Charecteristcs of Anti sentimental comedy

                 Assignment

Name: Rupa Bambhaniya

Paper No:2 Anti sentimental comedy

Enrollment no: 2069108420200002

Class: M.A sem 1

Submitted by:  Smt.S.B.Gardhi, Department of English

Email I'd: rupabambhniya166@gmail.com

     Characteristics of Anti sentimental comedy 

  

  Sentimental : of or prompted by feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.

Sentimental comedy is an 18th-century dramatic genre which sprang up as a reaction to the immoral tone of English Restoration plays.. These plays aimed to produce tears rather than laughter and reflected contemporary philosophical conceptions of humans as inherently good but capable of being led astray by bad example.

Anti-Sentimental Comedy is going to old forms, it is a low force, situational humor . it is high polished in restoration comedy. 

Richard Steele was pioneer of sentimental comedy and the best known sentimental comedy is 'The Conscious Lover'.

The comedy of humor which Goldsmith and Sheridan cultivate in eighteen century was the reaction against the 

sentimental comedy of clubber, steel, Kelly. Goldsmith opposed sentimental comedy because it place of laughter and humors.

" Anti sentimental comedy is one that does not use emotions to evoke reflection in an audience . instead of an Anti sentimental comedy will use cynicism to achieve it's message."

 Characteristics of Anti sentimental comedy:

•   Amusing intrigues and situations
• Satirical comedy and irony
• Marriage for love and marriage for money
• Wit of language and verbal dialogue
• Farce and disguise 
• Emotions have boundaries

Generally the Anti sentimental comedy deals with the , and it's always focus on Major character as lover . and it is divided into subplot like dramatic way and the relations with the pathos .

So, let's discuss the Anti sentimental comedy with its characteristics

• The Rival
• The school for scandal
• The stoops to conquer

 The Rival  

In short, we say that “sentimental drama growing out of an assumption of the essential goodness of man, incorporated moral lessons by both precept and example, portrayed easy reformation of wrongdoers, and placed great emphasis on pity and self-sacrifice.”

Sheridan’s ‘The Rivals’ is regarded as an anti-sentimental comedy. Because it is a comedy packed with wit, laughter, and mirth provoking scenes, while the sentimental comedies move the audience to tears not to laughter. Sheridan portrays sentimental characters and situations in such a way that they arouse in the audience funny feelings. 

A brief examination of these sentimental scenes would clearly reveal that Sheridan’s intention was to poke fun at the sentimental comedy of the time. We find both Faulkland and Julia absurd. The true character of Faulkland is indicated to us by Absolute’s description of him as the “most teasing, captious, incorrigible lover”. Faulkland’s own description of his state of mind about his beloved Julia also makes him appear absurd. He says that every hour is an occasion for him to feel alarmed on Julia’s account. If it rains, he feels afraid lest some shower should have chilled her. If the wind is sharp, he feels afraid lest a rude blast should adversely affect her health. The heat of the noon and the dews of the evening may endanger her health. All this is funny and certainly no to be taken seriously. Sheridan is here ridiculing the excessive solicitude and concern which an over-sentimental lover like Faulkland experiences when separated from his beloved. Sheridan seems to be pleading for mental equilibrium even in the case of an ardent lover.Sheridan continues to portray Faulkland in the same satirical manner. When Acres appears and is questioned by Absolute regarding Julia’s activities in the countryside, Acres replied that Julia has been enjoying herself thoroughly and been having a gay time. Now, a normal lover would feel extremely happy to learn this. We expect the same reaction from Faulkland because he had assured Absolute that he would feel happy “beyond measure” if he were certain that Julia was hale and hearty. But his actual reaction is quite different and greatly amuses us by its absurdity.

In both his interviews with Julia, Faulkland betrays the same absurdity. In the first interview, he complains to her of the mirth and gaiety that she as been enjoying during his absence. He wants to be loved for his own sake and for no particular reason and he also expects her love to be “fixed and ardent”. In short, his whole manner of talking to her and his soliloquy at the end of this scene reveals him in a still more comic lightThe second interview again shows him a ridiculous light. He subjects Julia to a test in order to convince himself of the sincerity of her love. The author’s intention is to show the absurd length to which an over-sentimental lover can go, and the author expects us to laugh at this kind of lover.

Even Julia suffers from an excessive sentimentality and she too is made to appear absurd and ridiculous for that reason. The manner in which she describes her lover to Lydia shows the kind of mentality that she has. In the two interviews with Faulkland, Julia is again over-flowing with emotion. We smile at the way she behaves; we are amused by her excess of emotion; we mock at the abject surrender to her lover and her repeated attempts to make up with him.

The manner in which the other characters have been portrayed is also evidence of the anti-sentimental character of the play. Captain Absolute is a practical man and though he assumes the name and status of Ensign Beverley, he would not like to forfeit the rich dowry which Lydia will bring him. Mrs. Malaprop is a conventional, practical woman whose attitude to marriage is business-like. Sir Anthony to is a practical, worldly man. Bob Acres is a country boor with no romantic or sentimental pretensions but towards the end of the play he shows that he is more practical than anybody else by saying:

“If I can't get a wife without fighting for her, by any valour, I’ll live a bachelor.”

Then there is Sir Lucius who is absurd but not because of nay sentimentality. One reason why he is absurd is because of his insistence on fighting duels. But he does not want to fight duels for the sake f any sentiment.

When Sheridan himself fought a couple of duels for the sake of Miss Elizabeth Linley, there was a strong emotion behind them, but here we have a mockery of dueling and we are made to laugh at the manner in which these duels are arranged.

        

           She stoops to conquer

      She Stoops to Conquer is a comedy by Oliver Goldsmith, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in the English-speaking world. ... Initially the play was titled Mistakes of a Night and the events within the play take place in one long night. The story revolves around the family of Hardcastle and their friends Goldsmith brings out the comic effect in depicting this character, their foibles and schemes and in which lend them in more troubles .in the very beginning of play in the first scene speech by Mr.Hardcastle….

“I love everything that is old ; Old friends, old times, old manners Old books, old wine, and I believe, Dorothy , you‘ll own I have been Pretty fond of an old wife ”

Though not written by Goldsmith, the play's prologue is useful in the way it provides insight into Goldsmith's purpose in the play. Obviously, the most explicit purpose is to make the audience laugh. The speaker – Mr. Woodward, who would have been portrayed by a different actor – comes out in mourning, already having been crying, which in a way poses a challenge to the play. If we, as actors and audience, are in a state of sadness, can the play lift our spirits? However, most relevant is the state of affairs sculpted here.

       The school for scandal

Richard Brinsley Sheridan was born in 1751 in Dublin, and grew up in relative poverty. His live was long, in many ways disappointing and even tragic. In spite of his great reputation as wit, it is always important to remember that though he lived to be sixty five, his reputation as a dramatist was made before he was thirty and after that he became more important as a theatre manager rather than as an author.The protagonists of “The School for Scandal” are mainly members of the aristocracy, except for the servants, the administer Rowley and the Jew Moses, who is a pawnbroker.

One can definitely say that “The School for Scandal” is, in its core, a comedy, which is based on the sentimental philosophy, a movement that evolved in the 18th century as a counter-reaction to the tendency to see human beings as rational thinking and acting creatures. That means that this philosophy is based on the principle of deism[5], a theory at that time, which- although religiously forced- questions the bible as the root of all wisdom, but rather believes in a fundamental goodness of man. Apart from that it allocates him an active role in remaining his divinity in a society that could influence him in an immoral way.“The School for Scandal” Sheridan uses mainly telling names, for example the character of Maria immediately arouses associations with motives such as “goodness” and “unselfish love”, typical elements of the sentimental comedy. Also the way in which Charles Surface “obeys” her at the end of the play fits into this context:

Thou, dear maid, thou shouldst

Wave thy beauty`s sway,

Though still must rule, because I will obey……

Apart from these “sentimental” elements, Sheridan also uses certain elements from the restoration comedLady Sneerwell, also representing town, is an elderly woman who falls in love with a young man, namely Charles Surface- again a restoration motive. However, she shows the audience in the “screen scene”, that she is able to distinguish right from wrong and that she does in fact have a moral conscience, a fat that enables her to recognise Joseph’s false character as well as her own fault.The only character in the play who seems to be able to recognise the “real” nature of all the other characters is Sir Oliver who is the uncle of Joseph and Charles; a rich man who had just returned the West Indies where he was very successful. In some ways he even seems to reflect Sheridan[9], who was a supporter of colonialism himself and also had some financial success in the West Indies. But although he was rich, he tried not to loose his moral consciousness or “common sense”.