Restoration Comedy
Ασπασία Βελισσαρίου
This course examines Restoration Comedy in the context of political and cultural changes brought about by the restoration of the Suarts in 1660. Emphasis is placed on gender representations in a game of power in which the aristocratic male sexual and political ascendancy inscribes the Puritan and business-oriented middle classes’ defeat as impotence. Hence, the winners of the Civil War are humiliated in a kind of comedy that celebrates male cuckolding, homosocial bonding and cynical materialism, especially in Etherege and Wycherley, while a shift to moral values is noted in Congreve’s late comedies which privilege men’s romantic love over sexual appetite.
This course examines Restoration Comedy in the context of political and cultural changes brought about by the restoration of the Suarts in 1660. Emphasis is placed on gender representations in a game of power in which the aristocratic male sexual and political ascendancy inscribes the Puritan and business-oriented middle classes’ defeat as impotence. Hence, the winners of the Civil War are humiliated in a kind of comedy that celebrates male cuckolding, homosocial bonding and cynical materialism, especially in Etherege and Wycherley, while a shift to moral values is noted in Congreve’s late comedies which privilege men’s romantic love over sexual appetite.
This course examines Restoration Comedy in the context of political and cultural changes brought about by the restoration of the Suarts in 1660. Emphasis is placed on gender representations in a game of power in which the aristocratic male sexual and political ascendancy inscribes the Puritan and business-oriented middle classes’ defeat as impotence. Hence, the winners of the Civil War are humiliated in a kind of comedy that celebrates male cuckolding, homosocial bonding and cynical materialism, especially in Etherege and Wycherley, while a shift to moral values is noted in Congreve’s late comedies which privilege men’s romantic love over sexual appetite.
