Rivals & School for Scandal

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SHERIDAN'S THE RIVALS & THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL Notes including • • • • • • • • •

Life and Background of the Author Introduction to the Plays Brief Synopses Lists of Characters Critical Commentaries Character Analyses Critical Essay Essay Topics and Review Questions Selected Bibliography

by A. M. I. Fiskin, Ph.D. Department of English Pennsylvania State University

LINCOLN, NEBRASKA 68501 1-800-228-4078 www.CLIFFS.com ISBN 0-8220-7281-5 © Copyright 1967 by Cliffs Notes, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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LIFE AND BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR The omens surrounding the birth of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) were not favorable, had anyone been able to read them. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, in either September or October of 1751. It was surprising that as late as 1751, the exact date or month of a child's birth would not be properly recorded in Dublin. It was also unusual to baptize a child Thomas Brinsley, an old family name that had been given to an elder brother who died before he was born, and then to change his name to Richard. There is here a certain lack of orderliness in the management of affairs that seems somehow fitting. The family tradition seems to supply an appropriate background for the kind of life Sheridan was to live. His grandfather, Thomas Sheridan, Doctor of Divinity, was a schoolmaster and, significantly, a friend of Jonathan Swift's. He was completely lacking in discretion or tact and sacrificed opportunities for preferment for the sake of a quip. Poor, hag-ridden, moving from post to post, he died a pauper. Richard Brinsley's father, Thomas Sheridan, was an actor who had some considerable success, first in Dublin and then in England. His mother, Frances, was an author before she was twenty-one. She later wrote Miss Sidney Bidulph, in its day a famous novel, and two plays. Thomas Sheridan became also an educator and lecturer, holding forth on the virtue of oratory and rhetoric as a way to cure immorality, ignorance, and bad taste. Despite all these noble ventures, the family moved to France in 1754 to escape his debts. Richard Brinsley was not successful as a student, either before Harrow or at Harrow. He wrote lampoons and with a friend composed a burlesque opera, Jupiter, in which may be found the germ of The Critic. In 1771, when Richard Brinsley was not yet twenty, Thomas Sheridan moved to Bath. Bath lay to a considerable degree beneath everything Sheridan wrote. The Rivals was set there. The School for Scandal was set in London, but in its earliest versions, it, too, was located in Bath, and it always retained a flavor of the life of Bath in its most interesting scenes, those which gave the play its title. Bath was of great importance to Sheridan for another reason. Here he met Elizabeth Ann Linley, the very popular singer of ballads, and the real-life source of the heroine of Samuel Foote's play The Maid of Bath. The courtship of the eighteen-year-old, already famous artiste by the nineteen-year-old Sheridan proceeded in a series of events, all highly improbable and many of them comic. It involved a chaperoned elopement to France, a marriage that was no marriage, two duels the details of which are still not entirely clear, and two sets of disapproving parents. The Sheridans looked down on the daughter of a musician; Linley was horrified at an alliance with the family of an actor. After a period of love letters, secret meetings, and recriminations--for the lady was courted by others and the twenty-year-old flirted--they married. And the dignified, now twenty-one-year-old husband refused to allow his wife to perform, although he had neither money nor prospects, and her potential earnings were several thousand pounds a year. The courtship and marriage might indeed serve as the basis of a comedy, a possibility which one biographer in fact exploited. Not surprisingly, in the light of his heritage, young Richard took to writing for the stage to gain money. His first play was The Rivals. He drew on Bath for his background, but it is difficult to believe that he drew on his own love affair. The hindrance to the marriage in the play has quite a different cause and the duels are forestalled. His own duels were farcical yet might have proved fatal. After a preliminary failure, the play became a great success. In the same year, 1775, also appeared St. Patrick's Day, designed to exploit the popularity of the stage Irishman, and then The Duenna, an operetta. In February 1777, he adapted and somewhat bowdlerized Vanbrugh's Relapse, and it became A Trip to Scarborough. Later that same year appeared The School for Scandal.

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Sheridan's growth in status during this period was very rapid. In 1776, he became one of the proprietors of Drury Lane Theatre. A Trip to Scarborough and The School for Scandal, therefore, were written for his own theater. His enthusiasm waned, however. During the years he was manager or co-manager, the theater was consistently misgoverned. For the rest of his life, Sheridan was repeatedly in need of money, and Drury Lane suffered from callous indifference. Nor did he make any important contribution to the playhouse as dramatist. The Critic appeared in 1779; two days before the announced opening, Sheridan had still not delivered the play to the actors. Members of the company tricked him into coming to the theater, where they locked him in a room until he completed the final scenes. In the years following, he contributed only very minor works. Like his great predecessor, Congreve, Sheridan became a grand old man of the theater, a dramatist emeritus, at the ripe old age of thirty. The rest of Sheridan's life formed a fascinating history. He was in turn brilliant, treacherous, quixotic, and villainous. Elected to Parliament in 1780, he found there a theater that he thought more suitable to his talents: His life was twined with the lives of the great, and the problems of State were his daily personal affairs. Yet while he aspired to guide the destinies of England and perhaps played a part in determining his country's future, his own life was chaotic. He drank too much and courted too many women. He lost the love of the wife whom he had wooed so romantically. When she died, he married again in too great haste. He squandered money when he had it, and in the last years of his life, he was imprisoned for debt.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PLAYS There are many definitions of comedy--brilliant, incisive, and profound. But it is sometimes desirable to avoid the nobler speculations and try to hold fast to concrete and readily observable elements. Any comedy will include one or a number of these features: (1) comedy of character types, (2) amusing intrigues and situations, (3) wit of language, (4) satiric commentary on human foibles, and (5) idyllic love stories whose strongest appeal is the warm glow with which they fill the audience. Since in a play all parts are organically fused, these features are closely related. Comic figures represent a satire on society, and their success as comic figures may be based on witty lines or on the situations in which they are played. Yet one has to try to make arbitrary distinctions simply because without them analysis is impossible. Sheridan was a master of four of the five kinds of comedy listed above. (It is difficult to see that he had any success, or desire for success, with the idyllic love story that arouses a warm glow.) But what accounts for his reputation as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, English writer of comedy? Other dramatists have created amusing characters, have written incisive social satire, and have invented witty dialogue. Sheridan's admirers say that Sheridan's comic characters go beyond others, that his dialogue is wittier, his situations funnier, and his satire more biting. Yet this is more difficult to illustrate, for other readers may find Garrick funnier or Mrs. Centlivre's situations more farcical. Our age says that that which can be approached quantitatively can be demonstrated or proven. It might be worthwhile to try to steal a page from the book of the scientists and make quantitative statements. One can say that Sheridan has more comic situations, that they are more varied, and that they are never allowed to disintegrate into literal statement. One can say that Sheridan's characters follow their comic bents more consistently and that more comedy is derived from them than is usual. One can say that Sheridan has more witty lines and that more wit is somehow poured into each line than in the works of other dramatists. To illustrate, The Rivals has an amazing array of comic characters. With the exception of Julia, every character is comic. Many are based on common stage types. Yet out of these theatrical types Sheridan gets new and additional humor. Sir Anthony Absolute is the traditional tyrannical father. This is not new,

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www.cliffs.com but his quarrels with his son are different. Lines such as "I am sure, Sir, 'tis more unreasonable in you to object to [marrying] a lady you know nothing of" carry this comedy one step farther than usual. The insight that makes Jack Absolute lose his calmness and become just as irascible, if more debonair, than his father accounts for another step in characterization. And finally, the turn given the second quarrel that arises when Jack says he is agreeable and will marry the girl is beyond most dramatists. Sir Anthony can be angry when his son voices his right to an opinion on the woman he is to marry; he is also angry when his son refuses to have an opinion. Faulkland's obsession is highly comic in a wry way. He refuses to believe that Julia loves him adequately. There are a number of specific scenes that have as their major purpose the presentation of this weird trait. After every quarrel with his fiancée, Faulkland is filled with remorse; at their next meeting, he voices the same suspicions. The real difference between Sheridan and other dramatists is that Sheridan never lets up until he has wrung the last drop of laughter from every situation. In a scene with Jack, devoted to quite different problems, Faulkland mentions that he has received a letter from Julia forgiving his last offense, and he wonders whether she forgives too easily. Did not this show an instability of character? Even the professional reader is caught off guard--Sheridan can always carry the comedy one step beyond what one expects. If one also stops to consider the great number of characters, the least of them clearly individualized for comic effect, then Sheridan's genius becomes clear. A comic situation is easier to describe than to define. When a character talks freely about another and then finds that the object of his malicious remarks can overhear him, that is a comic situation. If a man courts a middle-aged widow, thinking he is wooing a beautiful belle, that is a comic situation. When two cowards are dueling, each believing the other to be a professional bully, that is a comic situation. In Sheridan, all situations are comic. Many writers lose the comic touch when the business of the plot has to be moved forward. Sheridan almost never does. In The School for Scandal, the scenes leading up to, and including the sale of, family portraits are necessary for the advancement of the plot. Each scene is made a comic situation: by a servant who wants to borrow money, just like his master; by a Jewish moneylender, not himself particularly comic, caught in the middle between two men who are playing parts; by double-edged handling of the irony of the profligate who condescends to the moneylender who is actually his wealthy uncle. Some people consider the screen-scene in The School for Scandal the greatest comic scene in English drama. The plot would always make it a fine melodramatic scene; that it is a great comic scene is due to the manner in which Sheridan took advantage of all its possibilities. Joseph's attempt at seduction has a kind of hilarious truth; Sir Peter's lines create acute embarrassment in his host, and we can enjoy it. In the light of what the audience knows, Sir Peter's and Charles' lines have considerable comic irony. Even in the fifth act, where Sheridan is busy tying up loose ends, he can still discover and exploit comic potential. When Sir Oliver arrives, now in his own person, both brothers find cause to manhandle him; both are anxious, for quite different reasons, to get rid of him before "Sir Oliver" arrives! Scene-by-scene examination of the two plays shows that every scene is handled so that it becomes a comic situation. Behind all these situations must lie the wit of Sheridan's lines. He is almost never "just getting on with the play." The quarrel between the Teazles would probably be comic no matter which dramatist wrote it; in Sheridan's treatment, every line is witty. Lady Teazle is therefore a delight to watch, where otherwise she might emerge as a shrew or simply a stupid woman. Joseph's attempt to seduce his visitor includes wit of a different order; he, Lady Teazle, and Sheridan are all playing to the audience in a passage that includes many levels of irony. He cannot mean what he says, and she cannot be taken in, yet, dear audience, is there not much truth in it? The attempts at seduction would always be comic; in Sheridan's handling, it is much more than that.

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www.cliffs.com It is possible to illustrate with a word how an adequate line is turned into one that has great wit. In The Rivals, Jack Absolute says, quite correctly, that he doubts whether Lydia would marry him under ordinary circumstances: "I am by no means certain that she would take me with the impediment of our friends' consent . . . and the reversion of a good fortune." The comment would be funny even if "the impediment of" were omitted, but the inclusion of the words adds greatly. A fortune is no impediment, but it is to Lydia. Only juvenile notions could make it seem so, but at the moment, it is an impediment to Jack's love. A literal and comic line has been made witty, many-edged in its irony. Satire is everywhere in Sheridan's plays. It is inherent in plot, character, and lines. Satire may encompass many kinds of material, many attitudes, and many different degrees of intensity. It can be as vicious as Swift's Gulliver's Travels or Jonson's Volpone, or it can be more subtle, as in Jane Austen. The objects of satire may vary widely; they may be individuals, or social manners, or literary forms, or cultural norms. The great point of danger in its use is that it cannot be controlled absolutely. Once the tone of a play is satiric, the satire rubs off, as it were, on everything within the play. Sheridan's satire is gentle, but we find it everywhere. His satire attacks people, hypocrisy, and the sentimentalism which was both a cultural norm and a literary convention. If one considers the main characters of both plays together, one finds that the sentimental attitude has been thoroughly dissected. A character such as Faulkland is an attack on excessive sensibility; but Jack Absolute, the anti-sentimentalist, can also get into trouble. Joseph Surface is an attack on sentimental hypocrisy. Sir Oliver does not approve of sentimental hypocrisy, but he is certainly a butt of humor. The tyrannical father is satirized in Sir Anthony; but does Sir Peter, who is really making modest demands, come off much better? Sentiment is weak, comic, unreasonable, but Charles is worthy of approval. But "he is so damned charitable" that it ruins him financially; and he continues to be charitable--with other people's money. The usurer is the object of satiric attack, but so is his victim. The erring wife is satirized; so is her almost cuckolded husband. Line by line, Sheridan proceeds on his way, dispensing impartial injustice. Finally, Sheridan is usually accorded the honor of having written the most witty scenes of social satire in English comedy: The meetings of the school for scandal where reputations fall at every word, where rumors grow before our eyes, and where much of London and the world's society may perhaps recognize itself.

THE RIVALS A BRIEF SYNOPSIS Jack Absolute, a captain in the army and a young man in comfortable circumstances, falls in love with Lydia Languish, ward of the widowed Mrs. Malaprop. Since Lydia has been reading too many romances and thinks it would be romantic to marry a poor and ineligible lover, Captain Absolute pretends to be Ensign Beverley, a very poor half-pay officer. As such, his wooing bids fair to succeed. Lydia has been disdainful of the suitor approved by her aunt, Bob Acres, a wealthy country squire and a neighbor and friend of Jack Absolute. Mrs. Malaprop, therefore, is prepared to accept the idea of another (eligible) suitor when Sir Anthony proposes his son, Jack Absolute. Lydia does not know that this man is her beloved ensign and refuses to talk to a new villain. Jack quarrels with his father, who tells him that he has arranged a match--but does not give him the name.

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www.cliffs.com Sir Lucius O'Trigger, a fortune-hunting Irishman, also thinks himself a favored suitor because Lucy, Lydia's maid, has been delivering his messages to Mrs. Malaprop. She is thrilled at so gallant a suitor and replies in glowing letters. When Jack discovers that his father wants him to marry Lydia Languish, he is of course delighted. He calls on Lydia and convinces her at first that he is actually Beverley masquerading as Captain Absolute to fool her aunt. In a later visit, this imposture is revealed, and Lydia is terribly disappointed that her lover is not poor and ineligible, and she storms out of the room. But now Jack has two duels to fight. Acres has sent a challenge to Ensign Beverley, and Sir Lucius has picked a quarrel with Jack Absolute, his rival, he thinks, for Lydia's hand. When one of the servants informs Sir Anthony of the forthcoming duels and the ladies hear of them, they rush to the dueling field. Lydia accepts Jack despite her disappointment at his wealth. Parallel to this plot is Faulkland's courtship of Julia Melville, Sir Anthony Absolute's ward. They are in love with each other, but Faulkland's sense of his own unworthiness leads to suspicion and jealousy of Julia in episode after episode. He does not believe that "true love" can be based on attraction to his appearance, or on a sense of the merits of his character, or on a feeling of gratitude. He tests Julia by telling her that he committed a crime and must leave the country. When she says she is ready to go with him, he is overjoyed and reveals that his story is only a trick. Now Julia, offended that he would test her in so humiliating a fashion, storms out, although soulfully, saying she will never marry Faulkland. But he, too, is at the dueling field as Jack Absolute's second. Here Julia forgives him, and it is clear that all ends happily.

LIST OF CHARACTERS Captain (Jack) Absolute

A captain in the army, now in Bath to woo Lydia Languish in the guise of Ensign Beverley, a half-pay officer.

Lydia Languish

A young lady with an odd romantic notion, a niece and ward of Mrs. Malaprop. She is in love with, and loved by, Captain Jack Absolute, whom she believes to be Ensign Beverley, a poor young officer.

Sir Anthony Absolute

A member of the landed gentry, the father of Captain Jack Absolute.

Mrs. Malaprop

A middle-aged widow, the aunt of Lydia Languish.

Bob Acres

A neighbor of Sir Anthony Absolute and an old friend of Captain Jack Absolute. His suit of Lydia Languish has the blessing of Mrs. Malaprop at the beginning of the play. He knows his rival is Ensign Beverley but does not know that the ensign is actually his old friend.

Julia Melville

A ward of Sir Anthony Absolute and a friend of Lydia Languish. She is loved by and loves Mr. Faulkland.

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Mr. Faulkland

A friend of Captain Jack Absolute and the approved suitor of Julia Melville.

Sir Lucius O'Trigger

An Irish gentleman, an unsuccessful fortune hunter who woos Lydia by letter; he feels that a fortune is even more attractive when attached to a pretty wife.

Lucy

Lydia's maid. She accepts letters to be delivered to her mistress from Jack Absolute, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, and Bob Acres. She does not always deliver them to their addressee.

Fag

Captain Jack Absolute's valet.

David

Bob Acre's valet.

Thomas

Sir Anthony Absolute's coachman.

CRITICAL COMMENTARIES PROLOGUE Commentary The first of the two prologues to this play was written for the opening performance. The play, perhaps because of the choice of the actor for the part of O'Trigger, was not a success. Apparently he was too villainous, destroying the comedy and offending the Irish. After ten days, he was replaced and Sheridan composed another prologue. In the first prologue, a little skit gives a Sergeant-at-Law the opportunity to develop the idea that he pleads the case of the author and that the members of the audience are the jury that will pass judgment. The device is amusing, the basic idea by no means new. The second prologue is more interesting. In it, Sheridan makes some comments on the relationship between comedy and sentimentalism. Comedy contains "humour, quaint, and sly," "amorous hints," "light masks or covers satire's strokes! Or hides the conscious blush her wit provokes." The comic muse, Sheridan feels, is not formed to preach or be grave. The sentimental muse's emblems are "The Pilgrim's Progress and a sprig of rue!" She is "too chaste to look like flesh and blood. . . . And having made her votaries weep a flood . . . / she'll end her comedies in blood." These things are not fit for comedy, which is too light to teach morality or virtue; they are subjects for tragedy. Sheridan professes to deplore sentimentalism in comedy and is quite honest in so doing. He attacks sentimentalism, amusingly, in Lydia Languish and Faulkland, but as the character of Julia and incidental touches will show, he actually accepts much sentiment as highly desirable. The phenomenon is a common one in cultural history--the writer is strongly influenced by the very ideas against which he rebels.

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ACT I--SCENE 1 Summary When Fag, Captain Absolute's servant, and Thomas meet on a street in Bath, Fag reveals much of the plot. Captain Absolute, we discover, is at Bath in the guise of Ensign Beverley because he is wooing Miss Lydia Languish, "a lady of very singular taste . . . who likes him better as a half-pay ensign than if she knew he was son and heir to Sir Anthony Absolute." We learn she is herself wealthy, but somehow an old aunt's consent must be gained. The servants talk a minute further about Bath but leave as they see Captain Absolute talking to Lucy, Lydia's maid. Commentary Sheridan set this play in Bath, the famous English watering place, or health resort. The first scene takes place on a street, and other scenes occur in famous locations, The North Parade and King's-Mead-Fields. There is mention made of the famous Bath circulating libraries. In selecting Bath, Sheridan not only chose a town he knew, for it played an important part in his own life, but also exploited his audience's sense of the vitality and excitement of the famous resort. Bath was divorced from mundane realities and was dedicated to play, gossip, dance, theatrical productions, and musical concerts. And here, as Sheridan's own romance proved, was an appropriate locale for implausible love affairs and quite ridiculous confusions. In dramatic criticism, the term "exposition" is used to discuss the various devices by which the playwright gives us information we must have of what preceded the first act. Exposition can be as obvious as a narrator who simply enters and tells us, or as complicated as in Ibsen's Ghosts or Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night. Sheridan is perhaps over-obvious. Rather woodenly, the two servants reveal the salient elements of the main plot, including the strange premise that Lydia prefers a poor husband. This eccentricity gets elaborate treatment later in the play. Although the servants have very little to do with the plot, they appear frequently in the play. Literary decorum required that characters be given the qualities that the age considered appropriate to their social classes. Nowhere is this principle observed so religiously as in the portrayal of servants. They are shown as having common sense, but they completely lack the dignity or the code of personal honor of the gentleman. It became one of the dogmas of the writer that all servants imitated their masters, and Fag obviously is trying to assume the mannerisms of a gentleman. He talks of Absolute's activities as if he himself were the principal; he talks of fashions as if they were in some way created for him. He thinks of himself as a highly sophisticated man of the world and condescends to the country-bred coachman, Thomas, who is, incidentally, satisfactorily impressed.

ACT I--SCENE 2 Summary After Lucy's return with books from the circulating library, Julia enters, and she and Lydia discuss their respective love affairs. At the moment, Lydia and "Beverley" (the specious Captain Absolute) are in the middle of a lovers' quarrel that Lydia has contrived. Julia has problems of quite a different kind with Faulkland, who is very jealous because he has no faith in himself. He is afraid that, as he once saved her life, her love for him may be mere gratitude. Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute then enter to discuss a match between Lydia and Captain Absolute. Apparently Mrs. Malaprop tried before to arrange a match for Lydia with Bob Acres, but Lydia refused. She intends to be equally stubborn about any other choice; the fact that the suggested suitor is an

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www.cliffs.com eminently eligible young man makes him automatically unacceptable. In the course of conversation, Mrs. Malaprop indicates that she is engaged in an intrigue of her own. Lucy is left soliloquizing at the end of the act; it appears that she has been a go-between, but she has tricked her clients. She did not deliver Acres' letter, and she has deceived Sir Lucius O'Trigger. He thought he was writing to Lydia, but she has been delivering his letters to Mrs. Malaprop, who therefore thinks that Sir Lucius is in love with her. Commentary By the end of this scene, the proper function of the first act had been completed: The many plots of the play have been introduced. Lydia loves Beverley and will resist the proposed match with Captain Absolute, who is actually Ensign Beverley. She has also spurned Acres. We are prepared for the rocky road of Julia and Faulkland's love affair; the complications of this subplot are products of the lovers' own temperaments. The Lucius O'Trigger-Mrs. Malaprop confusion is described in Lucy's speech so that we are prepared for it. The mainspring of the primary plot is Lydia's eccentric notion that she wants to marry a poor man, and under conditions whereby she will be sure to lose her fortune. Sheridan's invention is not quite as pointless as it appears at first. He was engaged in a continuous, although not consistent, battle with sentimentalism in drama, and Lydia's odd notion is at most no more than an exaggeration of the sentimental motivation to be found in the plays of his contemporaries. Lydia's position is a comic reversal of the common-sense attitude which would say that it is nice to want to marry for love rather than money or convenience, but it is silly to refuse to marry the man she loves simply because he has money. The opening of the scene is also relevant to this anti-sentimental satire. The novels that Lucy brings home from the circulating library are the kinds of books that might encourage notions of human behavior as perverse as the one Lydia has adopted. Sheridan's attack on sentimentalism is developed further in the Julia-Faulkland affair. The meaningful basis of the sentimental view of life is the empathy of one person for the problems, weaknesses, and vacillations of another. In many plays of the period, difficulties arise because characters are acutely sensitive to each others' wishes and self-sacrificing to the point where the desires of all are subverted. Julia's willingness to "understand" Faulkland is too great, and the sentimental virtues become serious faults. Faulkland's pride calls for equal response to his love. At the same time, excessive modesty makes him undervalue his worth, which alone would entitle him to be deeply loved, and he suspects that Julia's feelings for him may not be genuine; she may be deluding herself. His attitude can lead only to painful misunderstanding. Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony represent the other comic stream in the play--the comedy of extreme characters. Sir Anthony is stubborn, hot-tempered, and determined to have his own way. Mrs. Malaprop is the conventional character of the longing widow with an important addition: A "malapropism" has become the standard term in the English language for the misuse of words. Although Sheridan's creation is the most successful of the kind, Mrs. Malaprop is not the first. The author's mother created a similar character in one of her plays, and Fielding's Mrs. Slipslop in Joseph Andrews was well known. Mrs. Malaprop's speech on the education of women is well worth rereading and anthologizing. Such characters as the arbitrary and tyrannical father and the widow with an exaggerated notion of her own charms have always been part of English drama. They are most easily categorized as humorous characters, in Ben Jonson's sense of the word.

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www.cliffs.com At the end of the act, the character of Lucy is made amply clear. She is the common-sense, shrewd servant, doing well for herself out of the stupidities and intrigues of her (social) betters. As she is the source of most of the complications in the plot, the play could very easily be constructed in such a way that she would be the central character. Spanish comedies of the preceding century often leaned heavily on the intriguing, roguish servants and made them key characters; but Lucy's part in the play is kept comparatively small. Sheridan chose to put his emphasis on the character types and their confusions, not on the intriguing servant.

ACT II--SCENE 1 Summary This scene is devoted to introducing some of the men. Fag reports to Captain Absolute that his father, Sir Anthony, is in town. Fag lies, saying that he did not reveal the Beverley-Absolute masquerade and that he told Thomas that Captain Absolute was in Bath recruiting. Faulkland enters to visit Jack, his friend. Faulkland can talk about Julia freely with Captain Absolute; after all, she is Sir Anthony's ward and Jack therefore knows her as he might a sister. Absolute talks of his love affair. He knows that, as Beverley, he could convince Lydia to run off with him, but unlike his lady, he sees no reason for them to give up two-thirds of her fortune. Acres now enters. He is the country bumpkin, a suitor of Lydia and aware that his rival is Ensign Beverley; he does not know, however, that Beverley and his friend Jack are the same. When Acres talks about Julia, he gives so glowing an account of her good spirits that Faulkland becomes angry: That she can sing and dance and not languish in unhappiness seems to Faulkland a certain sign that she cannot really love him. Acres continues, oblivious of his companion's discomfort, until Faulkland leaves, angered at the perfidy of women. Sir Anthony arrives to inform his son of the match he has arranged for Jack. Father and son argue violently, but somehow the name of the girl is never mentioned. Sir Anthony leaves, threatening to disown the captain unless he becomes a dutiful son in six and a half hours. Jack vents his anger on Fag, who in turn takes out his anger on an errand boy. Commentary Although servants may imitate their masters' behavior, they do not share their concepts of honor. Having boasted to Thomas, Fag now lies to his master. Sheridan manipulates the lines so that Fag states his philosophy of the lie--make it a good one--and then immediately demonstrates. Although we have heard much of Captain Absolute, we meet him here for the first time. Unlike his loved one or his friend, he takes a common-sense approach to life. Since he loves Lydia, he caters to her strange whim, but he has no intention of losing two-thirds of her fortune by a romantic elopement. Faulkland's specialized kind of jealousy is not a stock creation. Julia explained him in Act I, Scene 2; in this scene, we discover how he sees his fiancée: She must be insensitive because she is in good health and able to enjoy herself while he is away. His is indeed a virulent form of the sentimental malaise. Acres is a bumpkin not yet successful in his attempts to imitate city manners. Clothes and manners are awkward, while his "new method of swearing" constitute an addition to the gallery of affectations. In this scene, the reader can see very easily why Sheridan is considered a great comic writer. It includes four separate passages; each is totally different in humor from the other; each is excellent. Fag's smug

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www.cliffs.com lying is the source of comedy in the first; Faulkland and Acres between them create a comic situation wherein both Faulkland and Acres are satirized. The scene between father and son sets off the old man beautifully, but Jack does not emerge unscathed. It is made clear that both share the family trait that gives them their name. And, finally, the small bit that satirizes the human tendency to take out one's frustrations on one's inferiors is neat. It should be noted that the second and third passages move the plot forward significantly at the same time that they serve as pieces to reveal character.

ACT II--SCENE 2 Summary Lucy, playing the simple maid, meets Sir Lucius O'Trigger to deliver a letter that he thinks comes from Lydia. She tells Fag the letter is actually from Mrs. Malaprop. She also informs Fag that a new suitor has been proposed for Lydia's hand--Captain Absolute. Now our hero will know that he is his own rival. Commentary Even in this short scene, the characters conform to type--Lucy is shrewd but pretends to be the simpleton; Fag is as vain as ever. Although Sir Lucius is traditionally one of the great comic acting roles, examination will show that he is not as well developed as some of the other characters. It is likely that Sheridan expected that the swashbuckling Irishman was an adequate base for comic characterization.

ACT III--SCENE 1 Summary Captain Absolute and his father meet on the street. As Captain Absolute now knows that the bride his father has chosen for him is Lydia, he goes through an elaborate mummery, playing the dutiful son prepared to accept whomever his father has selected. Indeed, he plays the obedient son so thoroughly that Sir Anthony becomes angry that Jack displays so little interest in women. However, the two men are reconciled, and Sir Anthony prepares his son to meet and woo Lydia Languish. Commentary The main purpose of this scene is to move the plot forward. Out of the situation, however, Sheridan created a highly successful comic scene. Sir Anthony manages to become almost as angry with his son for agreeing with him as he was earlier over his disobedience.

ACT III--SCENE 2 Summary Julia and Faulkland meet in her dressing room. The scene opens with their joy at meeting again, but Faulkland is still concerned that Julia can take pleasure in life when he is away. He questions her love and the scene ends with a quarrel. When Julia leaves in anger, Faulkland resolves never again to give her pain in the same way. Commentary It appears that the lovers met earlier that day, although that scene does not form a part of the play. He has now returned for a tête-à-tête. Although the scene, like every other in the play, is highly comic, the grounds of the dispute are serious enough. Faulkland is not jealous that she loves another, and it would be inaccurate to say even that he doubts whether she loves him enough. He seems to make wholly unrealistic demands that she display sentimental melancholy when he is not present.

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www.cliffs.com He questions the motives for her love; is it truly love, or is she mistaking gratitude for love: "Search your heart, Julia; perhaps what you have mistaken for love is but the warm effusion of a too thankful heart." When she asks what "quality" she is to love him for, he picks up the word: "To regard me for any quality of mind or understanding were only to esteem me." Nor will he accept the idea that it is true love if she loves him for his handsome appearance; and the thought that she may feel bound by the father's promise is wholly reprehensible. Yet when she says "let us be free" of the contract, he suspects her haste. In sum, he suspects the depth and the motive of her love because it is a match sanctioned by custom, parents, their mutual social compatibility, and bonds of gratitude. With all that on its side, how can one be certain that the other person's love is sincere; how can one even be certain that one's own emotions are of adequate depth? Julia is trapped by his emotional and, we might say in our day, semantic confusion. There is no answer to an argument that says that all the accepted bases for love are the reasons why it should be doubted. It is perhaps worthwhile to evaluate Julia and Faulkland on a sort of sentimentalism common-sense scale. Julia loves sentimentally, but reasonably. Faulkland is sentimentalism carried to its ultimate absurdity. The difference between him and Absolute is made completely clear in one speech: "When love receives such countenance from Prudence, nice minds will be suspicious of its birth." Absolute's love is mixed with just the prudence Faulkland abhors.

ACT III--SCENE 3 Summary As Mrs. Malaprop has never met Ensign Beverley, Jack Absolute now arrives to woo Lydia. Among other things, he discovers that Lucy, the maid, has been betraying her client, the ensign, to Mrs. Malaprop. He suggests that, to confound Beverley, Mrs. Malaprop permit the ensign's correspondence with Lydia; then at precisely the right moment, he, Captain Absolute, would arrive on the scene and "have the fellow laid by the heels, and fairly contrive to carry her off in his stead." In the meantime, he suggests that Mrs. Malaprop announce him as Beverley. When Lydia enters, he tells her that he has fooled Mrs. Malaprop into thinking he is Absolute. Although Mrs. Malaprop eavesdrops on their wooing, she misinterprets their remarks so that she does not see through the ruse. Commentary The intercepted letter makes no difference to the plot but adds greatly to the entertainment. It gives opportunity for comic irony; Jack uses Mrs. Malaprop as a go-between in his wooing immediately after she reads the letter in which he said he would do just that. It is noteworthy that our manipulating hero has created a confusion of identities that he will find very difficult to juggle.

ACT III--SCENE 4 Summary In Acres' lodgings. Acres has heard that his suit of Lydia is rejected; he attributes this setback to Ensign Beverley, whom he has never met. It is actually due to the "new" proposed match with Captain Absolute. His friend, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, eggs him into sending a challenge to Beverley. Sir Lucius himself, who has also never met Beverley, is planning to challenge the man who, he believes, has interfered in his suit of Lydia. That man is Absolute.

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www.cliffs.com Commentary The disguises begin to catch up with Captain Absolute: He is being challenged to two duels, one by a friend, the other by a stranger. He has Lydia thinking of him as Ensign Beverley pretending to be Captain Absolute; Mrs. Malaprop thinks of him as Captain Absolute pretending to be Beverley--and somehow he will have to move through all this with his customary sangfroid and casual good sense. A reasonable approach to woman's foibles can, apparently, lead to as many confusions as Faulkland's very unreasonable sentimentalism.

ACT IV--SCENE 1 Summary Acres is having some second thoughts about challenging Ensign Beverley; David, his servant, especially feels he is making a mistake. Jack Absolute enters, and Acres wants him to carry the challenge to Ensign Beverley. Jack is willing to perform this chore for his friend. Commentary The scene involves a discussion of honor between Acres, who is not convinced by his own case, and David, who takes the view proper for the lower classes and thinks honor nonsense. Inevitably the passage reminds one of Falstaff's famous speech on honor in Henry IV, Part 1. David presents his case well, but it is still impossible to improve on Falstaff's masterly passage in which he is both inquisitor and respondent.

ACT IV--SCENE 2 Summary Mrs. Malaprop berates Lydia for not being willing to accept Absolute; Lydia of course believes the man she has met to be Beverley but pretends to refuse him. When Sir Anthony enters with his unwilling son in tow, Jack is certain that he cannot maintain his complicated masquerade. At first he tries to keep his face hidden from Lydia. Since she thinks this Captain Absolute is different from the one she met before, she too looks away from the interloper and is surprised that Mrs. Malaprop does not realize that the earlier visit was a hoax. The imposture is maintained throughout a comic scene but is eventually exposed to the great satisfaction of Sir Anthony, who interprets his son's masquerade in his own way: The young man was doubtless sowing his wild oats. Lydia, however, is pleased by neither the revelation nor Sir Anthony's interpretation; there is now only an ordinary courtship with no romantic tribulations, and she leaves in a huff, renouncing Ensign Beverley-Captain Absolute forever. Commentary The comedy in the scene consists mostly in the devices by which the moment of discovery is delayed: Jack hides his face and tries to be unobtrusive at one side of the stage, Lydia refuses to talk to, or even look at, that horrid person. It stretches credulity that the discovery would be delayed for even these few minutes, but the scene can be developed for maximum comic effect in production. How broadly the scene would be played would depend on the taste of directors and actors. In her chagrin, Lydia reveals the sentimental grounds of her love for the poor but romantic Beverley and for her rejection of the highly eligible Captain Absolute: "I fondly imagined we were deceiving my relations, and flattered myself I should outwit and incense them all.--" How dull and unromantic is a marriage based on adequate money to a man acceptable to guardian, relatives, and friends!

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ACT IV--SCENE 3 Summary Walking about Bath in chagrin, Jack meets Sir Lucius O'Trigger, who has been seeking him so as to challenge the captain to a duel. Jack still does not know why he has been challenged but agrees to meet Sir Lucius at King's-Mead-Fields at six o'clock. When Faulkland enters, Jack asks him to be there to act as his second; he becomes impatient with Faulkland when the latter wonders whether Julia was not too forward when she wrote to forgive him after their last quarrel. Commentary All Jack's chickens are coming home to roost. He has delivered a challenge to himself from his friend, Bob Acres. He has been challenged by Lucius O'Trigger, and Sir Lucius has selected King's-Mead-Fields as the appropriate place. In a performance of the play, Jack would display some interesting reaction, for, as Beverley, he is to meet Acres at the same time and place.

ACT V--SCENE 1 Summary Faulkland visits Julia and tells her he has committed an unnamed crime and must flee the country. Julia is willing, even eager, to accompany him in his exile. When Faulkland admits, in great joy, that he invented the story to test her, Julia finally reaches the end of her forbearance. She says she will never marry him. Faulkland leaves, distraught, realizing that he may have lost her forever. Lydia tells Julia of her disappointment--that the poor Ensign Beverley is actually the highly eligible Captain Absolute. Now all her romantic dreams of a sentimental elopement are destroyed. Julia attempts to make her see the situation reasonably. Mrs. Malaprop and the two servants, Fag and David, enter to reveal that there are duels in the offing. All depart to try to stop the duels. Commentary The scene between Faulkland and Julia is the final commentary on the strange obsession of Faulkland and perhaps on the patience of Julia. In the Lydia-Julia scene, immediately following, Sheridan makes his final comment on Lydia's juvenile romanticism, another absurd direction that sentimentalism may take: "When I thought we were coming to the prettiest distress imaginable, . . . I had projected one of the most sentimental elopements! . . . so amiable a ladder of ropes! . . . Scotch parson . . . such paragraphs in newspapers! Oh, I shall die with disappointment!" When Mrs. Malaprop and the servants enter, each of the ladies, in turn, loses her detachment as her lover is mentioned. And finally all concerned go off to stop the duelists.

ACT V--SCENE 2 Summary Jack Absolute, on the way to the field of honor, accidentally meets his father, who assumes that his son is going to see Lydia. After Jack leaves, David enters running and informs Sir Anthony of the forthcoming duel. They take off immediately for King's-Mead-Fields.

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ACT V--SCENE 3 Summary Acres and Sir Lucius are waiting for their adversaries to arrive--Acres for Beverley, Sir Lucius for Captain Absolute. Acres obviously has no stomach for the sport, and Sir Lucius tries to encourage him by talking of duels and the virtues of facing his opponent full-front and by suggesting that Acres give instructions in the event of "an accident." When Absolute and Faulkland arrive, there is some confusion, but Acres refuses to duel with his good friend Jack (even if Jack is also his despicable rival, Ensign Beverley). Sir Lucius is quite willing to continue his duel. Various complications are straightened out. The lovers are joined together and Acres gladly withdraws. Sir Lucius drops his pretensions to his Delia (Lydia) and indicates no interest in pursuing the other Delia (Mrs. Malaprop). All ends happily. Commentary The final scene of such a play is likely to be technically unsatisfactory. There may be a hurried coupling of characters to bring the play to a pleasing close. Some of the plots are tied together neatly: The duel brings together Beverley-Absolute and his two rivals, neither one of whom was ever a very serious threat to his wooing. The Julia-Faulkland romance is tied together only because Sheridan conveniently brings the two lovers onstage at the same time. It is difficult to feel that their particular problems are resolved.

EPILOGUE Commentary The epilogue is a pleasant bow to the power of the ladies over their lovers, a charming and witty recapitulation of the theme, and at the end a trite comment. If only the ladies joined wisdom to beauty, then "our beaux from gallantry would soon be wise; / Would gladly light . . . / The lamp of knowledge at the torch of love!"

CHARACTER ANALYSIS Drama, more especially comedy, has always depended on character types for much of its comic effect. Certain of these, because they were successful, appeared over and over again and became, in the common term, stock characters. Although stock characters may seem to exist only on the stage, they were in a sense realistic, each based on the theories of personality current at the time. Thus character types in Plautus and Terence were based on an idea of what was decorous behavior for people of various groups. Specific kinds of behavior were considered natural and right for women, or for old men, or for the nobility, or for servants. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer presented characters who behave in a fashion proper for their occupational groups. The Elizabethan dramatist Ben Jonson made a statement of another basis for creating character types, the medieval doctrine of "humours." This doctrine developed a physiological basis for character. The human creature incorporated four fluids called humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. When there were in proper proportion, the individual had a balanced personality and was, incidentally, in good health. Excesses or deficiencies of one or more of these humours resulted in making people morose (black bile) or joyous (blood) or nasty-tempered (yellow bile) or apathetic (phlegm). Obviously, we still use these terms to describe people. When talking of a Jonson character, one usually refers to him simply as a "humour." Many people prefer the English spelling of the word to distinguish it from the common meaning of humor; some use the upper-case H (Humour). English thought at the end of the seventeenth century added another philosophic rationale for comic characters. John Locke enunciated the doctrine of the "ruling passion." The term is probably selfCliffs Notes on The Rivals & The School for Scandal © 1967

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www.cliffs.com explanatory: a preoccupation with one aspect of life or idea or occupation so intense that the individual twists everything to fit his "ruling passion." Probably the most famous character in literature created on the basis of this approach to personality was Uncle Toby in Sterne's Tristram S handy. It is likely that new character types are being created based on modern approaches to personality formation. Most likely to bear fruit are theories of personality conditioning through sociological forces. It is not always easy, or necessary, to say that any one character owes his being to a particular philosophical approach. Many times the same character type could be accounted for in different ways. But it is of interest that Sheridan, consciously or unconsciously, used these three different approaches, as well as others, as the basis for what may be called extreme character types: Sir Anthony and Mrs. Malaprop seem to be humours, Faulkland has an overwhelming ruling passion, and the servants owe their qualities, generally, to the playwright's idea of what was decorous behavior for their class.

CAPTAIN JACK ABSOLUTE

Jack Absolute is the young lover who displays simple common sense. Because he loves Lydia, he is willing to cater to her weird romantic notions. He pretends to be the comparatively penniless Ensign Beverley but intends to marry her only under all proper auspices. He will not run off with Lydia: "What, and lose two-thirds of her fortune. . . . No, no, I could have brought her to that long ago." He condescends to Acres; he is tolerant of and laughs at Faulkland. He has courage but is sensible in manifestation of bravado, such as duels: He will if he must; he does not choose to. He is at a disadvantage when his initial masquerade forces him into a double-masquerade, and Sheridan intends him to look foolish. He also looks very humanly silly in the scene with his father. Sheridan obviously intends to show that Captain Absolute is his father's son: When they meet, they both justify the family name. The same temper and impatience appear again in the discovery scene in the fourth act with Lydia.

LYDIA LANGUISH

Lydia is best understood against the background of sentimentalism. She is in love with Ensign Beverley, but much of her love is due to the mental picture she has of herself and the poor ensign in a penniless, romantic match. Jack feels that he is "by no means certain that she would take [him] with the impediment of [their] friends' consent, a regular humdrum wedding, and the reversion of a good fortune." Her own speeches prove his evaluation accurate: "I lose most of my fortune if I marry without my aunt's consent, till of age; and that is what I have determined to do, ever since I knew the penalty." She deliberately instigates a quarrel just for the pleasure of making up afterward because lovers always quarrel in sentimental novels and making up could be so much fun. When she discovers that there will be no elopement, she is sullen and quite prepared to break off her engagement. Sheridan is somewhat at the mercy of the actress who plays the part. The young miss with a set of romantic notions could, after all, be made to look completely silly; the actress must supply charm, daintiness, and budding femininity. In at least one speech, however, the playwright makes of her a healthy female with healthy female vanity. In Act III, Scene 3, she remains at the opposite side of the stage and turns away from the horrible person, for "surely nothing can be more dreadful than to be obliged to listen to the loathsome addresses." However, since Captain Absolute does not begin his loathsome addresses, she displays a human pique and becomes less and less aloof. The changes are marked by short phrases: "How unlike my Beverley"; "I wonder he don't begin"; "He seems a very negligent wooer"; and "Quite at his ease, upon my word." By this time, she is turned toward him (he is facing the other wall), and she has perhaps moved some distance toward him. As the change is completed, "I'll speak first."

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www.cliffs.com We may rest content. All will be well. Feminine curiosity has overcome romantic posturing. Under the self-dramatization, there is a young woman with a normal vanity and a healthy ego.

MR. FAULKLAND

Sentimental drama contains characters who dissect relationships with other people excessively, who question motives and probe agonizingly into what we might term the unconscious or subconscious. We have pointed out that sentimental behavior also included a tendency toward a degree of sympathy that bordered on self-abnegation. Characters could be so concerned with the feelings of others that they suppressed their own desires. When two people engage in this essentially masochistic activity, the result can be a stalemate comic to viewers, if possibly tragic for those involved. Faulkland displays an interesting combination of this sentimental characteristic filtered through a personality trait that could in itself be comic. He is intensely suspicious, and while Julia says he is not jealous, he has characteristics that resemble jealousy amazingly. He suspects Julia's motives, not so much because he believes she is lying to him but rather because he feels she is lying to herself. Since he thinks of himself as a very ordinary young man, he cannot understand that Julia can be genuinely in love with him. The emotion she feels may really be gratitude, or it may in truth be a desire to follow the wishes of her dead father, either of which she might mistake for love. Because his idea of love is completely unrealistic, his suspicions and self-denigration make him doubt her love if she can take pleasure in any of the normal pastimes of a young woman, such as company, conversation, or dancing. An examination of Faulkland's scenes will show how Sheridan creates such a character. He uses a technique that is traditional in comedy. Every scene in which Faulkland appears is designed to highlight his ruling passion, as Sterne would have said, following Locke, or obsession, as we might term it. Faulkland figures prominently in three scenes. In the first, Act II, Scene 1, he is first contrasted with Jack Absolute; then Acres enters and as the scene proceeds we see Faulkland becoming more and more concerned that Julia has been feeling healthy, looking well, and enjoying herself in his absence. Can she really be in love and still enjoy herself? He distrusts her again when she writes to forgive him for a temperament blowup--for could she really forgive so easily? And finally he tests her with a story that is a lie. After each of these episodes, Faulkland promises himself that he will never suspect Julia again and that he will never again cause her such pain. However, at the first occasion he reverts to his obsession. At the end of the play, it is difficult to see that there will be any permanent overthrow of the ruling passion. One would really not care to guess at the domestic state of the Faulkland family in the years that follow the fifth act of The Rivals.

JULIA MELVILLE

Julia is not as interestingly drawn a character as Faulkland. The core of her character is indicated by her first speech to Lydia (Act I, Scene 2): "I have learned to think myself his debtor, for those imperfections which arise from the ardour of his attachment." The basic approach is sentimental, although she never becomes the completely lachrymose heroine simply because the plot--and Sheridan--do not demand it. She is closest to the characters whose trials and tribulations arouse only our sympathy.

BOB ACRES

As the name implies, Acres is a variation on the bumpkin trying to become a city beau. He is awkward and good-natured. Trying to sound like a dandy, he has developed "an odd kind of a new method of swearing"; he has taken dancing lessons, but somehow his country clodhoppers do not lend themselves to eighteenth-century terpsichory. We may assume he tries to dress in the latest fashion, but he always manages to look like what he is. Since he is not yet the dapper gentleman, he has sufficient sense to be a

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www.cliffs.com coward when faced with the prospect of a duel. One is tempted to suspect that Sheridan drew part of the character, the novel way of swearing, from life; it is difficult to recall any forebears in literature.

SIR LUCIUS O'TRIGGER

Again the name reveals the character. The stage Irishman was by this time a stock comic figure, and Sheridan had himself lived many years in Ireland. The Irishman had appeared in several plays of Farquhar's at the beginning of the century, including The Beaux' Stratagem, and a famous Major O'Flaherty was included in The West Indian, written by the arch-sentimentalist Cumberland in 1771. As a swashbuckling fortune-hunter, Sir Lucius also resembles the traditional miles gloriosus, or braggart soldier. Although unlike some of them, Sir Lucius is not a coward. He is willing to risk his life to make his fortune. He also has an eye for a pretty woman, so he is not prepared to marry Mrs. Malaprop for her money, a touch of kindness to the character on Sheridan's part. Sir Lucius and Acres are contrasted to increase the comic value of both to the plot.

SIR ANTHONY ABSOLUTE

Sir Anthony is a positive character accustomed to having his own way, violent in temper when crossed. Obviously there is comedy in his scenes, especially when he meets with his son. Sheridan seems to take special delight in making the sly point of the resemblance between the father and son. Inevitably they grate more strongly on each other than on anyone else. It is easy to believe that Sheridan is commenting on his own family background.

MRS. MALAPROP

Mrs. Malaprop's name has become a word in the language. She has her forebears. The widow looking for yet another husband is standard in comedy; in the English literary tradition, she is best represented by Chaucer's Wife of Bath. However, Chaucer's Wife of Bath did not misuse language. For this characteristic Sheridan owed much to Mrs. Slipslop in Fielding's Joseph Andrews and to a character in one of his mother's plays. But Mrs. Malaprop is the most famous. To her must go the prize for her "nice derangement of epitaphs."

FAG

Fag tries to be a fop, aping his betters and adopting their mannerisms and language. He would be played as affected his clothes in slightly bad taste, his manners exaggerated. He would give the appearance, as was once said by another writer, of being "every other inch a gentleman." Sheridan has also given him one additional character trait designed to place him permanently in his class; he lies and admits he is a liar in practical affairs. To lie for one's own convenience could never be the habit of a gentleman.

DAVID

Bob Acres' servant is also a typical servant of another kind; he displays practical good sense and a complete contempt for the gentleman's code of honor. He has not become the fop, as Fag is; he is still the country type.

LUCY

Lydia's maid is part of a long tradition of the cunning servant. She is a go-between, a schemer, and a skillful liar. Sheridan uses her obvious shrewdness for ironic comedy. In Act I, Scene 1, Mrs. Malaprop says of her--"The girl is such a simpleton. . . . Had she been one of your artificial ones, I should never have trusted her." Immediately after, we discover that this simpleton has been the universal mischiefmaker throughout, helping everyone and betraying everyone. Actually the play could have been written

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www.cliffs.com about her and her activities; it would have been far more farcical depending entirely on confusion and embarrassments that would result from her machinations. Her part in the play, as it stands, is comparatively small.

THOMAS

The coachman appears very briefly. It is to Sheridan's credit that he is individualized. He is obviously the most naive of all the servants.

THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL A BRIEF SYNOPSIS Sheridan had worked for some time on two "Sketches," The Slanderers and The Teazles, which he afterward combined into the play we know as The School for Scandal. But the two plays were never completely integrated. In The Slanderers, Lady Sneerwell is Maria's guardian. She is actively engaged in devious intrigue to break up the love affair between Maria and Clerimont (Charles, in our play) and to gain him for herself. By the time The School for Scandal reached the stage, Lady Sneerwell's love-plot is reduced to the point where it is mentioned in the first act and appears again in the fifth when she makes a feeble attempt at intrigue. One of the members of the group of gossips in The Slanderers formed a part of two linked lovetriangles, but he has no part in the plot of The School for Scandal. In The Teazles, two brothers courted a lady named Maria. In some drafts, she was the ward of Teazle; in others, the niece of his wife. Young Pliant (he became Joseph) tries to seduce Lady Teazle and also loves, or at least woos, Maria. This plot is retained but considerably altered in detail. Perhaps because the two different "sketches" were combined, there are these anomalies in The School for Scandal: •

Lady Sneerwell's plot is only mentioned.

•

The gossips supply brilliant scenes but have almost no part in the plot.

•

The hero of the play, the young lover, is not introduced until Act III, Scene 3. His counterparts appeared very early in both "Sketches."

•

Strangely enough, the lovers, Charles and Maria, never meet on stage until the last scene of the play.

The play, as it now stands, has a double plot. The two parts are, as is usual, loosely tied together. One plot is concerned with the Teazles' domestic life; the other, with two brothers, Joseph and Charles Surface. Joseph, the elder, is a hypocritical mouther of noble sentiments; Charles is a careless, but openhearted and generous, young man. Related to the tale of the brothers are a love-triangle and an attempt by a worldly woman to trap Charles into marriage. Neither of these plot complications is fully developed. Joseph Surface, the hypocritical brother, wishes to marry Maria, the wealthy ward of Sir Peter Teazle. As she is in love with Charles, Joseph decides to speed Charles' financial ruin. He conspires with Lady Sneerwell, who knows that Joseph is a hypocrite and believes that Charles will of necessity eventually turn to her, for she is wealthy.

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Sir Peter Teazle, late in life, married a young girl from the country, for he thought a woman unaccustomed to city extravagances would make a more dutiful wife. Unfortunately Lady Teazle adjusted all too eagerly to fashionable city life. At the home of Lady Sneerwell, she met Joseph Surface and was intrigued by him. Although she has not consented to an affair, she does enjoy playing with fire. As a part of the plot to discredit Charles, Lady Sneerwell has spread the rumor that he and Lady Teazle are having an affair. Both brothers are supported by the generous bounty of an unmarried uncle in India. He now returns to England without their knowledge and prepares to test them to decide who shall be his heir. Sir Peter, his old friend, is completely taken in by Joseph; Rowley, an old family retainer, distrusts Joseph and feels Charles is the better of the two. They first test Charles. Overly generous, he is always in need of money. Rowley has arranged a trap with Moses, a Jewish moneylender whom Charles has approached. Sir Oliver is to go along as Mr. Premium, a (Christian) colleague of Moses. The imposture is possible because the brothers have not seen their uncle for many years and will not recognize him. At first Sir Oliver Surface is shocked by Charles' essential shiftlessness. Even the servant tries to borrow money! Although Charles is almost destitute, there is a party in progress. Sir Oliver is further offended by Charles' callous willingness to sell the family portraits. However, Charles refuses to sell Sir Oliver's portrait, for his uncle has been very generous to him, and he wants to keep this portrait out of gratitude. Sir Oliver's first reactions are completely reversed by this gesture. To test the sincerity of Joseph Surface' pious sentiments, Sir Oliver plans to pretend to be Stanley, an old distant relative of the family who has fallen on evil days. Joseph Surface has a very bad day. First, Lady Teazle comes to visit him at his quarters. In the middle of his very interesting argument as to why Lady Teazle should be unfaithful to her husband, Sir Peter arrives and Lady Teazle hides behind a screen. In conversation, Sir Peter describes plans of such generosity to his wife that she is overcome with remorse. When Charles arrives, Sir Peter hides to hear what Charles will say about Lady Teazle. By the end of the scene, Sir Peter has discovered his wife, Joseph is shown up as a hypocrite, any plans he may have to marry Maria are ruined, and he has lost Lady Teazle, who now wants only one thing--complete reconciliation with her generous middle-aged husband. Immediately after the departure of Joseph's visitors, Sir Oliver, as Stanley, arrives. Joseph is lavish with pious sentiments but does not give him any money. His uncle in India, he unfortunately adds, has really sent him very little money over the years. At this point, Sir Oliver is certain that he will make Charles his heir. Joseph now feels that, with Sir Peter reconciled to Charles, he has little chance to win Maria and her fortune. He conspires with Lady Sneerwell to have Snake, her tool, swear that Charles "is contracted by vow and honor" to Lady Sneerwell. However, Snake, well paid by Oliver, tells the truth and Joseph's plan is subverted. It is clear that the Teazles are reconciled and Charles and Maria will marry.

LIST OF CHARACTERS Sir Peter Teazle

A wealthy man who married, somewhat late in life, a woman much younger than himself.

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Lady Teazle

His wife, a country girl very much in love with fashionable London life.

Joseph Surface

A hypocritical young man, the elder of two brothers.

Charles Surface

An openhearted, easy-going young man, frank and a little reckless, the younger brother of Joseph Surface. He is in love with Maria.

Sir Oliver Surface

The uncle of the two brothers, newly returned from India.

Rowley

An old and faithful employee of Sir Oliver Surface.

Moses

A Jewish moneylender.

Maria

The ward of Sir Peter Teazle, in love with Charles Surface.

Lady Sneerwell

The leader of the group of scandalmongers. She is in love with Charles Surface.

Snake

A professional scandalmonger actually employed by Lady Sneerwell to spread scandal and to help her trap Charles Surface into marriage.

Crabtree

A member of the club of slanderers who revolve about Lady Sneerwell.

Sir Benjamin Backbite

A member of the club of slanderers who revolve about Lady Sneerwell.

Mrs. Candour

A member of the club of slanderers who revolve about Lady Sneerwell.

Careless

A friend of Charles Surface.

Sir Harry Bumper

A friend of Charles Surface.

Trip

Servant to Charles Surface.

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Servant (unnamed)

Servant to Joseph Surface.

Other Servants

Unnamed, and friends of Charles Surface at his party in Act III.

CRITICAL COMMENTARIES A PORTRAIT "Addressed to Mrs. Crewe, with the Comedy of The School for Scandal." Commentary These "verses," some 122 lines, accompanied the play that Sheridan presented to Mrs. (afterward, Lady) Crewe. They could be considered a sort of dedication of the play. As in all dedications of the period, the praise of the lady is excessive and insincere by our standards. It was, however, the conventional pattern, then, as it had been for many years. It would not have seemed excessive for Sheridan's contemporaries; the question of sincerity would not even have occurred to them. The references Sheridan makes to the play are mainly to the scandalmongers in action. Apparently he considered them the most interesting part of the play.

PROLOGUE Commentary The prologue was written by the great actor David Garrick, himself a dramatist of considerable repute. It would seem that for Garrick, as for Sheridan, the most important parts of the play were the scandalmongering scenes; he devoted his entire prologue to them despite their tenuous relationship to the plot.

ACT I--SCENE 1 Summary Lady Sneerwell is in conversation with Snake, whom she employs to spread scandalous information about people of the town. In the conversation these points emerge: that she knows that Joseph Surface, the elder brother, believed to be a highly admirable person, is actually a hypocrite, and that Charles Surface, his younger brother, gives the impression of being a libertine. She is working with Joseph Surface, however, to try to break up Charles and Maria's love, for she wants Charles herself, and Joseph Surface hopes to woo and win Maria. When Joseph Surface enters, the conspirators discuss Charles' affairs. Charles is in considerable financial distress and Lady Sneerwell expects his circumstances to worsen; then the need for money will bring the spendthrift to her arms. Joseph regrets that she has confided their secret to Snake, for he does not believe Snake trustworthy in his villainy. The party begins to assemble. Maria enters; with Mrs. Candour's entrance the vicious gossip grows; the party is swelled by two malicious men, Mr. Crabtree and Sir Benjamin Backbite. When Maria feels she can stand no more malice directed at the man she loves, she leaves. The company then breaks up.

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www.cliffs.com Commentary In both this play and The Rivals, the exposition in the opening scene is clumsy. Exposition must always be contrived, for when the curtain first rises, there is no natural way to convey information. Some dramatists, like Congreve, were too subtle; in his Way of the World, exposition was so gradual that audiences were left bewildered. Sheridan erred by being too obvious. We are told of Lady Sneerwell's plan to marry Charles; we are told of Joseph's plan to marry Maria, who loves Charles; and most important, we are told that Joseph is a thorough hypocrite. This information is conveyed in the most direct fashion possible: Lady Sneerwell tells Snake things that he probably knows already. Joseph is the sentimental hypocrite, while Maria has precisely the right amount of sentiment: "For my part . . . wit loses its respect with me, when I see it in company with malice." No Restoration heroine could have made this statement. After Joseph mouths a pious and much-too-flowery piece of hypocrisy, Lady Sneerwell, more honest in her mischief-making, comments: "There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill nature; the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick." The brilliant scene that follows was a part of the original play, The Slanderers. Each member of the group is characterized by his ticket name, and then in a series of speeches each one proves the appropriateness of the ticket name with which Sheridan supplied him. Lady Sneerwell first expresses the motto of the club. Then each member proceeds to prove its rightness. The scene can, incidentally, present an excellent opportunity for the modern costumer, designer, and director. The mass of color, the grouping of the characters, and the movement as the conversation shifts, with each of the scandalmongers in turn taking the center of the stage to top the others in wit and malice, should form a striking and effective scene. By the time the scene ends, the actors should have conquered the audience completely. It is worth commenting on the changes in Snake that Sheridan made in the course of composition. In earlier versions he was a journalist. In the play as we know it, a connection with journalism is only suggested. Many newspapers of the day were given to vicious gossip that, it must be admitted, was often accurate. Sheridan was therefore engaged in specific satire when he created Snake; one can only speculate on why he chose to soften the attack on journalists.

ACT I--SCENE 2 Summary Sir Peter Teazle enters to deplore the general unhappiness of his married state, for he, an old bachelor, married a young wife; even worse, he still loves her. Rowley enters and we learn that he and Sir Peter do not agree about the two brothers: Sir Peter believes Joseph to be a fine and noble person and Charles a disreputable rake. Rowley is apparently more perspicacious. We also learn that Sir Oliver Surface, the uncle of the brothers, has arrived in London from India. Commentary The old man who foolishly marries a young girl is a traditional comic figure. Sir Peter followed the classic pattern: He married a young country girl who had no knowledge of fashionable life. Of course, after her first taste of it, she embraced it enthusiastically. To this extent, the situation is similar to that in Wycherley's The Country Wife, but the student interested in tracing the differences in attitude during a century may find it fruitful to compare the Teazles with the Pinchwifes in Wycherley's play, written about 1673; Sheridan takes a more kindly attitude toward his characters. Lady Teazle is very different from the overeager young woman; Teazle's love is genuine, embracing affection and even a fatherly understanding.

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www.cliffs.com Pinchwife is a lecherous old man. There is no doubt that Wycherley and his audiences all felt that Pinchwife deserved whatever indignity might be imposed on him.

ACT II--SCENE 1 Summary Sir Peter and Lady Teazle appear for the "daily jangle" as he objects to her extravagances and her friends. She then leaves for Lady Sneerwell's, reminding Sir Peter that he promised her to visit there also. He agrees to follow. Commentary In Sheridan's plays, there are no weak lines in duels between characters. Lady Teazle, unlike the usual pattern of the country girl become city wife, has considerable wit. Although Sir Peter is right in his objections, Lady Teazle is universally loved by audiences, and so Sheridan intended it. The audience loves her for the deftness and skill with which she counters her husband's strictures. She is always in control of the situation. In production, she must always look most charming when she is quarreling. As Sir Peter says, "She never appears to such advantage as when she is doing everything in her power to plague me." This line with its clear instruction has made the part of Lady Teazle a very popular role with great comedians.

ACT II--SCENE 2 Summary Lady Teazle arrives at the home of Lady Sneerwell, where the pack of slanderers is in full cry. Sir Peter arrives but is soon called away on business. Joseph Surface pays court to Maria, but Lady Teazle interrupts them while he is on his knees. He pretends that he was asking Maria not to tell Sir Peter of her suspicions of Joseph's "tender concern" for Lady Teazle. He is, it seems, trying to have an affair with Lady Teazle, who is flattered at the idea but will "admit [him] as a lover no farther than fashion sanctions." Commentary The slander scenes are the most brilliant in a comedy where all dialogue is brilliant, but it should be noted that they lend little to the plot. Lady Sneerwell's comment that wit requires the touch of malice is clearly justified. Sir Peter expresses his horrified admiration for their impartial malice, "This, their own relation!" and later, "a person they dine with twice a week." Most of the time, the pack slanders people who have no part in the play. This scene also shows the essentially kindly attitude of Sir Peter to his young wife. Despite his concern about her behavior, he does not try to prevent her moving in company. She does not have to disguise herself to see the world of fashion. The dramatist is, in turn, kind to Sir Peter. Traditionally, the old man married to a young wife would have deserved her unfaithfulness, but Lady Teazle's virtue is preserved by the dramatist's decision. She wants a lover only so as to be fashionable. Sheridan's revolt against the spirit of sentimentalism was only partial; he maintained the attitude of sexual morality that was common in the drama, if not the life, of the eighteenth century.

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ACT II--SCENE 3 Summary Sir Oliver Surface, the uncle of the two brothers, has just arrived in town. Rowley informs him of Sir Peter's marriage. Sir Oliver is inclined to agree with Rowley's judgment of the relative worth of his two nephews. Sir Peter enters; the old friends greet each other and go off together. Commentary Sir Oliver is, presumably, the shrewd businessman who knows human nature. Such knowledge requires a little cynicism. Sir Oliver is cynical about Sir Peter's marriage, and he considers his nephews' behavior with a realistic eye. If "everybody in the world speaks well of" someone, then that man has "bowed as low to knaves and fools as to the honest dignity of genius and virtue." He hates to see "prudence clinging to the green suckers of youth. . . . [It] spoils the growth of the tree."

ACT III--SCENE 1 Summary On the advice of Sir Peter and Rowley, Sir Oliver plans to test his nephews by personal observation of Charles' profligacy and Joseph's sentiment. Rowley knows Moses, a moneylender from whom Charles has borrowed money. As Moses was to introduce another moneylender to Charles, Sir Oliver will now accompany Moses, pretending to be Mr. Premium. Sir Oliver then intends to visit Joseph as Mr. Stanley, a distant relative who has lost his money and has applied to both brothers for help. After Moses coaches Sir Oliver in the jargon and the behavior of the moneylender, the new and temporary partnership leaves to visit Charles. After their departure, Sir Peter first has an unhappy scene with Maria. She will not disobey her guardian by marrying Charles, but she will not consent to marry Joseph. When she leaves, Lady Teazle enters. Their conversation starts pleasantly enough, but, before long, one of the usual family arguments develops. Commentary It is characteristic of satire that it attacks everything it touches, so that a satiric approach always applies to both sides of any argument. While a satire on moneylenders is hardly a major theme in The School for Scandal, the scenes with Moses display an irony that is more than double-edged. It would be easy to portray Moses as a monster, but Sheridan does not. Usury is attacked, but so are the people who are its willing, and even enthusiastic, victims. Sir Oliver obviously does not approve of Moses; but it is a greater shock to him to discover that Mr. Premium, whom he is replacing, is a Christian. By implication, irony is directed at those Englishmen who would undertake such a profession and at those who are too complacent to believe that an Englishman would engage in such a profession. The ward prevented from marrying against the wishes of her guardian is an old device, one that Sheridan himself also used in The Rivals. The scene between Sir Peter and Maria shows differences between this play and plays of the Restoration. Maria is not as rebellious at his choice of a husband; Sir Peter is not as violent at her recalcitrance. A clue to the scenes between Sir Peter and Lady Teazle lies in his final speech in this scene, "But I'll not bear her presuming to keep her temper." Lady Teazle is not in love with Sir Peter; because she is not deeply involved, she has an advantage in the recurring domestic squabbles. She is suave, urbane, and, to the audience, delightfully self-indulgent.

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ACT III--SCENE 2 Summary Moses and Sir Oliver, as Mr. Premium, arrive at Charles Surface's house. Sir Oliver gets his first introduction to the profligate through Trip, Charles' servant. Trip, it seems, is also trying to borrow money from Moses; he has endorsers, talks about annuities, and is prepared to "insure" his post. Commentary Trip is a comic type that Sheridan used in other plays, including The Rivals: the servant who copies the manners, especially the vices, of his master. His postures, like his clothes, are, after all, hand-me-downs. Apparently perfunctory, this scene contains an element of suspense. We are waiting to see how the brothers will perform in their tests. Our sympathies are with Charles, who is already losing ground to Joseph.

ACT III--SCENE 2 Summary There is a men's party in progress, a luxury which we know Charles cannot afford. When Moses and Premium enter, they interrupt the drinking and singing, and the guests leave the room. "Mr. Premium" is not anxious to lend Charles money on the expectation of Sir Oliver's death; he is, however, prepared to buy plate or property. Since family plate and property have already been sold, Charles offers to sell the family portraits. They all leave for the picture room. Commentary Although we have heard a great deal about Charles, he appears for the first time in this scene. There is perhaps some burden on the actor: Charles is so long awaited that it is difficult for him to live up to expectations. The somewhat unusual play structure here may be due to the fact that this play was put together from the two "Sketches"--The Slanderers and The Teazles. We might guess that in an earlier age the party which the moneylenders interrupt would have included some women of ambiguous, or quite unambiguous, morals. There is obvious humor in the scene while Charles talks about his uncle to his uncle. Since Moses knows who Mr. Premium is, there is opportunity for considerable by-play; Moses may try to stop Charles at the same time that he abets Sir Oliver.

ACT IV--SCENE 1 Summary The men proceed to the picture room, where Charles first burlesques the part of auctioneer. The selling of individual pictures proves too slow for him, and he starts selling them in batches. Sir Oliver is shocked by the heartlessness of his nephew. However, when they come to the picture of Sir Oliver, painted before he went to India, Charles refuses to sell it: "I'll not part with poor Noll. The old fellow has been very good to me, and egad, I'll keep his picture while I've a room to put it in." This obviously pleases Sir Oliver. He buys the rest and leaves. When Rowley enters, Charles immediately gives him the draft (for 800 pounds) and asks that he change it and take a hundred pounds to Stanley for his "wants are pressing, and if you don't make haste, we shall have some one call that has a better right to the money."

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www.cliffs.com Commentary The scene offers many opportunities for ingenious by-play, and the actors and director should take advantage of them: Charles as auctioneer, Sir Oliver's reactions, and Moses' reactions as he sees Charles, once in his life, make the right move. Charles displays the kind of sentimentalism that Sheridan accepts and approves. He does not mouth pious platitudes, but he makes the generous gesture, commits the act of kindness that is not prudent but reveals the kindly heart. It is probably beside the point to question the ethics of his generosity when Charles has so many debtors who, he admits, have just, prior claims on the money. The ironic attitude to usury is developed further in this scene. The casual good-natured contempt Charles shows for the moneylender is the same kind of contempt Trip showed earlier, although Trip displayed less good manners. But Charles is headed for bankruptcy, and Moses is just as clearly about to found a banking dynasty. It is an open question which of the two feels the greater contempt for the other. It is interesting to speculate how long Sheridan played with the idea for this scene. In The Rivals, Sir Lucius O'Trigger says at one point (Act III, Scene 4), "Though the mansion-house and dirty acres have slipped through my fingers . . . our honor and the family-pictures are as fresh as ever."

ACT IV--SCENE 2 Summary This is a short scene in which it becomes clear how delighted Sir Oliver is that his nephew "would not sell my picture." His approval becomes positive enthusiasm for the young man when he discovers that Charles immediately gave some of the money to Stanley. As Moses says, "Ah, there is the pity of it all; he is so damned charitable."

ACT IV--SCENE 3 Summary In Joseph's library, Lady Teazle arrives for a clandestine and indiscreet meeting. It is clear that this is not her first visit. When Joseph's attempt at seduction is interrupted by the arrival of her husband, Lady Teazle hides behind a screen. Sir Peter talks first of his concern that his wife may be having an affair with Charles. Then he announces that he intends to make her an independent allowance since money is so often the cause of their arguments. Next he discusses Joseph's suit of Maria: Sir Peter does not understand why Joseph wants to keep this a secret from Lady Teazle. All this time Joseph is trying to change the conversation to some safe subject. To add to the confusion, Charles is announced, and Sir Peter wants to hide so as to hear whatever Charles might say about Lady Teazle. Before Joseph gets him into the closet, Sir Peter sees a bit of a lady's skirt behind the screen; he does not see the lady. Charles also seems to pick unfortunate subjects for conversation. He discusses the fact that he thinks Lady Teazle has shown some partiality to Joseph. In desperation, Joseph reveals the fact that Sir Peter is hidden in the closet, and Charles immediately calls him out. On the basis of the conversation, Sir Peter is convinced that Charles has not been having an affair with his wife. The servant comes in to tell Joseph that someone is waiting to see him below. When Joseph leaves the room, Sir Peter cannot resist telling Charles that there is a "little French milliner" hidden behind the

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www.cliffs.com screen. Charles insists on "unveiling" her, and Lady Teazle is revealed just as Joseph returns. After some biting remarks, Charles leaves. Joseph concocts a story of Lady Teazle's coming to talk about his pretensions to Maria, but Lady Teazle refuses to support him. Impressed by the kindness Sir Peter intended to show, she tells him the truth: "I came . . . at least to listen to his pretended passion, if not to sacrifice your honor to his baseness." Commentary It is evident that the screen scene is the most important single scene in the whole play. It is also one of the most famous in English comedy. It includes almost the entire plot of the Lady Teazle-Peter Teazle-Joseph Surface triangle. At scene's end, the comic villain is unmasked: He loses prospects of inheritance, of a likely mistress, of a wealthy wife; he is about to lose public reputation and become the subject for the next meeting of the scandalmongers. Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, we may hope, will be reconciled and will achieve a workable, if not idyllic, marriage. The screen scene would be interesting simply because so many things are happening. The wealth of comic devices makes it more than just interesting. The indiscreet lady hidden behind the screen, the husband hidden in the closet, the husband gleeful over the woman hidden behind the screen--all border on farce, with an ironic attack directed at Sir Peter. The revelation and the subsequent moral ascendance of the man who has been thought a scapegrace are effective. At a different level, the argument used by Joseph in his attempt to seduce Lady Teazle has its own satiric value. The sentimental pretense is discarded; he is, in one sense, right. The commentary on society is not without justice. It is a plausible justification of hypocrisy that the world gives credence to the pretense of virtue more easily than to virtue itself. "Your prescription is that I must sin in my own defense, and part with my virtue to secure my reputation?" asks Lady Teazle, at once incredulous and convinced. Lady Teazle, the action must show, is likely to succumb under his argument. Her virtue is saved by the entrance of Sir Peter--and the goodwill of the dramatist. Joseph's passion for the woman he is trying to seduce is also a pretense. It is simply business. He must have Lady Teazle in his power before breaking the news to her that he wants to marry Maria. In turn, he does not love Maria but wants to marry her only for her fortune. The scene contains much sentimentalism of which Sheridan approves. Sir Peter's solution of the problem of a demanding wife is to win her gratitude with acts of generosity. She, in her turn, displays a typical sentimental reformation. Overcome by his kindness, she repents, happily before sinning. The most obvious single line, however, to show the difference between the Restoration and the eighteenth-century comedy of manners is probably Charles' statement: "If a pretty woman was purposely to throw herself in my way, and that pretty woman married to a man old enough to be her father . . . I believe I should be obliged to borrow a little of your [Joseph's] morality." No such attitude is to be found in Wycherley or Congreve. The scene also made a contribution to standard sentimental dramaturgy that was adopted by succeeding playwrights. Among the least satisfying of all sentimental cliches was the fifth-act repentance of those who might be straying from narrow paths of virtue. Such sudden fits of remorse were not always convincing because there was no satisfactory motivation. Lady Teazle is motivated with some plausibility. She has overheard enough to see through the fascinating young man and enough to arouse distaste for her scandalmonger friends. And she has overheard enough to understand how kindly and generous a man her long-suffering husband is. The eavesdropper who hears things that show him the light became common in sentimental drama after this play.

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ACT V--SCENE 1 Summary Sir Oliver, pretending to be Stanley, the poor relation, arrives at Joseph's apartment to test him. Joseph offers no money but a full measure of noble sentiments, which he can apparently call up automatically despite his preoccupation with his own problems. In the course of the conversation, he assures Stanley that Sir Oliver had not been particularly generous but has only sent curios and gifts from India. Sir Oliver leaves, determined that Charles will be his heir. As soon as Stanley leaves, Rowley enters, according to an earlier arrangement, to announce that Sir Oliver is back in the country. Joseph tries to call back "Stanley," but Rowley tells him the old man has already left. Commentary The scene depends on a comic device that Sheridan used many times; we know who Sir Oliver is, and Joseph is managing to say all the wrong things. It is interesting to consider the good-byes the two men say to each other, each pretending, each certain that he has successfully tricked the other.

ACT V--SCENE 2 Summary The coven of slanderers descend upon the Teazle home. Rumor has already spread garbled versions of the events at Joseph Surface's apartment. All the versions describe a duel, but they do not agree on the weapons used, and they do not agree on whether Sir Peter's antagonist was Joseph or Charles. Sir Peter is described as wounded, and one version includes a postman wounded by a ricocheting bullet. When Sir Oliver enters, he is assumed to be a doctor in attendance on Sir Peter until Sir Peter enters. In humiliation and anger, the knight orders the rout from his house. At first, Sir Oliver taunts his old friend, for he knows everything that occurred, but soon he and Rowley try to convince Sir Peter to be reconciled with his wife. Lady Teazle is in the next room, where she went immediately on reaching home. Despite Sir Peter's anger, he is easily convinced, and it is clear that he and Lady Teazle will be reconciled. Commentary The gathering of the scandalmongers, like every scene in which they appear, is highly successful. We can watch rumors grow as they talk. The scene between Sir Oliver and Sir Peter, while highly effective comedy, may seem a little odd to our taste. We would probably consider Sir Oliver cruel. Sir Oliver is laughing heartily; Sir Peter finds it very difficult to see any humor in the situation. Sir Oliver changes his attitude shortly, however, and Rowley, as usual, soothes everyone. This scene brings the Teazle's plot to its conclusion.

ACT V--SCENE 3 Summary In Joseph's apartment, Lady Sneerwell is angry at her confederate's fiasco. If he does not marry Maria, his brother may, which would interfere with her plan to marry Charles. Joseph feels they still have some chance. She hides at Sir Oliver's knock. However, when Sir Oliver enters, Joseph recognizes "Stanley" and is anxious to get rid of him as soon as possible. When Charles enters, he, in turn, assumes that Sir Oliver is Premium and is equally anxious to get rid of him before Sir Oliver arrives. When Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, Rowley, and Maria enter, it becomes clear who Sir Oliver is. It now appears that Lady Sneerwell had Snake spread the story that Charles was in honor bound to Lady Sneerwell, and she comes

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www.cliffs.com out of hiding to accuse Charles of perfidy. But Snake now appears to confess his part in the villainy, for "You [Lady Sneerwell] paid me extremely liberally for the lie in question; but I unfortunately have been offered double to speak the truth." Charles and Maria silently agree to marry, and Sir Oliver feels they should have the wedding "tomorrow." Commentary The scene, like many another final scene of a play, is huddled. Lady Sneerwell and Joseph Surface's last attempt to plot is a weak effort from such accomplished intriguers. It is difficult to see any logical reason for Lady Teazle to appear in Joseph's house. The culmination of the love of Charles and Maria is handled as if Sheridan wants to get the matter over with. It is perhaps worth mentioning that in the original Slanderers, there was a scene in the middle of the play where Rowley forced Snake (then, Spatter) to confess his slanderous activities. It is refreshing that Snake does not reform: "If it were once known that I had been betrayed into an honest action, I should lose every friend I have in the world." Despite the hasty tying of loose ends, Sheridan has managed to discover opportunities for laughing comedy in the situation. There is farce in the treatment accorded Sir Oliver by the brothers before they discover that he is their uncle and in their shock when they learn the truth.

EPILOGUE Commentary The epilogue was written by George Colman the elder, a playwright and theater-manager of the time. Spoken by the actress who plays Mrs. Teazle, it is all a humorous commentary on her reform and ends with a nice moral. Many such epilogues at that time might have poked fun at Lady Teazle's reform; since Colman was one of the sentimental writers of the day, the final approving lines are hardly surprising.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS In general, the characters in The School for Scandal are traditional types. They appeared under different names in many plays since the Restoration and many before that back to Plautus, Terence, and Menander. However, they are all individuals in this play because two important forces are operating: Sheridan's great comic skill and Sheridan's rather special approach to sentimentalism, where he protests at the same time that he embraces.

CHARLES SURFACE

Charles and Joseph Surface show obvious resemblance to Tom Jones and Young Blifil in Fielding's novel, although it might be an overstatement to say that the brothers are based on Fielding. Fielding's Tom Jones displayed a considerable opposition to sentimentalism, but by the time Sheridan wrote The School for Scandal, there had developed out of Tom Jones a type that was a fitting addition to the gallery of sentimental portraits. Charles is the outgoing, very human, young man of good heart, generous impulses, human kindliness, and a normal tendency to make the mistakes that a young man should be expected to make. The difference between Charles and Tom Jones becomes one of details and emphasis. Charles' wild oats are rather tame. He is kept from adultery or the spoiling of virgins, and his generous impulses loom large. Charles was recognized by everyone as an extravagant spendthrift. Lady Sneerwell, in the first scene of the play, admits that she loves Charles, "that libertine, that extravagant, that bankrupt in fortune and reputation." Sir Peter Teazle obviously feels the characterization is just. We do not meet Charles until Act Cliffs Notes on The Rivals & The School for Scandal © 1967

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www.cliffs.com III, Scene 2, and then we discover the limits of the dissipation that Sheridan permitted his hero. Charles is playing host at a men's party, at a time that he is short of money. The device that saves him his uncle's displeasure is a now famous piece of sentimentalism worthy of Cumberland: He will not sell the picture of his uncle because "the old fellow has been very good to me. . . . I'll keep his picture while I've a room to put it in." This is followed immediately after by a piece of generosity of a highly sentimental variety: He sends 100 pounds of his new-gained funds to Stanley for his "wants are pressing" before some one calls "that has a better right to the money." Moses summarizes: "Ah! there is the pity of it all; he is so damned charitable." Sheridan actually chooses to whitewash Charles completely. Tom Jones could never pass up an opportunity offered by any woman, and this is what Sir Peter believes of Charles. But Charles' own comment, already quoted, reveals the difference: "If a pretty woman was purposely to throw herself in my way, and that pretty woman married to a man old enough to be her father . . . Why, I believe I should be obliged to borrow a little of your [Joseph's] morality." Small incidents hint at a heartier young man. Charles shows some lack of sensibility in the screen scene. When Sir Peter Teazle tells him that Joseph has a little milliner hidden in the apartment, no delicacy inhibits his natural curiosity as he puts aside the screen. When Lady Teazle is revealed, no excessive sympathy prevents his taunting both Sir Peter and his brother. In brief, Charles is the natural, rather wild, but basically goodhearted young man, but with his wildness carefully controlled by the author so as to display a sentiment and a morality that the latter part of the century found acceptable.

JOSEPH SURFACE

It is obvious that Joseph Surface is the complete hypocrite, and the difference between the brothers, we might say, is not the difference between sentimentalism and realism, but the difference between genuine sentiment and hypocrisy. Examination of the play, however, reveals that Joseph is not a very successful hypocrite. Sir Peter Teazle is, in fact, the only person who is taken in by him. It is his repeated characterization of Surface that gives the impression of successful hypocrisy: "'Tis edification to hear him converse; he professes the noblest sentiments." "Your brother [Charles] has no sentiment, you never hear him talk so," and again, "What a difference there is between you! What noble sentiments!" "He is a man of sentiment. Well, there is nothing in the world so noble as a man of sentiment." But Joseph does not deceive anyone else. Lady Sneerwell has seen through him completely, and they are now colleagues in conspiracy. Maria is not taken in, he never succeeded in fooling Rowley, and he does not manage to deceive Sir Oliver for even a short time. Traditionally a character fulfilling Joseph's role would, among other villainous characteristics, display an illicit lust. Although it would have been simple to incorporate such motives into Joseph's attitudes to both Maria and Lady Teazle, Sheridan did not see fit to do so. Joseph's major vice is a love of money. He has, apparently, no love, licit or illicit, for Maria; he only wants to marry an heiress. And his affair with Lady Teazle is accounted for in terms quite different from lust: "I wanted, at first, only to ingratiate myself with Lady Teazle that she might not be my enemy with Maria; and I have, I don't know how, become her serious lover." He makes a real attempt to seduce Lady Teazle only because he is afraid of her reactions when she discovers that he wishes to marry Maria, "but she must by no means be let into that secret--at least, till I have her more in my power." His motives, therefore, are simply economic. As a conspirator, he is not effective; the plan in the fifth act is not a very good one, and it fails. Finally, we know of most of his villainy only because it is made clear that he is a villain. What is displayed amply is conscious hypocrisy and avarice.

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In the play, "characterization" includes the interpretation of the role onstage. As this differs from actor to actor, even from performance to performance, much of the characterization is beyond the dramatist's control. The dramatist, however, does supply ample clues to indicate how he wants the part to be played; these are our legitimate concern when analyzing the published play. A too casual reading of the screen scene may result in our missing the full flavor of Sheridan's creation and in our thinking of the screen scene as one in which villainy is frustrated, without realizing the extent of the comedy in Joseph's role. Joseph is a comic villain, and his attempts to juggle an increasingly complicated situation are comic. As he begins his siege of Lady Teazle's virtue, he is a detached, objective technician. Passion is not a part of his temperament. But Lady Teazle is a very attractive young woman. As he seems about to achieve some success, he loses his detachment and becomes an obviously salacious young man and a little more human in the process. At just the point when he expects to gain his now double ends, seduction for its own sake and seduction for power, Sir Peter is announced. Joseph's frustration in the scramble to hide Lady Teazle may be played as broadly as the actor and director may wish and as current taste may sanction. In the conversation with Sir Peter, Joseph reveals increasing comic frenzy as Sir Peter examines the screen and then proceeds blandly to destroy the structure of deceit his host has so carefully built. Joseph's discomfort reaches a second plateau as Charles is announced. Sir Peter wants to hide behind the screen but just barely catches a glimpse of a woman's skirt before he is pushed into a closet. With the Teazles precariously screened and closeted, Joseph barely maintains some self-control as Charles proceeds to complete the destruction which Sir Peter started. Before Joseph tells his brother, in desperation, that Sir Peter is in the closet, he has frantically tried in speech and pantomime to get his unobservant guest to stop talking. Charles, of course, notices nothing because his heart is pure. By the time Lady Teazle is discovered, Joseph is perhaps near to tears, a frustrated, disheveled, and exhausted young man. For the audience, Joseph is now a comic figure. Sheridan has prevented any possibility that his villain will lend a quality of dread to a light, although satiric, comedy.

SIR PETER TEAZLE

The middle-aged man who marries a young wife is, in drama, doomed to be perpetually concerned about his wife's faithfulness, and he has only himself to blame. In addition, Sir Peter is the man who is always wrong in his judgment of the brothers. He is the admirer of sentiment. Unlike his Restoration prototypes, Sir Peter does not make any attempt to keep his wife from knowledge of London society life; he is far more prepared to trust her virtue and her good sense. His basic approach is to win her with kindness; instead of punishing her, he will give her the allowance she wants. His feeling for her is a blend of love and affection, and a kind of fatherly understanding. In sum, his character is changed from the traditional lecherous, suspicious old man into a something far more commendable.

LADY TEAZLE

Traditionally the country miss who marries an older man is a hoyden. Lady Teazle, when we meet her, is well beyond this point. She has become a very charming, very lovely young woman who has taken her place in London society. She is, of course, completely intoxicated with city life, clothes, visiting, and gossip--all activities that she did not learn at home. Up to a point, her affair with Joseph Surface moves along the expected path, and she is flattered by the attentions of a worldly and handsome young man. But she is not naive enough to succumb. When she perhaps might, the spirit of the times and the goodwill of the author conspire to preserve her virtue.

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www.cliffs.com Lady Teazle has, in addition, a quality of her own that keeps her from being just one more country miss in English comedy. As the scene with Sir Peter indicates, she has a personality and a will. The basic reason is clear--she is one of the most important vehicles for Sheridan's wit. Without her daily "jangle" with Sir Peter, this would be a duller play. Although Sheridan has supplied Lady Teazle with lines enough to create a complete character, a great deal must still depend on the way this part is played, especially in the screen scene. The first problem of interpretation is this: Is Lady Teazle moving toward succumbing to Joseph's blandishments? Can she be taking seriously his paradoxical argument that ladies who slip slightly have the best reputations? And if she is shown as moving toward surrender, is she then convinced? Or is she actually aware that the argument is specious but is accepting it because the idea of an adventure with a sophisticated young man fascinates her? If the correct interpretation is the last, she becomes a complex comic character, laughing at her lover and herself at the time that she accedes, or is ready to accede, to his villainy. In all cases, she is the young lady playing with fire, and we must feel delighted that she does not get burnt.

SIR OLIVER SURFACE

There is little to Sir Oliver that is not fully accounted for by the needs of the role. He is the noble gentleman returned from India. The plot demands that he be shrewd enough to see through Joseph and that he have human vanity enough to be pleased that Charles does not sell his picture. Such a man, we might suppose, was Teazle before he made the mistake of marrying a young wife.

TRIP

Servants play a far more important role in The Rivals than in this play. Trip conforms to the pattern established by Fag: He plays the fop and is a burlesque exaggeration of his master's vices. He too is in debt and is trying to borrow money.

ROWLEY

He needs no comment. He is simply the old retainer.

MOSES

The character of Moses needs some comment. It is probable that many Jews were moneylenders; it is unlikely that Sheridan intended the broadest kind of burlesques here, although the stage tradition is that Moses used a canting speech. In interpreting the role, the actor has decisions to make for which there is no certain guide in the lines. Does Sheridan intend Moses to have some realization of Charles' sterling worth? Such an insight would not prevent the moneylender from pursuing his regular trade, but it would provide opportunity for a great deal of meaningful business, especially when Moses "helps" Charles lie about his prospects and helps Sir Oliver lie about himself. He would display chagrin when Charles does the wrong thing, he would attempt to cut him off as he talks about his uncle, and he would display some delight as Charles finally stumbles on the exactly right thing to do. Sheridan would not have passed up so valid an opportunity to heighten the comedy. In addition, one important line, quoted before, would become more meaningful. Moses' line, "Ah! there is the pity of it all; he is so damned charitable," is a highly ironic line even if Moses is completely oblivious to the implications of the observation. If Moses does have mixed feelings about Charles, however, then the irony is considerably enriched by his awareness that Charles' vice is also his virtue, and he finds that he disapproves and admires at the same time.

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www.cliffs.com Sheridan also uses Moses for a satiric attack on the Christian moneylender. Sir Oliver can play the part of Mr. Premium, for Mr. Premium is Christian--and it would not be amiss for him to ride up in his own carriage. At the same time, Charles Surface or even Trip can think of himself as superior to the moneylender, who is actually in every way the more solid member of society.

MARIA

It is difficult to see any character in Maria. She is completely the ingenue with the good taste to prefer Charles over Joseph from the start. Although The Rivals does not attain the height of comic brilliance and satire supplied by the scandalmongers and the May-and-December marriage, it does not have characters as weak as Maria and Rowley.

LADY SNEERWELL

Lady Sneerwell's part is somewhat unsatisfactory, probably because of the history of the composition of the play. She is barely shown as scheming, and her fifth-act appearance is weak. Her most important function in the play, as it stands, is to set the theme for the "school" for scandal: that wit depends upon some malice. The Slanderers supplies the information needed to understand what her part was first intended to be before it was considerably cut. She was a machinating villain, with the typical inadequate justification: "Wounded myself in the early part of my life by the envenomed tongue of slander, I confess I have since known no pleasure equal to the reducing others to the level of my own injured reputation." She actually manipulated Maria (her ward) and Clerimont (Charles) to try to win Charles for herself and to palm off Maria on Sir Benjamin Crabtree (changed into two characters in the combined, final version).

SNAKE

Like Lady Sneerwell, Snake suffered in the process of the composition of the final play. His part was reduced; a scene of confrontation with Rowley was deleted. He belongs to the long tradition of tool villains but is a rather weak one. Like everyone else in the play, he has good lines.

THE "CHORUS"

With Lady Sneerwell, the characters Mrs. Candour, Crabtree, and Sir Benjamin Backbite form the slanderers' club, The School for Scandal. They are not characterized beyond their ticket names, and they need not be. All their speeches show the characteristics described by their names. Their scenes are by many considered to be the wittiest in English comedy.

CRITICAL ESSAY THE TWO TRADITIONS Sheridan is generally treated as a dramatist in revolt against the dominant sentimental comedy of his day, sometimes called weeping comedy. From this point of view, his comedic art is a return to the comedy of manners of Congreve. However, it is also generally agreed that, in discussing Sheridan, one must be wary of the semantic pitfalls in such phrases as "reacting against" or "rebelling against." Although rebelling, a writer usually shows the very tendencies against which he rebels and the characteristics which he deplores. In Sheridan, the blend of sentimentalism with the attack on sentimentalism is an interesting subject for study. Since, historically, comedy of manners preceded sentimental comedy, the two kinds will be considered, briefly, in that order. THE COMEDY OF MANNERS Although the term comedy of manners is often used to describe a style of comedy that would include both Fletcher's Wild Goose Chase and Noel Coward's Design for Living, the most common use is to Cliffs Notes on The Rivals & The School for Scandal © 1967

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www.cliffs.com characterize a group of English dramatists who wrote after the restoration of Charles II to the English throne in 1660. The best known of this group was William Congreve. There is ample evidence that Sheridan thought of himself as a follower of that great master of comedy. What were the characteristics of the comedy of manners of the Restoration period? First and above all, in contrast to sentimental comedy, its primary purpose was to arouse laughter: laughter with the characters, laughter at the characters, laughter at situations, laughter at confusions and embarrassments. That comedy should arouse laughter may seem self-evident, but it is not; many comedies are comedies only in the sense that a series of unhappy circumstances are resolved into a happy ending. The comedy of manners, concerned with the behavior of people within society, included satiric examination of man as a social creature. The areas of human behavior satirized varied from mannerisms, affectations, idiosyncrasies, eccentricities, and peccadilloes to violent hypocrisies and evils. The tone of the comedies, therefore, sometimes changed from light and amusing pinpricks at human foibles to disgusted and sometimes disgusting satiric attacks, as in Wycherley's plays The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer. The comedy of manners was concerned with the erotic theme as a form of game or battle between the sexes where, in the main, the characters vied for psychological ascendance over the love-adversary. The source of interest was the battle. The lovers were seeking their own pleasure, which, under the circumstances, was best achieved by the gaining and giving of love. In an essentially rational and essentially selfish society, the complications of the plot were often concerned with money as well as love; the sensible person wanted both. And money, in turn, was frequently equated with parental or guardian approval or disapproval. The comedy of manners included character types, sometimes very important in the play, who were created to portray deviations from the norm of common sense. Fathers were men of irascible tempers, a corruption of the reasonable attitude that fathers have the right and the duty to control their children. Fops were presented as obsessively concerned with clothes, a narcissistic corruption of the reasonable care every man should take of his appearance. Although it was right that old men should try to retain youth, health, and an interest in life, an old man pretending to be a young buck despite graying hair, decayed teeth, and recurrent gout was an obvious corruption of the right attitude. Old women should maintain vigor and participate in the life about them so far as health permits, but an obvious corruption of this reasonable attitude was the longing old woman who tried to be a belle and thought that young men pursued her, an old woman with neither common sense nor dignity. In summary, the approach of the comedy of manners included an acceptance of the golden mean and, in general, a satiric examination of social behavior that was not in accord with it. SENTIMENTAL COMEDY Sentimentalism in drama involved a reversal of the assumption that the golden mean was always the sound approach. Instead, behavior was to be judged by the heart and not the head. It can be argued that out of eighteenth-century sentimentalism came nineteenth-century humanism, and out of that grew the attitudes that make us, in our age, attempt to improve the lot of humanity everywhere, even if not always with the success we might wish. The sentimental approach to human nature was not peculiar to drama. Basic to the sentimental approach was the idea of the innate goodness of humanity. This idea appeared in all literary forms. It might be associated, for convenience, with Rousseau or with the English philosopher Shaftesbury. Sterne's Tristram Shandy was a sentimental novel of deliberately confused structure that somehow managed to Cliffs Notes on The Rivals & The School for Scandal © 1967

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www.cliffs.com combine a maximum of ribaldry with a maximum of compassion. Sterne followed with Sentimental Journey and Mackenzie followed with A Man of Feeling. Jane Austen, generally disapproving, held sentimentalism up for examination in Pride and Prejudice and, more obviously, in Sense and Sensibility. Sentimentalism in drama also became associated with a number of other characteristics that were not a necessary part of the philosophy of Shaftesbury or the romanticism, if we may call it that, of Rousseau. These resulted in changes in all forms of drama; we shall limit ourselves to comedy. One of the frequent characters in sentimental drama was the reformed sinner or evildoer; he was almost always forgiven for reasons inherent in the sentimental approach to life. Since humans were innately good, the reformation of the thief, the rake, the scoundrel, or the erring wife could be plausible, no matter how unsatisfactory the specific dramatic motivation for reform may have seemed to the more skeptical members of the audience. We must also take into account the dramatist's cast of mind. If he sincerely accepted a sentimental interpretation of human beings, he would be kind to his characters: He wanted virtue to triumph, and he wanted evildoers to reform. Certain kinds of transgressors were somehow prevented by the dramatist from following their own acts to logical conclusions. The most common was the thoughtless woman who was prepared, in another famous sentimental phrase, "to stoop to folly." A certain cynicism is necessary to see sexual transgression as a fact in human society even if the transgressor is charming. In sentimental comedy, women almost never actually transgressed, and men very seldom. They were saved by the artificial intervention of the dramatist. When ladies were thus saved from their own folly, their husbands were, incidentally, spared the humiliation of the cuckold. Certain traditional character types were changed slightly yet definitely, and new stock characters were invented. The cantankerous, tyrannical, and lecherous old man was revealed to have a heart of gold that nobody, including himself, knew about. The woman, constantly angered by an insensitive husband, found sources of strength within herself to resist taking the obvious revenge, and this nobility led the thoughtless and indifferent husband to love her. Usurers grew kind; panderers were transmogrified into kindly matchmakers operating within the approved bonds of matrimony. Seducers retreated before virtue in awed deference to young love, like the devil before the sign of the cross, for goodness was natural and triumphant. At the core of sentimental drama at its best and most meaningful lies the doctrine of sensibility. The doctrine of sensibility was also, unfortunately, responsible for what seems to us to be the greatest absurdities in the drama. It involved empathy with the pain and desires of another. It also involved a willingness to suffer oneself, an attitude that some psychologists consider an unhealthy masochism. The individual felt other people's pain so strongly that he was willing to make great personal sacrifices to spare them and save them from unhappiness. This desire to assume other people's troubles led to occasional absurdities. In one of the most sentimental of plays, Hugh Kelly's False Delicacy, everybody wished to sacrifice his own happiness for the sake of others, but unfortunately each misread the others' wishes. In summary, sentimental drama, growing out of an assumption of the essential goodness of humanity, incorporated moral lessons by both precept and example, portrayed easy reformation of wrongdoers, and placed great emphasis on pity and self-sacrifice.

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ESSAY TOPICS AND REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. Compare the different treatments of young love in The Rivals. 2. Compare the moral attitudes in The School for Scandal with either Congreve's The Way of the World or Noel Coward's Private Lives. 3. Distinguish between sentimental attitudes and comic attitudes in each of the two plays. 4. Discuss the nature of the comic characters in the plays. 5. Compare the screen scene in The School for Scandal with the screen scene in Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan. 6. Compare the attack on scandalmongering society with similar scenes in Wycherley's The Plain Dealer. 7. Consider Mrs. Malaprop as a refinement and development of Mrs. Slipslop in Fielding's Joseph Andrews. Consider Mrs. Malaprop as an eighteenth-century "Wife of Bath." 8. Compare the Surface brothers as a pair with Tom Jones and Blifil as a pair in Fielding's Tom Jones. 9. Compare the intensity of Sheridan's satire with Gulliver's Travels, Ben Jonson's Volpone, and Wycherley's The Plain Dealer. 10. Compare Charles Surface with Belcour in Cumberland's The West Indian. 11. Discuss the extent to which Sheridan used materials of his own life in writing The Rivals. 12. As an exercise in analysis of dramatic structure, determine Lucy's part in the plot of The Rivals. 13. As an exercise in analysis of dramatic structure, determine the part of the scandalmongers in the plot of The School for Scandal. 14. Analyze the speeches of the scandalmongers to see how closely their lines correspond to their tag names--for example, is Mrs. Candour candid?

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY BERNBAUM, ERNEST. The Drama of Sensibility. 1915. An early and still very good study of its stated subject. LAMB, CHARLES. "On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century." 1823. One of the Essays of Elia. The most famous and most controversial of the classic statements on Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy. MEREDITH, GEORGE. "Comedy and the Uses of the Comic Spirit." 1897. Many editions. An important statement of the nature of comedy approached as a general esthetic type.

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www.cliffs.com MOORE, CECIL A. "Introduction," in Twelve Famous Plays of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century. 1933. Contains a careful study of the social milieu. MOORE, THOMAS. Memoirs of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 2 vols. 1825. An invaluable early biography, complete in many ways, although many details have since been corrected. Contains an excellent chapter on The Slanderers and The Teazles. NETTLETON, GEORGE H. English Drama of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century. 1914. An old and well-established handbook. Perhaps now better deferred to than relied on. NICOLL, ALLARDYCE. A History of Eighteenth Century Drama, 1750-1800. 1927. An indispensable volume, covering the theater, the stage, actors, and other relevant material. RHODES, RAYMOND CROMPTON. Harlequin Sheridan. 1933. A biography of Sheridan, serious and scholarly. SHERIDAN, RICHARD BRINSLEY. The Plays and Poems. 3 vols. 1928. Ed. Raymond Crompton Rhodes. A standard scholarly edition. The introductions to the plays are most valuable. SHERWIN, OSCAR. Uncorking Old Sherry. 1960. A very readable biography. Of less use as analyses of the plays. SICHEL, WALTER. Sheridan. 2 vols. 1909. One of the important solid studies.

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