The Rakish Stage: Studies in English Drama, 1660-1800

Abstract

Content and meaning in the drama -- Restoration comedy and its audiences, 1660-1776 / Arthur H. Scouten and Robert D. Hume -- Otway and the comic muse -- The satiric design of Nat. Lee's The Princess of Cleve -- The myth of the rake in Restoration comedy-- Marital discord in English comedy from Dryden to Fielding -- The multifarious forms of eighteenth-century comedy -- The world is all alike -- The London theatre from The beggar's opera to the Licensing Act -- Goldsmith and Sheridan and the supposed revolution of laughing against sentimental comedy.