Augustan drama can refer to the dramas of ancient Rome during the reign of Caesar Augustus, but it most commonly refers to the plays of Great Britain in the early 18th century, a subset of 18th-century Augustan (Neo-classical) literature. King George I referred to himself as 'Augustus', and the poets of the era took this reference as apropos, as the literature of Rome during Augustus moved from historical and didactic literature to the literature of highly finished and sophisticated epics and satire.
In drama, it was an age in transition between the highly witty and sexually playful Restoration comedy, the pathetic tragedy or she-tragedy of the turn of the 18th century and any later plots of middle-class anxiety. The Augustan stage retreated from the Restoration's focus on cuckoldry, marriage for fortune and a life of leisure. Instead, Augustan drama reflected questions that the mercantile class had about itself and what it meant to be gentry: what it meant to be a good merchant, how to achieve wealth with morality and the proper role of those who serve.
Augustan drama has a reputation as an era of decline. One reason for this is that there were few dominant figures of the Augustan stage. Instead of a single genius, a number of playwrights worked steadily to find subject matter that would appeal to a new audience. In addition to this, playhouses began to dispense with playwrights altogether or to hire playwrights to match assigned subjects, and this made to produce the master of the script. When the public got tired of anonymously authored, low-content plays and a new generation of wits made the stage political and aggressive again, the Whig ministry stepped in and began official censorship that put an end to daring and innovative content. This conspired with the public's taste for special effects to reduce theatrical output and promote the novel.
Augustan-era drama ended definitively in 1737 with the Licensing Act. Prior to 1737, the English stage was changing rapidly from Restoration comedy and Restoration drama and their noble subjects to the quickly developing melodrama. George Lillo and Richard Steele wrote the trend-setting plays of the early Augustan period. Lillo's plays consciously turned from heroes and kings toward shopkeepers and apprentices. They emphasised drama on a household scale rather than a national scale, and the hamartia (tragic flaw) and agon (conflict) in his tragedies are the common flaws of yielding to temptation and the commission of Christian sin. The plots are resolved with Christian forgiveness and repentance. Steele's The Conscious Lovers (1722) hinges upon his young hero avoiding fighting a duel. These plays set up a new set of values for the stage. Instead of amusing or inspiring the audience, they sought to instruct the audience and ennoble it. Further, the plays were popular precisely because they seemed to reflect the audience's own lives and concerns.
As during the Restoration, economic reality drove the stage during the Augustan period. Under Charles II court patronage meant economic success, and therefore the Restoration stage featured plays that would suit the monarch and/or court. The drama that celebrated kings and told the history of Britain's monarchs was fit fare for the crown and courtiers. Charles II was a philanderer and so Restoration comedy featured a highly sexualised set of plays. However, after the reign of William III and Mary II, the court and crown stopped taking a great interest in the playhouse.
Theaters had to get their money from the audience of city dwellers, therefore and consequently plays that reflected city anxieties and celebrated the lives of citizens were the ones to draw crowds. The aristocratic material from the Restoration continued to be mounted, and adaptations of Tudor plays were made and run, but the new plays that were authored and staged were the domestic and middle-class dramas. The other dramatic innovation was 'spectacle'. Plays that had little or no next, but which emphasised novel special effects.
During the 18th century, drama steadily declined. Only remarkable dramatists shone out during this age. Goldsmith, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele were a few prominent figures who continued to enrich dramatic literature, otherwise, there was hardly any dramatist of the status of the Restoration or the Elizabethan dramatists during the age.
1. Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774)
Anglo-Irish poet, playwright and novelist Oliver Goldsmith was born in Kilkenny West, Ireland in 1730. Goldsmith studied at Trinity College, Dublin. He coursed through a variety of professions, finally settling on medicine in 1752.
Literary Career and Works :
For some years, he worked as an apothecary's assistant, school usher, physician and as a hack writer. However, he soon rose to fame with his Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe. Goldsmith also came to the notice of Samuel Johnson's, who invited Goldsmith to join his exclusive Turk's Head Club. Through Johnson's patronage, Goldsmith began to publish his first master works, including the novel The Vicar of Wakefield.
His other works include The Citizen of the World (a collection of essays, 1762), An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog (ironic poem, 1766), The Good-Natur'd Man (comic play, 1768), She Stoops to Conquer (a farce, 1773) and The Deserted Village (a poem on rural population and the Enclosure Movement, 1770). Goldsmith died on 4th April, 1774, after suffering from kidney disease.
She Stoops to Conquer
- Goldsmith's Comedy, She Stoops to Conquer or Mistakes of a Night was first performed in London in 1773.
- The play opens with a prologue in which an actor mourns the death of the classical low comedy.
- The play's heroine and the 'she' of the title is Kate Hardcastle, daughter of Mr Hardcastle who falls in love with Charles Marlow.
- Marlow is extremely shy around refined ladies of upper class but comfortable with women of humble birth. He mistakes Kate for a woman of the lower class and she allows him to continue to mistake her identity. She poses as a maid so that he becomes comfortable.
- The subplot revolves around the romance between Marlow's friend, George Hastings and Constance Neville, niece of Mrs Hardcastle.
- The play ends with the two couples, Marlow and Kate and Hastings and Constance- united and ready to wed.
- The play deals with the theme of social class.
2. Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
English novelist and playwright Henry Fielding was born in Sharpham park, England in 1707. He received his education at Eton College and the University of Leiden.
Literary Career and Works :
When Fielding returned to England, he started writing theatrical comedies. He also became manager of the Little Theatre in the Haymarket in 1736. The Author's Farce and Rape upon Rape were some of his famous plays. However, the passing of Theatrical Licensing Act in 1737, put an end to his career as a playwright. He became editor of The Champion. He was prompted to turn to fiction after reading Richardson's Pamela. He not only wrote Shamela, a parody of the novel, but followed it up with Joseph Andrews in 1742.
In 1743, Fielding published three volumes of Miscellanies, which included the famous work, The Life of Mr Jonathan Wild the Great, based on the life of a notorious criminal. His most popular novel, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling established him as leading exponent of the English novel. Fielding had married Charlotte Cradock in 1734, on whom he later modeled the heroines of both Tom Jones and Amelia. Fielding got afflicted with health problems such as asthma, dropsy and severe gout, which forced him to retire in 1754. He also wrote an account of his journey, The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, in which he chronicled the slowness of travel, the incompetence of doctors and his own courage in overcoming these obstacles. He died in Lisbon in 1754.
3. Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
English essayist, playwright and politician Joseph Addison was born in Milston, Wiltshire in 1672. He studied at Charterhouse, where he was a classmate of Richard Steele and at The Queen's College, Oxford. Two years later, Addison became a Fellow of Magdalen College.
Literary Career and Works :
In 1693, Addison addressed a poem to John Dryden, the former Poet Laureate, and his first major work, An Account of the Greatest English Poets, a book about the lives of English poets, was published in 1694. This was followed by An Address to King William (1695) and a Latin poem entitled Pax Gulielmi (1697), on the peace of Ryswick.
Addison rose to fame with The Campaign (1704), an epic poem was commissioned by Lord Halifax, and its great success resulted in Addison's appointment in 1705 as undersecretary of state.
Addison is more famous today as an essayist. In 1710, he began contributing essays to The Tatler, which Richard Steele had founded in 1709. In 1711, both of them brought out the first number of The Spectator, another periodical. In 1713, Addison's Cato, a play with political overtones was performed with much success on the stage. Besides these, he also wrote A Dialogue on Medals and left unfinished a work on the evidences of Christianity. Addison died at Holland House on the 17th June, 1719.
4. Richard Steele (1672-1729)
Irish writer and politician Richard Steele was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1672. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford. Steele joined the army and rose to the rank of captain within two years. However, he left it in 1705 to turn his attention towards a career in writing.
Literary Career and Works :
In 1701, Steele's The Christian Hero, a moralistic tract was published. His first play, the comedy The Funeral or Grief a-la-mode, was performed successfully at Drury Lane Theatre in 1701. This play was a satire on the new profession of undertaking. This was followed by The Lying Lover or The Ladies' Friendship in 1703. His third comedy, The Tender Husband or The Accomplished Fools, produced in 1705, achieved some success.
The Dear Prue of a series of delightful letters had been addressed to the second wife of Steele, Mary Scurlock, by him. Later he became governor of Drury Lane Theatre, where he produced The Conscious Lovers (1723), a popular play. Steele died at Carmarthen, Wales in 1729.
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