Paper no 02 Oliver Goldsmith & Richard Sheridan as a dramatists.
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Name:
Vidhya Pandya
Semester:
MA – 1
Roll
No: 43
Paper
No : 2 The Neo-classical Age.
Enrolment
No: 2069108420190031
Email
id: vidhupandya10497@gmail.com
Year:
2018- 20
Submitted
to: Department of English, Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.
Assignment’s
topic: Oliver Goldsmith & Richard Sheridan as a dramatist.
1. Oliver
Goldsmith as a Dramatist: [1728 – 1774]
◆
Introduction :-
Oliver
Goldsmith one of the most popular 18th century English writers, lived
a fascinating life of contradictions, between his unquestionable brilliance
& self- destructive tendencies.
Many
details of Goldsmith's life are not precisely known, partially because he seems
to have frequently lied to his official biographer, about details as innocuous
as his lineage. And yet this fact tells us as much about Goldsmith's life and character as any other
detail.
Oliver Goldsmith- was born on 10th November, 1730 at Kilkenny
West, Ireland. He was Anglo – Irish essayist, poet, novelist, and dramatist. He was born to a poor Irish
family. He was one of seven children, and his father was a country vicar. When
Goldsmith was still young, his father’s death forced him to rely on a wealthy
uncle for support. In his early days, he was frequently bullied Because of
facial ddisfigurement caused by smallpox. Goldsmith never bothered to hide his
Irish origins, ever maintaining his brogue despite the fact that it would have
been considered low- class once he latter settled in London, amongst more
esteemed company. His relationship with his mother was always a complicated
one, and he later grew estranged from her.
He
always noted for his intelligence, And earned a Bachelor of Arts at Trinity
Collage, Dublin in 1750. While there, he participated in a student riot and he
was publicly admonished for his role. Despite a strong acumen of literary work,
Goldsmith was unable to settle his career for a long time, flittering between
the church, low and education. In 1752 , he begun to study medicine in Edinburgh.
Though there is no evidence that he ever completed his course of study, he did
later practice with medicine, and in fact referred to himself as Dr. Goldsmith
throughout of his career.
Goldsmith traveled for many years, until settling in London in
1756. It was here that he finally turned to literature, and his career took
off. Though he made a lucrative living through writing history books and
literary journals, Goldsmith also lived a free-wheeling life of gambling and
generous extravagance that kept him in debt. Amongst his literary output in
this period are contributions to Tobias Smollett's Critical Review, and An Inquiry to the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe (1759).
His writing also appeared in The
Busy Body, The
British Magazine, and The Lady's Magazine. A year later, his
"Chinese letters" were published in the Public Ledger; these were fictionalized
letters in the style of Voltaire that presumed to be written by a Chinese
mandarin visiting England.
It was during this time period that Dr. Samuel Johnson, one of
England's most famous men of letters, became a great admirer of Goldsmith's
work. He invited Goldsmith to join his exclusive Turk's Head Club, and through
Johnson's patronage, Goldsmith began to publish his first master works,
including the novel The Vicar of Wakefield. This
novel, along with his masterful comic play She Stoops to Conquer, found
great success, and remain his best-loved works. Vicarwas particularly important
since his advance earnings kept him out of a debtor's prison. During this
period, Goldsmith also published his letters and The Life of Richard Nash.
He continued to write throughout the 1760's, overseeing several
editions of The
Vicar of Wakefield during that time.
Goldsmith died suddenly on April 4, 1774, after suffering from a kidney disease
that he refused to treat properly. It was an early death, but not entirely
unexpected considering his lifestyle. His work The Haunch of Venison was
published posthumously in 1776.
During
his life, Goldsmith was equally known for his brilliance and for his
insecurity. Always willing to act foolishly, he could come off as extremely
generous and gregarious, or as conceited and pretentious. Some biographers see
in him a constant contradiction between the high-class post he earned through
talent and the low-class heritage he refused to totally eschew. In short,
Oliver Goldsmith is one of the most contradictory of his day's canonical
writers, a quality that helps very much to understand the complications
inherent in his work.
◆ NOTABLE WORKS:
- “She Stoops to Conquer”
- “The Deserted Village”
- “The Vicar of Wakefield”
- “The Traveller”
- “The Citizen of the World, or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher”
- “An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe”
2. Richard Brinkley
Sheridan as a Dramatist : [ 1751 – 1816]
Richard
Brinsley Sheridan was born in Dublin, Ireland, on Oct. 30, 1751. His father,
Thomas, was an actor and theater manager; his mother, Frances, was the author
of novels and plays. The family moved to London in 1758, and Sheridan was
educated at Harrow (1762-1768). His first publication, a joint effort with a
school friend, N.B. Halhead, was a metrical translation of Aristaenatus (1771).
◆ Biographical
Information :
Sheridan was born in
Dublin in 1751. His father was a prominent actor and his mother a writer. The
family moved to London when Sheridan was still a boy. There, Sheridan disliked
his schooling, but proved to be an excellent student and began writing poetry at
an early age. After composing dramatic sketches with friends, he considered
becoming a playwright. His father, however, intended him to study law. When the
Sheridans moved to Bath in 1770, Richard met Elizabeth Linley, a singer and
famed beauty. Though she had many suitors, Linley eloped with Sheridan in 1773.
Shortly after their marriage, Sheridan abandoned his legal studies in order to
devote himself to writing.
The initial performance of his first
play, The Rivals, failed because of miscasting and the play's
excessive length. Undaunted by the poor reception, Sheridan recast several
roles, abbreviated sections of the play, and reopened it ten days later to a
unanimously positive response. With the success of his opera The
Duenna; or, the Double Elopement and the comedy St. Patrick's
Day; or, The Scheming Lieutenant in 1775, Sheridan established himself
as a prominent dramatist. Meanwhile, Sheridan purchased the Drury Lane Theatre
and became its manager. In the next two years, he revived a number of Restoration
comedies and wrote and staged his most well-known play,
The School for
Scandal.By the end of the decade, Sheridan had produced his last successful
stage work, The Critic; or, Tragedy Rehearsed (1779). In 1780
Sheridan was elected to the House of Commons. His excellence as an orator was
duly noted by his contemporaries; however, Sheridan's interest in politics kept
him from his theatrical endeavors and his management of the theater became
haphazard. He wrote only one more play, Pizarro—an adaptation of
August von Kotzebue's drama Die Spanier in Peru oder Rollas Tod—which
appeared in 1799. Somewhat later, in an attempt to beautify the aging theater
at Drury Lane, Sheridan had the interior completely rebuilt. The structure
burned to the ground shortly thereafter, and left without resources, Sheridan
was unable to finance another Parliamentary campaign. Most of Sheridan's last
years were spent in poverty and disgrace; however, shortly before his death,
Sheridan managed to regain his reputation as a distinguished statesman and
dramatist. When he died in 1816, he was mourned widely and was buried in the
Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.
◆ Major Works :
In his comic drama The
RivalsSheridan satirizes manners using humor that is pointed but never
cruel. Essentially an ironic play about character, The Rivals presents
a number of absurd individuals and then proceeds to ridicule their flaws and
idiosyncrasies. Among its range of characters, the play introduces the infamous
figure of Mrs. Malaprop, from whose humorously inappropriate word usage the
term “malapropism” is derived. Sheridan's libretto for the light opera The
Duenna features characters and incidents drawn from Roman New Comedy
and ends with a double marriage happily realized despite the opposition of Don
Jerome—the play's stodgy father figure. Another of Sheridan's minor works, the
farcical St. Patrick's Day; or, The Scheming Lieutenant exists
very much in the mode of The Rivals and endeavors to amuse
audiences with its affable, if preposterous, characters.
The School for Scandal is
both the most popular of Sheridan's comedies and the most strongly reminiscent
of the Restoration period. This attack on a gossip-loving society demonstrates
Sheridan's brilliant display of wit in its sharp indictment of manners that
departs considerably from the gentle tone and approach of The Rivals. The
story follows a double plot as it portrays the manipulative Lady Sneerwell, the
hypocritical Joseph Surface, the naïve socialite Lady Teazle, the irascible Sir
Peter Teazle, and the reformed libertine Charles Surface, among many other
comic figures. Heavily influenced by the Duke of Buckingham's The
Rehearsal,Sheridan's The Critic; or, Tragedy Rehearsed provides
a satirical look at the theatrical world and is a burlesque of the vanity of
artists and critics.
Critical Reception
Although The
Rivals and The School for Scandal have been popular
since their inception—the former principally for its fine characterization and
the latter for its superb use of language and technical refinement—some recent
critics have claimed that Sheridan was neither responsible for an English
revival of comedy nor particularly innovative. Others have faulted his refusal
to develop emotional subtleties in his characters, and have found his dialogue
superficially witty, but lacking depth. Some have contended that the deliberate
staginess of Sheridan's works detracts from their artistic value.
Others have acknowledged that
Sheridan chose to exaggerate and vary the traditional comedy of manners in
order to heighten the theatricality of his plays and thereby intensify the
audience's enjoyment. Contemporary criticism has continued to focus on
Sheridan's skilled use of dialogue and manipulation of character in his major
dramas, while a number of scholars have also begun to analyze Sheridan's lesser
works of drama and poetry, and to study his political career.
◆ NOTABLE WORKS :
- “The Rivals”
- “The School for Scandal”
- “The Critic”
- “The Duenna”
- “St. Patrick’s Day; Or the Scheming Lieutenant”
- “Pizarro”
◆ Conclusion:-
To conclude the question
we can say that , Sheridan's plays are still performed widely and are seen as a
link in the history of satirical comedy-of-manners plays between the 17th
century and the form's revival in Oscar Wilde's plays of the 19th century.
◆ References:-
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