurd yet very human passions and follies that characterize social behavior. It therefore transcends its time by holding a mirror to the fashionable world in all of its frivolity and confusion while posing something more precious and sensible as an antidote.

As with all comedies of this type, the principle comic material consists of sexual relations and confrontations. Marriages are made for the sake of convenience and tolerated within precise social limits. Affairs are conventional, jealousies abound, lovers are coy, and gallantry is contrived. Dowries are the coin of the marriage realm and therefore they are of central concern in all contracts and adulterous intrigues. Congreve makes clear that the general way of the world may be funny but it is not particularly nice. In the way of all romantic comedies the “marriage of true minds” is finally achieved, but humiliation, cruelty, and villainy are the means by which the action goes forward. His comedy is not intended to remedy the world, of course, but to offer an insightful and amusing view of both its seedy and sympathetic aspects.

encyclopedia dot com
Format:
Pages:
pages
Publication:
Publisher:
Edition:
Language:
ISBN10:
1406946303
ISBN13:
9781406946307
kindle Asin:
B0BRJX6SBQ

The Way of the World

William Congreve
3.31/5 (3803 ratings)
Read Download
"LADY. With Mirabell? You call my blood into my face with mentioning that traitor. She durst not have the confidence. I sent her to negotiate an affair, in which if I'm detected I'm undone. If that wheedling villain has wrought upon Foible to detect me, I'm ruined. O my dear friend, I'm a wretch of wretches if I'm detected."

In 1700, when The Way of the World was performed on the English stage at Lincoln’s Inn Fields (a new theatre that William Congreve managed), it was not a popular success. This was the last play Congreve was to write, perhaps for that reason. Since that time, however, this play has come to be regarded not only as Congreve’s masterpiece, but as a classic example of the Comedy of Manners. The play is aptly named for two reasons. First, its action takes place in the “present,” which means it reflects the same social period during which the play was originally performed. Second, as a comedy of manners, its purpose is to expose to public scrutiny and laughter the often absurd yet very human passions and follies that characterize social behavior. It therefore transcends its time by holding a mirror to the fashionable world in all of its frivolity and confusion while posing something more precious and sensible as an antidote.

As with all comedies of this type, the principle comic material consists of sexual relations and confrontations. Marriages are made for the sake of convenience and tolerated within precise social limits. Affairs are conventional, jealousies abound, lovers are coy, and gallantry is contrived. Dowries are the coin of the marriage realm and therefore they are of central concern in all contracts and adulterous intrigues. Congreve makes clear that the general way of the world may be funny but it is not particularly nice. In the way of all romantic comedies the “marriage of true minds” is finally achieved, but humiliation, cruelty, and villainy are the means by which the action goes forward. His comedy is not intended to remedy the world, of course, but to offer an insightful and amusing view of both its seedy and sympathetic aspects.

encyclopedia dot com
Format:
Pages:
pages
Publication:
Publisher:
Edition:
Language:
ISBN10:
1406946303
ISBN13:
9781406946307
kindle Asin:
B0BRJX6SBQ

More Books

Volpone

Ben Jonson

Country Wife (New Mermaids)

William Wycherley

The Rape of the Lock (Wildside Classic)

Alexander Pope

The Duchess of Malfi

John Webster

Dr. Faustus

Christopher Marlowe

All for Love

John Dryden

The School for Scandal

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

The Rover

Aphra Behn

She Stoops to Conquer

Oliver Goldsmith

Cindy Divine: The Little Girl Who Frightened Kings

Shafter Bailey

Oroonoko

Aphra Behn

Moll Flanders

Daniel Defoe