The Rivals as a Parody of 18th Century :: essays research papers

A significant influencing divisor on drama of the eighteenth century was the changing nature of the auditory modality. By the middle of the eighteenth century, a straitlaced middle class audience had imparted to drama its vision of morality and disapproval of anything immoral. Comedy had become moire down and kitschyized. Furthermore, the audiences rejection of unappealing facts following the ugly globe of the French Revolution and the American War of Independence, made emotionalism and weepiness the order of the day. Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan were two playwrights who saw that if comedy were allowed free overtop along this path of sentimentalism, it would signal the end of mirth. Both appreciated the king of pure comedy and the spirit of joyous laughter and wrote plays with situations that had no turn to for showing the redeeming births of vice and folly at the end, but effective good healthy fun.The Rivals too denounces the hollow morality and hypocris y associated with the sentimental attitude then prevailing, projecting its writers own high-flown of a spontaneous and lively light-heartedness. The plot is based on confusion over identities and multiple suitors a combination that leads to plenty of scope for genuinely funny situations Absolute caught in the same room with both Mrs. malapropism and Lydia present, having to play himself for one and Beverley for the other till the presence of Sir Anthony too prevents him from doing so successfully Absolute humouring Mrs. Malaprop as himself and poking fun at her as Beverley in his note Lydias acceptance and rejection of the same adult male according to her romantic whims and fancies the last(a) duel where one man has to skin two rivals virtually simultaneously. Sheridans skill is only underlined by the fact that in an age and the performance house in which he produced plays where spectacle, view and lighting had become indispensable to success, he achieved his comedy and tr iumph without sanctuary to any of it, merely on the strength of his own writing, wit and dialogue.Sentimentalism is put together largely in the characters of Lydia and Faulkland. Sheridan attacks their traits in the overall plot and theme in which he shows how a healthy deep love can be threatened by such fanciful thinking. The only redeeming feature probably in a reversal of the trend of soppy final redemptions - he shows at the end is that both are brought with a ill-bred shock down to earth following the very real mishap of losing the partners they come to know they love deeply.