Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Imaginary Plots and Political Realities in the Plays of William Congreve

Imaginary Plots and Political Realities in the Plays of William Congreve

Novak, Maximillian E.

Paperback

Literary Criticism

ISBN10: 1839984341
ISBN13: 9781839984341
Publisher: Anthem Pr
Published: Apr 5 2022
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.49
Height: 0.34 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

William Congreve wrote his plays and his novella, Incognita, during a time of immense social and political upheaval. The revolution of 1688 brought with it a rash of new ideas. William and Mary were monarchs chosen by a Convention of Englishmen, not rulers chosen by divine right. And new ideas in philosophy and politics, most notably expressed in the writings of John Locke, gave a new shape to the way the world was perceived. Congreve, an ardent supporter of the dual monarchy and later of William III, was depicted by Charles Lamb and many later critics as writing comedies that had no connection with the real world. To the contrary, his writings reflect a strong engagement with the changes occurring in the social milieu of the time. The new sense of political liberty brought with it greater social equality; the lapse in the Licensing Act brought greater freedom in publishing. And while the attack upon the stage by Jeremy Collier in 1698 was to rein in some of the explorative nature of comedy during the 1690s, Congreve took advantage of the new freedoms from the events of 1688 to write sophisticated comedies that both exploited this liberation and criticised it.

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