….we have lov’d each other Into our mutual ruin. (Antony to Cleopatra, All For Love Act 2) John Dryden (1631 to 1700) was the dominant literary figure of the Restoration period, loosely 1660 to 1700. The period is sometimes called the Age of Dryden by academics who are paid to label things. Dryden was extremely […]
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Hecyra (The Mother-in-Law) by Terence (165 BC)
As usual the set consists of a street in Athens showing the front doors of two houses belonging to the two old geezers of the story, Laches and Phidippus. Rather than a tale of two young men, this story concerns only one, Pamphilus, son of Laches. He has married Philumena, the daughter of his neighbour […]
Posted by Simon on April 6, 2022
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2022/04/06/hecyra-the-mother-in-law-terence/
Eh Joe by Samuel Beckett (1967)
Beckett wrote his first play for television, Eh Joe, in May 1965. The first English broadcast of Eh Joe was on BBC2 on 4 July 1966, with Jack MacGowran playing Joe and Siân Phillips as Voice. The play is another of Beckett’s ‘skullscapes’ in the sense of being entirely about an older male figure ‘trapped’ inside […]
Posted by Simon on January 4, 2021
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2021/01/04/eh-joe-samuel-beckett/
The Relapse by John Vanbrugh (1696)
Sir John Vanbrugh wrote a handful of plays before going on to a complete change of career, and becoming one of England’s finest country house architects, whose masterpieces include palatial private homes such as Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace. The Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger, the first of his plays, was in fact a sequel […]
Posted by Simon on August 10, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/08/10/the-relapse-john-vanbrugh/
The Way of The World by William Congreve (1700)
FAINALL: If it must all come out, why let ’em know it, ’tis but the way of the world. From a historical point of view, the most interesting thing about The Way of The World is that it was not well received. It was an attempt to continue the Restoration comedy conventions of aristocratic libertinage into what […]
Posted by Simon on August 5, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/the-way-of-the-world-william-congreve/
Love For Love by William Congreve (1695)
SIR SAMPSON LEGEND: You are hard to please, madam: to find a young fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye of the world, is a very hard task. The humour of a Restoration comedy often starts with the cast list – the names are always inventively […]
Posted by Simon on August 3, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/08/03/love-for-love-william-congreve/
The Old Bachelor by William Congreve (1693)
BELLMORE: Come, come, leave business to idlers and wisdom to fools; they have need of ’em. Wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation; and let Father Time shake his glass. In his lengthy reply to the stinging criticisms of the contemporary stage contained in the polemical pamphlet, A Short View of the Immorality and […]
Posted by Simon on July 29, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/07/29/the-old-bachelor-william-congreve/
Introduction to The Plays of William Wycherley by W.C. Ward (1893)
Old literary criticism is often valuable because it sees works of literature in the round, as a whole. Its judgements are often mature, made by people who have seen a lot of life and often had other full-time careers, as lawyers, politician and so on. So their opinions are aware of and take into account […]
Posted by Simon on July 27, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/07/27/william-wycherley-w-c-ward/
Books & Boots 