Four Restoration Libertine Plays (Oxford World's Classics)

468 Pages·2005·1.25 MB·english

by  Deborah Payne Fisk

oxford english drama
General editor: michael cordner
Associate General Editors: peter holland · martin wiggins
FOUR RESTORATION LIBERTINE PLAYS
The court of Charles II (1660–85) adopted libertinism as a lifestyle,
pursuing pleasure with an abandon that shocked and titillated onlookers.
Seventeenth-century intellectuals saw libertinism as a body of thought
that might underwrite changes in philosophy, politics, and science. These
two aspects of libertinism, the lubricious and the learned, found expres-
sion in the sex comedies written during the 1670s and early 1680s, a time
when London theatre was unfettered by morality. The four plays in this
volume capture the gamut of contemporary reactions to libertinism,
from the outraged disapproval of Thomas Shadwell’s sprawling, experi-
mental The Libertine (1675), to the cool acquiescence of Sir George
Etherege’s brilliant comedy, The Man of Mode (1676), the cheerful assent
of Thomas Durfey’s rollicking farce, A Fond Husband (1677), and the
moody forebodings of Thomas Otway’s darkly comic tale of marital
warfare, Friendship in Fashion (1678).
Deborah Payne Fisk is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Literature and an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Performing
Arts at American University, Washington, DC. The editor of The
Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre, she has published
extensively on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theatre. Currently
Professor Payne Fisk is working on A History of World Theatre for
Laurence King Press. She also does dramaturgical work for theatre
companies in Washington, DC.
Michael Cordner is Reader in the Department of English and
Related Literature at the University of York. He has edited George
Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem, the Complete Plays of Sir George
Etherege, and, for Oxford English Drama, Four Restoration Marriage
Plays and Sheridan’s The School for Scandal and Other Plays. He is
writing books on The Comedy of Marriage and Shakespeare and the Actor.
Peter Holland is Professor of English at the University of Notre
Dame, Indiana.
Martin Wiggins is a fellow of the Shakespeare Institute and Lecturer
in English at the University of Birmingham.
OXFORD ENGLISH DRAMA
J. M. Barrie John Webster
Peter Pan and Other Plays The Duchess of Malfi and Other Plays
Aphra Behn Oscar Wilde
The Rover and Other Plays The Importance of Being Earnest and
Other Plays
John Ford
’Tis Pity She’s a Whore and Other Plays William Wycherley
The Country Wife and Other Plays
Ben Jonson
The Alchemist and Other Plays Court Masques
ed. David Lindley
Ben Jonson
The Devil is an Ass and Other Plays Eighteenth-Century Women Dramatists
ed. Melinda Finberg
D. H. Lawrence
The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd and Five Romantic Plays
Other Plays ed. Paul Baines and Edward Burns
Christopher Marlowe Four Jacobean Sex Tragedies
Doctor Faustus and Other Plays ed. Martin Wiggins
John Marston Four Restoration Marriage Plays
The Malcontent and Other Plays ed. Michael Cordner
Thomas Middleton Four Revenge Tragedies
Women Beware Women and Other Plays ed. Katharine Maus
A Mad World, My Masters, and Other London Assurance and Other Victorian
Plays Comedies
ed. Klaus Stierstorfer
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The School for Scandal and Other Plays The New Woman and Other
Emancipated Woman Plays
J. M. Synge ed. Jean Chothia
The Playboy of the Western World and
Other Plays The Roaring Girl and Other City
Comedies
John Vanbrugh ed. James Knowles and Eugene
The Relapse and Other Plays Giddens
OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
Four Restoration Libertine Plays
THOMAS SHADWELL
The Libertine
SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE
The Man of Mode; or, Sir Fopling Flutter
THOMAS DURFEY
A Fond Husband; or, The Plotting Sisters
THOMAS OTWAY
Friendship in Fashion
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
DEBORAH PAYNE FISK
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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© Deborah Payne Fisk 2005
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First published as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 2005
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Four Restoration libertine plays / edited with an introduction and notes by Deborah Payne Fisk
p. cm. –– (Oxford English drama)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. English drama––Restoration, 1660–1700. 2. Libertinism––Drama. I. Payne Fisk, Deborah.
II. Shadwell, Thomas, 1642?–1692. Libertine. III. Etherege, George, Sir, 1635?–1691. Man of mode.
IV. D’Urfey, Thomas, 1653–1723. Fond husband. V. Otway, Thomas, 1652–1685. Friendship in fashion.
VI. Series.
PR1266.F675 2005 822′.408––dc22––2004027977
ISBN 0–19–283294–8
1
Typeset in Ehrhardt
by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed in Great Britain by
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to
RODNEY HARALD FISK
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction xi
Note on the Texts xlv
The Restoration Playhouse xlviii
Select Bibliography li
A Chronology of Libertine Plays liv
the libertine 1
Thomas Shadwell
the man of mode; or, sir fopling flutter 85
Sir George Etherege
a fond husband; or, the plotting sisters 173
Thomas Durfey
friendship in fashion 247
Thomas Otway
Explanatory Notes 331
Glossary 409
vii
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful for the expert advice Michael Cordner offered through
the various stages of preparing this edition. His experience and know-
ledge saved me from committing more mistakes than I care to admit.
Mary Partridge did an expert job with the collations, Edwin Pritchard
did the same with copy-editing, and Martin Wiggins answered several
anxious last-minute queries with calm and wisdom. Throughout the
project, Judith Luna at OUP has proved to be a bastion of strength
and patience. I want to thank her especially for seeing the project
through. I also want to thank Peter Holland for first suggesting that I
undertake Four Restoration Libertine Plays. Christopher Wheatley,
Richard Sha, and Kathleen Lesko read the introduction and suggested
invaluable improvements. Any remaining errors are, of course, my
responsibility. The Henry E. Huntington Library in the summer of
1998 and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in the autumn
of 1999 provided short-term fellowships that allowed me to produce
copy texts from their first editions. The Folger Shakespeare Library,
as always, has been a haven and a refuge. I drew heavily upon the
collections of all three libraries to write the notes and the introduction.
A memorable Folger Institute seminar with Barbara Mowat and Paul
Werstine in the spring of 1998 introduced me to the basic principles
of textual editing and abated my initial terror. A sabbatical from
American University for 1999–2000 allowed me to draft the notes and
introduction.
Finally, I want to acknowledge my husband, Rodney Harald Fisk,
who courted me that summer of 1998, when I first began work on the
copy texts. His bimonthly trips from Washington, DC, to the West
Coast resulted in a romantic outcome more typical of Jane Austen than
Sir George Etherege. Then again, we do not necessarily want to live
first hand what we study.
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