Author Question: Describe the main traits of Restoration comedy. Make sure to include where and when Restoration ... (Read 59 times)

Yi-Chen · **on:** Aug 27, 2018

Describe the main traits of Restoration comedy. Make sure to include where and when Restoration comedy took
place and which characters tended to be the butt of ridicule. Name one of the key texts of this period.

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

What are the principles that make up the neoclassical ideal on which seventeenth-century French theatre was
based?

What will be an ideal response?

Jevvish · **Reply #1 on:** Aug 27, 2018

Answer to Question 1

ANSWER:Restoration
comedy took place in England between 1660 and 1700.
It depicted sexual conquests.
It portrayed advantageous marriages (in which love played little part).
It concerned the latest fashions.
It conveyed an apparent determination to be shocked at nothing.
One butt of ridicule was the fop.
Another butt of ridicule was the old man who marries a young wife.
Another butt of ridicule was the old woman who tries to appear young.
Another butt of ridicule was the pretender at wit and sophistication.
Also at the butt of ridicule were the self-deceived.
Key texts: Sir George Etherege's She Would if She Could (1668) and The Man of
Mode (1676), William Congreve's Love for Love (1695) and The Way of the World
(1700).

Answer to Question 2

ANSWER:Genres
should be firmly restricted to tragedy and comedy, which should not be mixed.
Tragedy should treat royalty and nobles; comedy should treat middle and lower classes.
Characters should behave in a manner appropriate to their social status, gender, and
ethnicity.
All plays should be written in five acts.
All plays should observe the unities of time (take place within twenty-four hours), place
(one location), and action (only one plot).
All plays should uphold poetic justice (punish the wicked and reward the good).