Appunti in inglese sulla Restaurazione

THE RESTORATION

When Charles II came back to London as king of England 29/5/1660, a new era in English history and lit-erature was opened. The king was rather tolerant and easy-going, and seemed to be mainly concerned with hi-life and extravagance. The years in France had influenced him and his courtiers, so that when he came back from ex-ile, he brought to London the gay atmosphere of the French court, and his capital soon turned from the gravest town in Europe to one of the gayest. The town became the true centre of culture. The themes in the new litera-ture were strongly influenced by town life and the intellectual conversations of men in clubs or in coffeehouses. The classical models came to govern English literature, not directly, but trough their French imitations.
In foreign policies, England advanced her sea power, and colonisation increased. Parliamentary government made great progress and definite political parties - the Tories supporting the king and the Wight favouring par-liament - took shape. Soon, however, internal difficulties made themselves strongly felt: a terrible plague swept London in 1665 and a great fire destroyed it in 1666. An era of religious, political and commercial conflicts was opened: the puritans, the Anglicans, the cavaliers, the commercial classes and the aristocracy became more and more engaged in fiery controversies.

COMEDY

When we speak of a comedy, we generally mean a play which has a pleasant atmosphere and a happy end. Any history of comedy would have to begin with the ancient Greek author Menandro, who developed the so-called New Comedy, which was imitated by the Latin dramatists Plautus and Terence. The true origin of English comedy, however, is to be found in the mystery plays and miracle plays of the middle age. Mystery and miracle plays were based on biblical stories on the lives of the saints. The actors were members of the various trade guilds or associations.
For convenience of study, we shall describe five chief types of comedy, which have generally been recog-nised by historians and critics. The five types we refer to are:

Romantic comedy: they have a pleasant mixture of love and laughter. It was Shakespeare who carried romantic comedy almost to perfection (A mid-summer night dream and 12th night), and Oscar Wilde (The importance of being Earnest).

The comedy of humour: is a phrase generally used in connection with Ben Johnson, where the word humour is not used in any of its modern senses, but in the sense of a dominant passion (jealousy, anxiety.).

The comedy of manners: this phrase is particularly applied in England to the restoration dramatists, and especially Congreve. We see it again in Oscar Wilde. It makes fun not so much of individual human beings and their humours as of social groups and their fashionable manners. It is a highly artificial form of drama, full of verbal width and sometimes inclined to be cynical and hard.

Sentimental comedy. The influence of the restoration comedy persuaded the public that the theatre needed cleaning up. One result of this was the appearance of the new sentimental comedy. A sentimental comedy was one written with the intention of expressing moral sentiment. In the present century, there has been a rebirth of the sentimental comedy, but under new names and in new forms.

Black or dark comedy. There are many plays which do not belong to any of the classes we have been looking at. These plays (Shakespeare's measure for measure) contain much discussion of serious moral and intellectual problem.