The Posthumous Works of William Wycherley, Esq., Vol. II (1729): To the Reader

This chapter turns to the comedies of William Wycherley, which have long been taken to epitomize the libertine spirit of Restoration court culture. However, it argues that Wycherley (and others) pushed back against the court. The playwright's close relationship with the monarch enabled this resistance: he enjoyed royal patronage, had an affair with a royal mistress, and even received a personal visit from a concerned Charles II when he fell ill. The connection began before the poet's birth: Wycherley's family lost much of their wealth supporting the Stuarts during the civil wars, which gave William access to the court's inner circle. Such deep connections have often been read to suggest that Restoration plays promoted the aristocratic ideology of the Stuarts. The libertinism in the comedies, Jeremy Webster, Harold Weber, and others have argued, emerged from a libertine court culture, and the scandalous nature of the plays reflected the scandalous experimentation at court. But Wycherley did not include scandalous scenes to create libertine solidarity; instead, he exploited the leeway created by libertine envelope-pushing to critique royal ambitions with two figures that have entered standard theatrical vocabulary: in The Gentleman Dancing-Master (1672), the fop, and in The Country Wife (1675), the provincial girl shocked into sophistication. Wycherley immortalized but did not invent these two figures; in different ways they each come to embody anxieties at the heart of many comedies of the period. The chapter concludes that Wycherley is an outlier for his extremity and wit, but representative in his concerns.

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William Wycherley, To the DUKE of B——, Imprisoned in the Tower, by a Court-Faction

Plays, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings associated with George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, Vol. 2 ◽

10.1093/oseo/instance.00017314 ◽

1705 ◽

pp. 313-314

Author(s):

William Wycherley

Keyword(s):

William Wycherley

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Representing the Nation: Restoration Comedies on the Early Twentieth-Century London Stage

Theatre Survey ◽

10.1017/s0040557400001198 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 36 (2) ◽

pp. 37-61 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Deborah Kaplan

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

John Dryden ◽

Small Cluster ◽

Performance History ◽

William Wycherley ◽

Early Twentieth Century ◽

History Of ◽

London Stage ◽

Selection Of

The first third of the twentieth century was the most important period in the performance history of Restoration comedies—with the exception of the years 1660–1710, when they were originally written and performed. Sixteen of the plays were presented in early twentieth-century London, six in at least two different productions. Post-Carolean works by William Congreve, George Farquhar, and John Vanbrugh held the stage through the war years, but, beginning in 1920, earlier comedies by John Dryden, William Wycherley, and George Villiers entered the repertoire of performed plays. This represents a limited selection of Restoration playwrights and plays, to be sure, but this relatively small cluster of productions takes on large significance when we situate it in the context of the comedies' entire performance careers.

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