With the return of Charles II also came the return of the English stage, and its significance in the life of its audience can neither be ignored nor belittled. Aparna Dharwadker in the article Class, Authorship and the Social Intertexture of the Genre in the Restoration Theatre, continues to expound on the magnitude of this sudden cultural shift.
“The disruption of professional theatre for a generation during the Puritan Interregnum, however, radically alters the terms of the theatrical discourse and the material-cultural conditions of performance in the Restoration . . . A large number of early Restoration authors also invoke the figure of theatrum mundi to describe stage performance as the most effective means of neutralizing the “Tragick Follies” of the interregnum, and of creating cultural forms adequate to the new order.”
The theatre, more than ever before, became the foremost institution in English society. Its lessons regarded everything from cultural taboos to deep moral choices, and at the forefront of this establishment was the comedy. In An essay on the theatre; or, a comparison between Laughing and Sentimental Comedy, Oliver Goldsmith defines comedy much like Aristotle “to be a picture of the frailties of the lower part of mankind, to distinguish it from tragedy, which is an exhibition of the misfortunes of the great.” With English comedy playing such a role, and indeed viewed inside a historical setting as there being “more of humor in our English writers that in any other comic poets, ancient or modern,” (Congreve) it is imperative to understand the views of humor among the playwrights. Grasping the concepts of humor on the English stage from a philosophical point of view will guide us toward a zone in which we, the audience, may learn the most from these plays. In this study let us look to William Congreve and his view of humor within theatre. Then using this as a lens through which to view drama, let us look to two of the most popular of the restoration comedies, Marriage A-La-Mode by John Dryden and The Country Wife by William Wycherley. Examining these plays after understanding Congreve's philosophy of humor will enlighten our reading of this period ever after.
Congreve, in his letter entitled, Concerning Humor in Comedy, gives a definition of humor which he bases his arguments around. He defines it as “a singular and unavoidable manner of doing or saying anything, peculiar and natural to one man only, by which his speech and actions are distinguished from those of other men.” (478) It is a natural and unavoidable tendency for incongruence among a particular man, but also set apart from society. In another definition of humor he explains what humor is and, what has been mistaken as humor, is not.
“Humor I take either to be born with us, and so of a natural growth, or else to be grafted into us by some accidental change in the constitution of revolution of the internal habit of body, by which it becomes, if I may so call it, naturalized. Humor is from nature, Habit from custom, and Affectation from industry. Humor shows us as we are. Habit shows us as we appear under a forcible impression. Affectation shows us what we would be under a voluntary disguise.”
Wit, folly, habit, personal defect, and affectation are all things which make us laugh, but it is in the way they are presented that Congreve argues there may be a lack of true humor. Since humor is so natural and deeply seeded in the human condition, the instances when these vehicles of laughter lack humor are when they are unnatural or contrived. Wit is manufactured in one's education. It is the product of experience and practice having more to do with intelligence than anything one is born with. Folly is happenstance, “Things that either are not in nature, or if they are, are monsters and births of mischance, and consequently as such should be stifled and huddled out of the way like Sooterkins.” (Congreve) Follies are merely funny mistakes. Habit is formed over time. It is not natural; it is what one has been taught to do. It is a profession one has or a nationality one belongs to. Personal defects are completely uncontrollable, and even Hobbes agrees, shouldn't be laughed at. “Besides, it is vain glory, and an argument of little worth, to think the infirmity of another, sufficient matter for his triumph.”(Hobbes) Then there is affectation which mimics a humor. A person acts different than there own personality to gain laughter. This is perhaps the greatest example of artificial humor; a person whom acts in a manner which is completely outside of himself or his personality.
