Tricksters & estates : on the ideology of Restoration comedy /
If the Renaissance was the Golden Age of English comedy, the Restoration was the Silver. These comedies are full of tricksters attempting to gain estates, the emblem and the reality of power in late feudal England. The tricksters appear in a number of guises, such as heroines landing their men, youn...
| Основен автор: | Canfield, J. Douglas 1941- |
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| Формат: | Електронна книга |
| Език: | English |
| Публикувано: |
Lexington, Ky. :
University Press of Kentucky,
℗♭1997.
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| Предмети: | |
| Онлайн достъп: |
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&AN=52037 |
| Подобни документи: |
Print version::
Tricksters & estates. |
| Резюме: |
If the Renaissance was the Golden Age of English comedy, the Restoration was the Silver. These comedies are full of tricksters attempting to gain estates, the emblem and the reality of power in late feudal England. The tricksters appear in a number of guises, such as heroines landing their men, younger brothers seeking estates, or Cavaliers threatened with dispossession. Now one of the leading scholars of Restoration drama offers a cultural history of the period's comedy that puts the plays in perspective and reveals the ideological function they performed in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century. To explain this function, J. Douglas Canfield groups the plays into three categories: social comedy, which underwrites Stuart ideology; subversive comedy, which undercuts it; and comical satire, which challenges it as fundamentally immoral or amoral. Through play-by-play analysis, he demonstrates how most of the comedies support the ideology of the Stuart monarchs and the aristocracy, upholding what they regarded as their natural right to rule because of an innate superiority over all other classes. A significant minority of comedies, however, reveal cracks in class solidarity, portray witty heroines who inhabit the margins of society, or give voice to folk tricksters who embody a democratic force nearly capable of overwhelming class hierarchy. A smaller yet but still significant minority end in no resolution, no restoration but, at their most radical, playfully portray Stuart ideology as empty rhetoric. |
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| Физически характеристики: |
1 online resource (xi, 315 pages) : illustrations |
| Формат: |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. |
| Библиография: |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 284-294) and indexes. |
| ISBN: |
0813170036 9780813170039 |