This thesis is an attempt to arrive at an understanding of Wycherley's vision and portrayal of human nature through an analysis of the principal themes contained in each of his four plays. The primary theme is the distinction between appearance and reality in human nature. The implications of this theme are explored as they operate through certain subsidiary themes: love, marriage, friendship, honour, affectation, plain-dealing, and jealousy. In examining each of these themes, a pattern emerges within each play whereby men reveal that they are fundamentally hypocritical creatures, motivated by selfish desires. They strive to satisfy these desires by manipulating and exploiting their fellow men. Initially, however, they conceal their inner natures by maintaining a superficial appearance of decorum and respectability. As each play progresses, Wycherley penetrates the outer appearance of each character to reveal his true nature, a nature which is essentially evil. He strengthens this impression by the creation within each play of either an individual or place through which the sordidness of human nature appears completely stripped of any veneer of civilized behaviour. Within each play also, there is an individual or couple whose virtuous example further stresses the corruption of the other characters. Nevertheless, while the same pattern emerges within each play, there are differences in tone, emphasis, characterization, plot, and complexity which reflect Wycherley's developing ability as a dramatist. His first play, Love in a Wood is a typical comedy in which the love chase predominates, but in which Wycherley demonstrates his belief in man's innate depravity. His second play, The Gentleman Dancing-Master is a farce in which Wycherley examines affectations and vanities of a topical nature. With his third play, The Country-Wife, the satirical tone darkens and intensifies. In his final play, The Plain-Dealer, Wycherley broadens the scope of the play to create a sense of an all-pervasive corruption, existing on every level of society. In these last two plays, Wycherley further emphasizes his belief in man's depravity by the use of imagery. Images of disease, food, drink, gambling, and animals serve to strengthen the impression that man is a brutish creature. While Wycherley portrays human nature with greater complexity and subtlety in his last two plays, his focus and conclusion remain essentially unchanged. It is this fact which gives unity and coherence to his drama, and which demonstrates Wycherley1s developing skill as an artist. This skill, combined with the intensity of his vision of human nature, gives his plays a brilliance and impact which is generally overlooked or underestimated. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1958 T47

Libertines Real and Fictional in Rochester, Shadwell, Wycherley, and Boswell examines the Restoration and eighteenth-century libertine figure as it appears in John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester's Satyr against Mankind, "The Maim'd Debauchee," and "Upon His Drinking a Bowl," Thomas Shadwell's The Libertine, William Wycherley's The Country Wife, and James Boswell's London Journal, 1762-1763. I argue that the limitations and self-contradictions of standard definitions of libertinism and the ways in which libertine protagonists and libertinism in general function as critiques of libertinism. Moreover, libertine protagonists and poetic personae reinterpret libertinism to accommodate their personal agendas and in doing so, satirize the idea of libertinism itself and identify the problematization of "libertinism" as a category of gender and social identity. That is, these libertines misinterpret-often deliberately-Hobbes to justify their opposition and refusal to obey social institutions-e.g., eventually marrying and engaging in a monogamous relationship with one's wife-as well as their endorsement of obedience to nature or sense, which can include embracing a libertine lifestyle in which one engages in sexual encounters with multiple partners, refuses marriage, and questions the existence of God or at least distrusts any sort of organized religion. Since any attempts to define the word "libertinism"-or at least any attempts to provide a standard definition of the word-are tenuous at best, it is equally tenuous to suggest that any libertines conform to conventional or standard libertinism. In fact, the literary and "real life" libertines in this study not only fail to conform to such definitions of libertinism, but also reinterpret libertinism. While all these libertines do possess similar characteristics-namely affluence, insatiable sexual appetites, and a rebellion against institutional authorities (the Church, reason, government, family, and marriage)-they often misinterpret libertinism, reason, and Hobbesian philosophy. Furthermore, they all choose different, unique ways to oppose patriarchal, social authorities. These aberrant ways of rebelling against social institutions and their redefinitions of libertinism, I argue, make them self-satirists and self-conscious critics of libertinism as a concept.