THE FEMALE WITS (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETYTHE FEMALE WITS(Anonymous)(1704)Introduction byLUCYLE HOOK GENERAL EDITORSGeorge Robert Guffey, University of California, Los AngelesEarl Miner, University of California, Los AngelesMaximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los AngelesRobert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial LibraryADVISORY EDITORSRichard C. Boys, University of MichiganJames L. Clifford, Columbia UniversityRalph Cohen, University of California, Los AngelesVinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los AngelesArthur Friedman, University of ChicagoLouis A. Landa, Princeton UniversitySamuel H. Monk, University of MinnesotaEverett T. Moore, University of California, Los AngelesLawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial LibraryJames Sutherland, University College, LondonH. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los AngelesCORRESPONDING SECRETARYEdna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library CONTENTSINTRODUCTIONNOTES TO THE INTRODUCTIONBIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTETHE PREFACE.THE PROLOGUE.THE EPILOGUE.DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.ACT 1.ACT 2.ACT 3. INTRODUCTIONThe Female Wits; Or, The Triumvirate of Poets at Rehearsal, published anonymously in 1704 with “written by Mr. W. M.” on the titlepage, was played at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane around October, 1696. [1] A devastating satire in the manner of Buckingham’s The Rehearsal, it attacks all plays by women playwrights but Mary de la Riviere Manley’s blood and thunder female tragedy, The Royal Mischief (1696), in particular. The Female Wits resembles The Rehearsal in that the satire is directed not only at the subject matter and style of a particular type of drama but supplies searing portrayals of recognizable persons--in this case, of Mrs. Manley herself, and to a lesser degree, of Mary Pix and Catherine Trotter (later Cockburn). It also follows Buckingham’s satire in that the actors play double roles--that of the characters assigned to them and their own--and in so doing, reveal their own personalities with astonishing clarity.Colley Cibber tells the best stories of the chaos that ensued after the secession of Betterton and most of the veteran actors in 1695 from the dominance of Christopher Rich at Drury Lane. [2] Since Betterton had been virtual dictator in London since 1682, he was able to command the efforts, at least at first, of most of the well-known playwrights who had written for the company before the establishment of his theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Young playwrights scrambled to ingratiate themselves with one or the other of the two London managements. Among them, there had been three women with four plays in less than a year.When Mrs. Manley arrived upon the dramatic scene with her first play, The Lost Lover; Or, The Jealous Husband, in March, 1696, she bore the brunt of a growing criticism against a surfeit of female plays. But when she protested in the preface of the printed version that “I think my Treatment much severer than I deserv’d; I am satisfied the bare Name of being a Woman’s Play damn’d it beyond its own want of Merit,” she took upon herself the combined animus of the masculine critics. In the same preface, she challenged them boldly with “Once more, my Offended Judges, I am to appear before you, once more in possibility of giving you the like Damning Satisfaction; there is a Tragedy of mine Rehearsing, which ‘tis too late to recall, I consent it meet with the same Fortune.” The other play was The Royal Mischief.One learns from The Female Wits that Mrs. Manley considered herself privileged at Drury Lane, that The Royal Mischief had gone into rehearsal, but that her imperious manner had alienated the actors who laughed at her dramatic pretentions; and that she had stormed out of the Theatre Royal vowing never again to honor them with her works. After much bickering among patrons, patentees, (continued)