Paper No:101 Literature of the Elizabethan and Restoration Periods

This blog is part of an assignment for Sem 1 Paper No.101 Literature of the Elizabethan and Restoration Periods assigned by Dilip Barad sir, Department of English, MKBU.

Personal Information :-

Name: Khushi Rajeshbhai Rathod

Batch:- M.A. (2023-2025)

Roll No: 18 

Enrollment No: 5108230039

Semester: 1st 

E-mail: khushirathod1863@gmail.com

Assignment Details :-

Paper No:101

Paper Code: 22392

Paper Name: Literature of the Elizabethan and Restoration Periods

Topic: The Rover as a Restoration Comedy

Submitted to: Smt.S.B.Gardi, Department of English,MKBU

Que. 'The Rover' as a Restoration comedy - Justify.

Ans.

🌺  Table of Contents :-

• Introduction
• What is Restoration comedy?
• About the Aphra Behen
• About 'The he Rover'
• The Rover as a Restoration comedy
• How Restoration women were different from Puritans?
• Conclusion 
• Reference

🌺 Introduction :-

The Restoration Comedy is an English comedy performed in the Restoration Period (1660-1710). It started developing after the public stage was banned for 18 years. When King Charles II became the king of England, he brought the ideas of the French with him. He allowed two patents for theaters: The Kings' Company and The Duke's Company.

🌺 What is Restoration comedy?

The Restoration Comedy is also called the Comedy of Manners. It depicts the lives, manners, and habits of upper-class society with their vices, intrigues, and behavior. It reflects the very spirit of the age. It deals with the behavior of men and women living under special social codes. Rover shows relationships, along with the intrigues of men and women belonging to a sophisticated society. 

The Restoration Comedy shows the violations of social conventions by the characters by:

1. Witty dialogues
2. Wordplay
3. Interesting plot lines
4. Sexual references
5. Objectification
6. Rake figure
7. Deception and disguise
8. Social pressure on love and marriage

In short, the Restoration Comedy is a mirror of the manners of the society in which it's written.

🌺 Aphra Behen :-

Aphra Behn (bapt. 14 December 1640 -16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, Behn declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming poem to the new king William III. She died shortly after.

🌺 The Rover :-

Aphra Behn was the only obscure and improved woman "to write for the breed". She was the first British woman to write to earn a living from writing. Her most celebrated play, "The Rover," is a classical Restoration comedy. Based on earlier work Thoma so by Thomas Killigrew, written in 1654 but was not published until ten years later. The rover was an instant success. 

"The Rover'' deals with the romantic intrigues of English men and Spanish women in Naples over a carnival weekend. It is set during the Interregnum. Willmore is a rakish libertine who spends months travelling across the seas. He falls in love with every woman he sees, including Hellena, a young noblewoman, and Angellica, a courtesan. Hellena's sister Florinda is in love with the English colonel Belvile. Her brother Don Pedro wants her to marry his friend Don Antonio, the Viceroy's son. 

🌺 The Rover as a Restoration Comedy :-

Many reasons to called as The Rover as a Restoration comedy , Play The Rover, many themes and various things to see in Restoration time. 

• Witty Dialogues
• Rake
• Objectification
• Cross-dressing
• Disguise and deception
• Social Liberty
• Gender Equality
• Love Intrigues
• Immoral Behavior 

Let's see in detail :-

1) Witty Dialogues :-

"The Rover" has various features of a Restoration Comedy. Witty dialogues are one of the important features of the comedy of manners. The play is full of witty dialogue, especially by Hellena. In Act 1, Scene II, we find Hellena and Willmore flirting with each other. The characters have sharp tongues. They are good at clever comebacks, and the language is full of double meaning. 

2) Rake :-

The rake was an invention of the Restoration period. In "The Rover," Willmore is the rakish figure. With his cavalier libertine reputation, he is irresistible to women. He is a seductive, and arrogant character, representing the male prowess in the play. 

3) Objectification :-

Objectification is another feature of the Restoration Comedy. Willmore is the object of desire for both Hellena and Angellica in the play. We can observe his witty humour in the final lines of the play he uttered: 

"No other dangers can be dreaded."

Who ventures in the storms of the marriage bed? "

4) Cross-dressing :-

Women could act at the time of the Restoration period. Cross-dressing was in high demand at that time. Aphra Behn was the first person to pay attention to the life and mind of a courtesan in her portrayal of Angellica in "The Rover." 

In Rover, we see Hellena disguising herself as a young boy so she can keep tabs on Willmore, whom she has fallen for. She warns Angellica of Willmore wooing another woman and then "paid his broken vows to you". Hellena's cross-dressing proves that male dress allows freedom to women. 

5) Disguise and Deception :-

Seeking revenge later in the play, Angellica threatens Willmore with a pistol. Her choice of weapon, a gun, used in those times only by men, is symbolic of her attempt to take control of her sexual desires. She masculinizes herself instead of feminizing her lust. Both Hellena and Angellica masquerade themselves as men.

This demonstrates how women can take ownership of rights associated only with men: romance, justice, and sexuality. Deception shown in the play by women was a huge part of the Restoration period. 

6) Social Liberty :-

The Restoration period breakaway from the Puritan adherence to morality. The play projects the festivals and celebration which was restricted during the Puritan age. The play is set in the Carnival stage where the major characters are Hellena and Florinda who are in quest for their true love. It is not only women who enjoyed social liberty but also men. Many men and women during the Restoration period enjoyed life by engaging themselves into infidel relationships. The social liberty was at its highest peak where characters such as Willmore who is the rover of the play as well as Blunt who completely engaged themselves with a sense of true liberty of the age. Willmore was in love with Hellena but he was disloyal when he saw Angelica Bianca and seduced her to sleep with him. It made Willmore and Hellena’s relationship complicated because of Willmore’s character. Blunt is a man who was a victim of cheating and deception. Cheating scandals and lies were part of Restoration plays where Blunt fell in love with a local woman Lucetta who turned out to be a cheater for he fell into a sewer. This adds that both men and women enjoyed social liberty to a great extent during the Restoration Period.

7) Gender Equality :-

Women were not given equal space and representation during the Renaissance age or before Renaissance. It was during the Restoration Period women started to act on the stage taking the roles of female characters . In the play, the main driving force are the woman characters and the story revolves around Hellena and Florinda. Behn, who is a female playwright, has given equal platform to women in her plays.

The play also gives a sense of early feminist attitudes where the decisions of a woman were taken by their parents or their brothers for marriage and women are not independent to make their own choices for marriage. Behn revolts such a stigma where Florinda’s brother Don Pedro wants her to obey her father’s decision to marry Don Vincentio and her brother’s choice Don Antonio if she rejects her father’s choice. This reflects that women's marriages are dependent on their parents and their brothers approval but Florinda projects a typical feminist attitude of making independent choices for herself and to search for her love Belville. Feminist have tried to dissociate gender and sex where gender is continuously fluctuating and not fixed but a mere social construct. In society, the action of a man is normalized and appropriate and hence Behn shows the gender fluctuations where women also subscribe to the same action a man behaves in the society. 

Angelica Bianca is a woman who performs the same infidel action of a man who sleeps with Willmore and she Lucetta goes around to cheat man including Blunt which actually highlights the immorality of characters and they have been portrayed in such a way that their actions subscribes to the immoral and infidel behavior of a man.

8) Love Intrigues :-

As a comedy of manners, there are love intrigues in the play. We have the love intrigues of sisterhood where Hellena , Florinda and Valeria show a strong powerful force of sisterhood and show love for another. They participate together by disguising themselves as gypsies in search of their loved ones, especially Belville and later Willmore. There are also love intrigues between friends including Frederick, Blunt and Belville where these men also support each other for instance Frederick helps Blunt to capture Florinda whom they thought was a prostitute. The love intrigue between Hellena and Willmore and Angelica is complicated but Hellena and Willmore’s love eventually won at the end. The love intrigue between Florinda and Belville  shows their strong powerful love for each other where Florinda breaks away from traditional norms just to be with him. They were engaged later and got married.

9) Immoral Behavior :-

The immoral behavior was a product of the Restoration Period. Puritans suppressed immoral behavior during their rule and hence the Restoration Period saw social engagement in sophisticated and superficial activities. In the play, man flirts with women, for instance Willmore flirts with Hellena and the prostitutes such as Lucetta who go around seducing men like Blunt and cheating them off is a clear example of immoral behavior activities. Comedy of manners have satirized the upper class society and Angelica Bianca belongs to the upper class where she sleeps with Willmore committing adultery which according to the Puritans will be immoral and the same action goes to Willmore as well.

∆ How Restoration women were different from Puritans?

Following the collapse of Puritan protection in 1660, the Restoration period began. The lifestyle of party sex and extravagant spending was followed by King Charles II. Yet, the social and sexual freedom of this libertinism was not extended to the female gender. Florinda is destined to marry, Hellena to a convent, and Angellica to pay for prostitution. 

As the carnival ends, they all abandon their fates and go after their freedom. Aphra Behn speaks of this double standard that limits her female peers' sexual desire to home or brothel. She wanted women to escape the restrictions that define them. The women in the play are nothing like the Puritans. They have strong personalities consisting of wit, humour, competence, and the ability to feel and act confident. They desire to pursue their sexual desires just like men.

Both Florinda and Hellena, attempts to challenge their brother's arrangement are successful in the end. This shows the violation of social convention and decorum at the time of the Restoration era. Marriage for money rather than love was the hallmark of the Restoration era in the late 17th century. Florinda finally gets married to Belvile while Hellena escapes her future as a “handmaid to lazars and cripples”, in the nunnery. 

🌺 Conclusion :-

The play has almost all the characteristics of a Restoration comedy. It is one of the best Restoration comedies ever written. The play demonstrates various aspects of life: from the narrow social limitations to the treatment of women in society. The use of witty dialogues and sex as a bartering chip to women violates social convention. 

Even though the play asks probing questions underpinning the family and society, the ending is reassuring to the audience. As Charles Lamb concluded, "Restoration Comedies are a world of themselves, almost as much as fairy land."

Reference

Rathor, Tamanna. “Rover as a Restoration Comedy.” Eat My News, 5 October 2022, https://www.eatmy.news/2022/10/rover-as-restoration-comedy.html. Accessed 25 November 2023.

“Tag: the rover as a restoration comedy.” GetSetNotes, 15 December 2021, https://getsetnotes.com/tag/the-rover-as-a-restoration-comedy/. Accessed 25 November 2023.

van Gogh, Vincent, and Aphra Behn. “Aphra Behn | Biography, Books, & Facts.” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aphra-Behn. Accessed 25 November 2023.

Words :- 2087

Images :- 3