Anti-sentimental comedy

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Assignment on Anti-sentimental comedy

Name: Dharaba Rayjada
Semester: M.A - 1
Roll No.: 8
Paper No.: 2 The neo-classical age
Enrolment No.: 2069108420180045
Email id: dharabarayjada021@gmail.com
Year: 2017-18
Submitted to: Department of English Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Anti-sentimental comedy

Before start talking about what is anti-sentimental comedy lets fist know what is sentimental comedy.

Sentimental comedy

This form of comedy is popular in 18th century which is related to our emotions like sorrow, pity, and compassionate sympathy. Richard steel was the pioneer of sentimental comedy and his best known comedy is “The conscious lover”. In sentimental comedies middle-class protagonists truimphantly overcome a series of moral trails. In this comedy the characters are either thoroughly good or bad. The hero is full of virtues and no faults while the villain is full of vices and the purpose of the author is to show morality.  It has just name of comedy but it is like tragedy more because there is no laughter, there is only preaching and tears they show only that people should have to be like good character of the drama.


Introduction of Anti-sentimental comedy

This form of comedy is came in 18th century which is reaction against The sentimental comedy. It is also called as comedy of manners. The pioneer of anti-sentimental comedy is Oliver Goldsmith who first criticized sentimental comedy in his essay “essay on theater”. He make an attempt to ridiculed the sentimental comedy and he also shows this in his works also. He thinks that the function of comedy is to provide laughter and wit not the tears but sentimental comedy make viewers shed in tears.

Richard Sheridan, who also write anti-sentimental comedy and against Sentimental comedy. He Believes that comedy is not for preaching or give moral lessons it should provide fun. If comedy also make people cry then what is need of tragedy. Sentimental comedy is better to call tragedy then comedy.

After the rebel of these writers against a sentimental comedy, the form of sentimental comedy is lost now there is no more comedy of weeping of preaching or moral lessons or with serious emotions now there is new form of comedy The anti-sentimental comedy which is comedy of wit and laughter. The anti-sentimental comedy is pure comedy because it generates laughter.

Characteristics of Anti-sentimental comedy

Here lets see some characteristics of anti-sentimental comedy. In the characteristics of anti-sentimental comedy it includes wit, laughter, farce, irony, disguise.

Wit is a form of intelligent humours, the ability to say or write things that are cleaver and usually funny. Author choose words very clearly which produce fun. Laughter is the soul of comedy and the main function of comedy is to give laughter which anti-sentimental comedy fulfills but not sentimental comedy. Its third characteristic is farce, farce is a comedy that aims at entertaining the audience through situations that are highly exaggerated. Then the irony is the usage of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning which helps to create laughter. The last characteristic is disguise which used in anti-sentimental comedy as an important tool. It is something like to modify the manner or appearance of a person through wig, glasses, makeup, costume or other ways.

Now lets see the three comedies of Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Sheridan.

She stoops to conquer by Goldsmith

Goldsmith was a Anglo-Irish author. This play first performed in London in 1773. It is one of the few plays from the 18th century to have an enduring appeal. It has been adapted in to a film several times and also has title “Mistakes of a night”.

Play starts with Sir Charles Marlow arranged the meeting between kate, daughter of Mr. Hardcastle and his son charles marlow. Now marlow and his friend hasting come to meet kate but at night they goes to the elehouse named three jolly pigeons at there they meet tony lumpkin who is step-brother of kate and he is too mischievous he told marlow that they are very far from their destination and they should stay at near inn and the inn which he shows is the house of Mr. Hardcastle.

Now marlow goes to hardcastle’s house misunderstanding it as inn  and marlow treat lower class people very badly. Kate comes to know about the trick of tony and she wants to know the real character of marlow so she disguise herself as bar-maid. They both fall in love with each other.

There is also sub-plot of love between hasting and Constance they both make plan to elope but constance refuse it because she wants her jewels which her aunt keep mrs.hardcastle, she wants to marry constance to her son tony lumpkin because she wants to keep that jewels in family  but tony don’t wants to marry constance so he helps constance to take jewels from his mother and at the end sir charles marlow comes and all solves the mistake. And that’s how the play ends.

The Rivals by Sheridan

The play is written by Sheridan and play set in Bath in 18th century London. The heroin of our play is Lydia and hero is jack absolute. Lydia reads popular novel of that time and wants purely romantic love affair and to woo lydia, jack deisguise himself as ensign beverley, a poor officer, lydia fall in love with him and both make plan to elope.

There is other two men also who loves lydia one is the friend of jack bob acres, and other is sir lucious. Sir lucious also sends love letters to lydia with the name of delia through her maid lucy but lucy gives it to mrs.malaprop and mrs.malaprop atarted talking with sir lucious with the name of delia.

Now sir anthony absolute who is father of jack , suddenly comes to Bath and arranged marriage of jack, first jack refuses because he loves lydia but after by the talking of servents he comes to know that his father also arranged marriage with lydia now he act as very submissive to his father and ready to meet lydia. Now lydia refuse jack and says that she loves ansign beverley. There is one other love story of jack’s friend faukland and julia but he suffers from jealous suspicion. They both fighting foolishly and Sheridan shows it as satire.

After that bob told sir lucious that beverly also loves lydia now lucious suggests for duel fight with beverly and bob agrees he write duel note and don’t send it with servant now lucious leaves and jack arrives, bob told him about his plan of duel jack agrees to give that note to beverly. Jack and lydia meet again and lydia comes to know about jack’s disguise as beverly she gets dissapoint and rejects jack. Meanwhile sir lucious come to know about the marriage of lydia and jack he also calls jack for duel fight now jack is frustrated by the rejection of lydia he agree for fight. Now the time of bob and beverley and lucious and jack for duel fight is same. At duel ground bob comes to know that jack is beverley and he step back from duel because he don’t want to fight with friend but lucious and jack fights now david informs mrs.malaprop , lydia, julia, and sir absolute about duel fight and they rush to stop it now lucious tell reason for fight but lydia clearly refuse love with lucious and accept jack’s love mrs.malaprop agrees that she is delia by knowing this lucious feel intriguing, julia and faulkland is reconciled and at the end bob acres invites everyone to a party.

The school for scandal by Sheridan

A play in five acts by British playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal was first produced at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, in 1777. With its spirited ridicule of affectation and pretentiousness, it is considered by many to be the finest comedy of manners in the English language. The play’s action centers around scandalmongers who frequent Lady Sneerwell’s house and delight in spreading malicious gossip.

At the start of the play Charles is in love with Maria, Joseph is in love with Maria, Sir Benjamin is in love with Maria, and Lady Sneerwell is in love with Charles. Charles has a horrible reputation for being a gambler and a ladies' man. Sir Oliver is coming to town secretly with the help of Rawley in order to see which of his nephews is worthy of his money. Sir Peter and Lady Teazle are having a hard time with their marriage because she is very young and he is older. Lady Sneerwell is plotting with Snake and Joseph to make Sir Peter think that Lady Teazel is having an affair with Charles, so that Maria will not love Charles so Lady Sneerwell can marry Charles and Joseph can marry Maria. The play really starts to go crazy when Sir Oliver arrives. He wants to test his nephews and see what kind of people they are so he has sent a letter from an imaginary distant relative, Mr. Stanley, asking for money. When Sir Oliver arrives he pretends to be a money lender, Mr. Premium. He goes to Charles and offers to buy all the portraits of his ancestors. Charles will sell all the portraits except the one of Sir Oliver. This pleases Sir Oliver and he then sets out to test Joseph. He goes to Joseph and pretends to be Mr. Stanley, asking for money. Joseph says no and shoos him away because he is preoccupied. While trying to woo Maria, Joseph inadvertently got Lady Teazle, so he invites her to his house. She comes over, but suddenly Sir Peter shows up. Lady Teazle hides behind a screen while Joseph tells Sir Peter that Charles is not having an affair with his wife. Charles comes and Sir Peter hides in a box so that he can hear that Charles is not guilty. Joseph also tells Sir Peter that he has a French lady behind the screen. Charles comes in and says he is not having an affair, but indicates that Joseph is. Charles finds out that Sir Peter is hiding in the box and calls him out. Then Joseph has to go out to deal with another guest. Sir Peter and Charles decide to look at the French girl that Joseph has in his house. They pull down the screen and Joseph comes back just in time to see that Lady Teazle has been revealed to Sir Peter. They all stand in silence until Lady Teazle tells Sir Peter how touched she is by all the things he said while she was hiding. They vow to improve the marriage. The gossips of the town try to decide if it was Joseph or Charles who was having the affair with Lady Teazle. They all come together at Joseph's house and Sir Oliver reveals himself. He tells how he prefers Charles to Joseph and then Lady Sneerwell tries to say that Charles has gotten her pregnant. Fortunately, Snake reveals the truth about all the schemes and clears Charles's name. Charles and Maria are to be married and all is well.

To sum up

Goldsmith and Sheridan writes very little of anti-sentimental comedy but whatever they contribute its greate and still has the same value and because of their effort the comedy which is more like tragedy names sentimental comedy lost its name and weeping comedy is gone and the true comedy which provides laughter to audience is become famous.

Reference

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Goldsmith
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentimental_comedy