Experimentation on the English Stage, 1695–1708:

The Career of George Farquhar

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Elisabeth J Heard

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, British theatre saw a shift from what critics now call ‘Restoration’ to ‘sentimental’ comedy. Focusing on the career of the Irish dramatist George Farquhar (1678–1707), Heard argues that experimentation was the basis for this change. Farquhar’s first play, Love and a Bottle (1698) relied on outdated plot devices and character types. By contrast, his final two plays, The Recruiting Officer (1706) and The Beaux Stratagem (1707) used creative new elements to connect with English audiences. Over ten years, Farquhar and his contemporaries experimented with characters, plot lines, and dialogue in an attempt to woo their audiences. In doing so they initiated a new era in British comedy.

Sample pages

• Experimentation on the English Stage: Introduction
• Experimentation on the English Stage: Index

Readership

History of Theatre and Performance, Literature, Eighteenth-Century Studies

Contents

Introduction
1 The London Theatre World in the 1690s
2 Origins of “Humane Comedy:” Farquhar, Congreve, Cibber, and Vanbrugh
3 Experimentation at the Turn of the Century
4 Successful Experimentation: The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux Stratagem
5 Farquhar’s Contributions and the Post-1707 Theatre

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