Restoration, Congreve and Questions of Legitimate Authority

Abstract

The Restoration period of British literary history provides a crucial link between the Renaissance and modernity. Whereas the Renaissance thought and literature preoccupied themselves with the crisis of feudalism, subsequent centuries saw the culmination of this crisis with the consolidation of capitalist economy. Enmeshed between this transition, the Restoration period showcases literature and especially drama where the tension and opposition between the feudal and mercantile world views manifested in many interesting ways. This paper examines continuing literarytheatrical engagements with the questions around legitimate authority and ways in which such questions were framed and articulated in the context of the opposing world views during the Restoration through a close reading of William Congreve’s The Way of the World. This play, written in the later phase of the Restoration period, typifies certain representational shifts that inevitably took place after the Glorious Revolution of 1689. The paper demonstrates that, even though Congreve was using certain typical Restoration conventions, The target of his satire appears to be
the nobility rather than the emerging middle-classes, and this attack on the nobility, unlike the earlier ridiculing of the bourgeoisie for their Puritan inclinations, does not translate much into the larger critique of outmoded and stifling moral values. A detailed textual analysis is offered to draw the reader’s attention to the strikingly similar motives that drive the key conflicts in the play.