Restoration Comedies: Discussion of Love and Marriage

in The Country Wife and Love for Love

Term Paper , 2007 , 14 Pages , Grade: 2,3

English Language and Literature Studies - Literature

Two Restoration Comedies that I want to discuss are William Wycherley’s The Country
Wife (1675) and William Congreve’s Love for Love (1695). Both plays were written in a time
when libertinism prevailed and male stereotypes like rakes and fops and female stereotypes
like wives and virgins were popular. Needless to say, both plays not only deal with
Restoration society but also with its problems, concerns, and difficulties at the time. And
especially, Love for Love, which was written fairly at the end of the Restoration era, still is a
conventional play in terms of being libertine-satirical but it already includes some features of
sentimentalism. So it is not a postponement from libertinism to sentimentalism yet, but I want
to argue in this essay that both plays are rather conventional libertine Restoration plays which
include features of early sentimentalism.

Contents

Introduction

1. Love and Marriage
1.1. Women and Marriage
1.2. Men and Marriage

2. Marriage Types
2.1. Jealousy and Cuckolding
2.2. Love Marriage
2.3. Trick Marriage
2.4. Mercenary Matches
2.5. Love between Valentine and Angelica

3. Love in Restoration Comedy
3.1. The Country Innocence
3.2. Town People

Summary

Cited Works

• College: Free University of Berlin (Institut für Englische Philologie)
• Course: Restoration Comedies
• Grade: 2,3
• Author: Magister Anke Werckmeister (Author)
• Publication Year: 2007
• Pages: 14
• Catalog Number: V202057
• ISBN (eBook): 9783656279662
• ISBN (Book): 9783656280699
• Language: English
• Tags: Anglistik, Englisch, Englische Philologie, Amerikanistik, Restoration Comedy, Restoration Comedies, The Country Wife, Love for Love, William Congreve, William Wycherley, Love, Marriage, Restoration period, England 1660