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52-482: Sir George Etherege (c. 1636 – c. 10 May 1692) was an English dramatist . He wrote the plays The Comical Revenge or, Love in a Tub in 1664, She Would If She Could in 1668, and The Man of Mode or, Sir Fopling Flutter in 1676. George Etherege was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire, in about 1636, to George Etherege and Mary Powney, as the eldest of their six children. Educated at Lord Williams's School , where

104-416: A divorce . He met Ann Ayscough, probably around 1670, by whom he had two illegitimate sons, William and Charles Sedley. William died in infancy, and the brother Charles was knighted by William III of Orange after the coronation in 1689 and created a baronet in 1702. The relationship with Ann Ayscough lasted until the end of Sedley's life. His reputation as a wit and dissolute was partially responsible for

156-475: A murder mystery play which is the longest-running West End show , it has by far the longest run of any play in the world, with its 29,500th performance having taken place as of February 2024. Contemporary playwrights in the United States are affected by recent declines in theatre attendance. No longer the only outlet for serious drama or entertaining comedies, theatrical productions must use ticket sales as

208-788: A baronet in 1611. He was the founder of the Sidleian Lectures of Natural Philosophy at Oxford. Sedley was educated at Wadham College, Oxford , but left without taking a degree. There his tutor was the poet Walter Pope. The second surviving son of Sir John Sedley and Elizabeth, William, succeeded to the baronetcy in 1645. Charles Sedley inherited the title (5th baronet) in 1656 when his brother William died. By his first wife Lady Katherine Savage, daughter of John, 2nd Earl Rivers he had only one legitimate child, Catherine, Countess of Dorchester , mistress of James II . The couple lived in Great Queen Street . After his first wife had been sent to

260-547: A brawl with the watch in Epsom that left a Captain Downs dead. At different times, Sedley and Buckhurst both paid Nell Gwyn , long-time mistress of the king, £100 a year to live with them; she also spent a period living with Rochester. Gwyn's 1679 funeral was attended by all of the gang. Etherege was part of the circle of John Wilmot ; both men had a daughter by the unmarried actress Elizabeth Barry . (All three appeared as characters in

312-507: A comedy of action, wit and spirit, although by some thought to be frivolous and immoral. Here Etherege first showed himself as a new power in literature. He presents an airy and fantastic world, where flirtation is the only serious business in life. Etherege himself was living a life no less frivolous and unprincipled. Between 1668 and 1671 Etherege went to Constantinople as secretary to the English Ambassador, Sir Daniel Harvey . After

364-521: A convent in Ghent on account of a serious mental condition, Sedley in vain tried to obtain a divorce. He met Ann Ayscough, probably around 1670, by whom he had two illegitimate sons, William and Charles Sedley. William died in infancy, and the brother Charles was knighted by William III after the coronation in 1689 and created a baronet in 1702. The relationship with Ann Ayscough lasted to the end of Sedley's life. Sedley died at Hampstead on 20 August 1701 and

416-571: A distinguished place in English literature as one of the "big five" in Restoration comedy , who invented the comedy of manners and led the way to the achievements of Congreve and Sheridan . Etherege's portraits of fops and beaux are considered to be the best of their kind. He is noted for his delicate touches of dress, furniture and scene, and a vivid replication of the fine airs of London gentlemen and ladies which may even better Congreve's. His biography

468-507: A form of playwright. Outside of the Western world there is Indian classical drama , with one of the oldest known playwrights being Śudraka , whose attributed plays can be dated to the second century BC. The Nāṭya Shāstra , a text on the performing arts from between 500BC-500AD, categorizes playwrights as being among the members of a theatre company, although playwrights were generally the highest in social status, with some being kings. In

520-458: A mountebank sermon from the pulpit, saying that there he had to sell such a pouder as should make all the cunts in town run after him, 1000 people standing underneath to see and hear him, and that being done he took a glass of wine and washed his prick in it and then drank it off, and then took another and drank the King's health." This behaviour provoked a riot amongst the onlookers and condemnation in

572-553: A pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, which is thought to refer to John Marston or Thomas Dekker : Jonson described himself as a poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and so were regarded as the province of poets. This view was held as late as the early 19th century. The term "playwright" later again lost this negative connotation. The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are

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624-635: A playwright, winning awards for his play The Phoenix at both the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999 and the Route 66 American Playwriting Competition in 2000. Today, theatre companies have new play development programs meant to develop new American voices in playwriting. Many regional theatres have hired dramaturges and literary managers in an effort to showcase various festivals for new work, or bring in playwrights for residencies. Funding through national organizations, such as

676-560: A school building was later named after him, he was rumoured to have attended the University of Cambridge , although John Dennis states that to his certain knowledge Etherege understood neither Greek nor Latin, thus raising doubts that he could have been there. Etherege served as an apprentice to a lawyer and later studied law at Clement's Inn, London, one of the Inns of Chancery . He probably travelled abroad to France with his father, who stayed with

728-500: A silence of eight years, he came forward with only one further play: The Man of Mode or, Sir Fopling Flutter , widely considered the best comedy of manners written in England before the days of Congreve . It was acted and printed in 1676 and enjoyed success, which may be attributed to the belief that it satirises, or at least refers to well-known contemporaries in London . Sir Fopling Flutter

780-525: A source of income, which has caused many of them to reduce the number of new works being produced. For example, Playwrights Horizons produced only six plays in the 2002–03 seasons, compared with thirty-one in 1973–74. Playwrights commonly encounter difficulties in getting their shows produced and often cannot earn a living through their plays alone, leading them to take up other jobs to supplement their incomes. Many playwrights are also film makers . For instance, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock began his career as

832-558: A stricter interpretation of Aristotle, as this long-lost work came to light in the late 15th century. The neoclassical ideal, which was to reach its apogee in France during the 17th century, dwelled upon the unities , of action, place, and time. This meant that the playwright had to construct the play so that its "virtual" time would not exceed 24 hours, that it would be restricted to a single setting, and that there would be no subplots. Other terms, such as verisimilitude and decorum, circumscribed

884-515: Is Hans Sachs (1494–1576) who wrote 198 dramatic works. In England, The Second Shepherds' Play of the Wakefield Cycle is the best known early farce. However, farce did not appear independently in England until the 16th century with the work of John Heywood (1497–1580). Playwright William Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Most playwrights of

936-438: Is an archaic English term for a craftsperson or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright ). The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form—a play. (The homophone with "write" is coincidental.) The first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in

988-534: Is still useful to playwrights today is the " French scene ", which is a scene in a play where the beginning and end are marked by a change in the makeup of the group of characters onstage rather than by the lights going up or down or the set being changed. Notable playwrights: Greek theater was alive and flourishing on the island of Crete. During the Cretan Renaissance two notable Greek playwrights Georgios Chortatzis and Vitsentzos Kornaros were present in

1040-462: The Ancient Greeks . These early plays were for annual Athenian competitions among play writers held around the 5th century BC. Such notables as Aeschylus , Sophocles , Euripides , and Aristophanes established forms still relied on by their modern counterparts. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides . The origins of Athenian tragedy remain obscure, though by

1092-650: The Earl of Rochester and Lord Buckhurst . The gang engaged in acts that were violent, outraged public decency and often included violence against women. In 1663 an indecent frolic in Bow Street , for which he was fined 2,000 marks, made Sedley notorious. From the balcony of Oxford Kate's Tavern he, Lord Buckhurst and Sir Thomas Ogle shocked and delighted a crowd of onlookers with their blasphemous and obscene antics. According to Samuel Pepys , Sedley "showed his nakedness – and abusing of scripture and as it were from thence preaching

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1144-763: The Glorious Revolution , he left for Paris to join James II in exile. He died in Paris, probably in 1691, as Narcissus Luttrell notes this as a recent event in February 1692, identifying Sir George Etherege as the late King James's Ambassador to Vienna . Etherege's manuscript despatches are preserved in the British Museum , where they were discovered and described by Gosse in 1881. Later editions were produced by Sybil Rosenfeld (1928) and Frederic Bracher (1974). Etherege holds

1196-500: The Miscellany of 1684. A number of his poems have been set to music: "Phyllis is My Only Joy" in a glee by John William Hobbs (1799–1877), "Not, Celia, that I Juster Am" in a solo song by the English composer Elizabeth Turner (1700–1756), and "Hears Not My Phillis" (Knotting Song, Z.371) in a solo song by the English composer Henry Purcell (1659–1695). In 1692 Sedley wrote the birthday ode for Queen Mary , "Love’s goddess sure

1248-600: The National Endowment for the Arts and the Theatre Communications Group , encouraged the partnerships of professional theatre companies and emerging playwrights. Playwrights will often have a cold reading of a script in an informal sitdown setting, which allows them to evaluate their own plays and the actors performing them. Cold reading means that the actors haven't rehearsed the work, or may be seeing it for

1300-495: The 2005 film The Libertine , based on a play by Stephen Jeffreys .) After his success, Etherege retired from literature, and a few years later lost much of his fortune to gambling. He was knighted at some time before 1679, and married a wealthy widow, Mary Sheppard Arnold. In March 1685, he was appointed resident minister to the Imperial German Court at Ratisbon . After three-and-a-half years' residence there, and after

1352-449: The 4th century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Poetics , in which he analyzed the principle of action or praxis as the basis for tragedy. He then considered elements of drama: plot ( μύθος mythos ), character ( ἔθος ethos ), thought ( dianoia ), diction ( lexis ), music ( melodia ), and spectacle ( opsis ). Since the myths on which Greek tragedy were based were widely known, plot had to do with

1404-536: The 5th century it was institutionalised in competitions ( agon ) held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility ). As contestants in the City Dionysia's competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage drama), playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. For

1456-550: The Middle Ages, the earliest of which is The Play of the Greenwood by Adam de la Halle in 1276. It contains satirical scenes and folk material such as faeries and other supernatural occurrences. Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after the 13th century. The majority of these plays come from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form, emphasizing sex and bodily excretions. The best known playwright of farces

1508-605: The Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Jonson. This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn . As a reaction to the decadence of Charles II era productions, sentimental comedy grew in popularity. Playwrights like Colley Cibber and Richard Steele believed that humans were inherently good but capable of being led astray. The Italian Renaissance brought about

1560-496: The Sedleys of William Makepeace Thackeray 's Vanity Fair . His most famous song, "Phyllis is My Only Joy", is much more widely known now than the author's name. While Sedley chiefly produced light amatory verse and pastoral dialogues in the 1670s, he turned to satirical epigrams in the 1680s and 1690s. His Epigrams: or, Court Characters are modelled on the works of Martial . In his epigram "To Nysus", for example, Sedley describes

1612-420: The ancient Greeks, playwriting involved poïesis , "the act of making". This is the source of the English word poet . Despite Chinese Theatre having performers dated back to the 6th century BC with You Meng , their perspective of theatre was such that plays had no other role than "performer" or "actor", but given that the performers were also the ones who invented their performances, they could be considered

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1664-404: The arrangement and selection of existing material. Character was determined by choice and by action. Tragedy is mimesis —"the imitation of an action that is serious". He developed his notion of hamartia , or tragic flaw, an error in judgment by the main character or protagonist , which provides the basis for the "conflict-driven" play. There were also a number of secular performances staged in

1716-585: The courts, where the Lord Chief Justice gave his opinion that it was because of wretches like him "that God's anger and judgement hang over us". Sedley was member of parliament for New Romney in Kent, and took an active and useful part in politics. A speech of his on the civil list after the Revolution is cited by Macaulay as proof that his reputation as a man of wit and ability was deserved. His bon mot at

1768-489: The exiled queen Henrietta Maria , and may have witnessed in Paris performances of some of Molière 's earliest comedies. An allusion in one of his plays suggests he may have been personally acquainted with Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy . Soon after the Restoration in 1660, Etherege wrote his comedy of The Comical Revenge or Love in a Tub , which brought him to the attention of Lord Buckhurst , afterwards Earl of Dorset. This

1820-452: The expense of James II is well known. The king had seduced his daughter and created her countess of Dorchester, whereupon Sedley said: "As the king has made my daughter a countess, the least I can do, in common gratitude, is to assist in making his Majesty's daughter ( Mary ) a queen". Sedley is also occasionally associated with a notorious gang of unbridled revellers who called themselves Ballers and who were active between 1660 and 1670. It

1872-537: The first time, and usually, the technical requirements are minimal. The O'Neill Festival offers summer retreats for young playwrights to develop their work with directors and actors. Playwriting collectives like 13P and Orbiter 3 gather members together to produce, rather than develop, new works. The idea of the playwriting collective is in response to plays being stuck in the development process and never advancing to production. Charles Sedley Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet (March 1639 – 20 August 1701),

1924-402: The function of satire and emphasizes the aggressive mode of satire: "Let us write satyr than, and at our ease / Vex the ill-natur'd Fools we cannot please." At the same time, Sedley translated other specimens of ancient poetry, such as Virgil 's Georgics IV, the eighth Ode of the second Book of Horace and three elegies from Ovid 's Amores . Dryden included Sedley's translations from Ovid in

1976-486: The latter part of the 16th century. The plays of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Schiller , and other Sturm und Drang playwrights inspired a growing faith in feeling and instinct as guides to moral behavior and were part of the German romanticism movement. Aleksandr Ostrovsky was Russia's first professional playwright). Author and playwright Agatha Christie wrote The Moustrap ,

2028-562: The mistress of Charles II . While The Mulberry-Garden exuberantly praises the achievements of the Restoration, Bellamira displays a dark cynicism which has to be accounted for within a changed historical context. His two tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra (1677) and The Tyrant King of Crete (1702), an adaptation of Henry Killigrew 's Pallantus and Eudora , have little merit. He also produced The Grumbler (1702), an adaptation of Le Grondeur of Brueys and Palaprat. However, many contents of Sedley's posthumous edition are spurious. Apart from

2080-407: The period typically collaborated with others at some point, as critics agree Shakespeare did, mostly early and late in his career. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. In England, after the interregnum , and Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, there was a move toward neoclassical dramaturgy. Between

2132-625: The playwright William Wycherley ; and George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham . The Merry Gang were advocates of libertinism. Members of the gang asserted the right to behave as they pleased and their antics were intended to draw the attention and amusement of the king. Rochester claimed his aim was to halt "the strange decay of manly parts since the days of dear Harry the Second ( r.  1154–1189 )". The gang engaged in acts that were loud, outraged public decency and often included violence against women. In 1676, Rochester and Etherege were involved in

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2184-553: The subject matter significantly. For example, verisimilitude limits of the unities. Decorum fitted proper protocols for behavior and language on stage. In France, contained too many events and actions, thus, violating the 24-hour restriction of the unity of time. Neoclassicism never had as much traction in England, and Shakespeare 's plays are directly opposed to these models, while in Italy, improvised and bawdy commedia dell'arte and opera were more popular forms. One structural unit that

2236-452: The title (5th baronet) in 1656 when his brother William died. By his first wife, Lady Katherine Savage, daughter of John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers , he had only one legitimate child, Catherine, Countess of Dorchester , who later became a mistress of James II of England . After his first wife had been sent to a convent in Ghent on account of a serious mental condition, Sedley tried in vain to obtain

2288-453: Was an English noble , dramatist and politician . He was principally remembered for his wit and profligacy. He was the son of Sir John Sedley, 2nd Baronet, of Aylesford in Kent , and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Savile . The Sedleys (also sometimes spelt Sidley) had been prominent in Kent since at least 1337. Sedley's grandfather, William Sedley, was knighted in 1605 and created

2340-573: Was blind", which was also set to music by Purcell. The poem was printed in The Gentleman’s Journal of May 1692. His first comedy, The Mulberry-Garden (1668), sustains Sedley's contemporary reputation for wit in conversation. The best, but most licentious, of his comedies is Bellamira : or, The Mistress (1687), an imitation of the Eunuchus of Terence , in which the heroine is supposed to represent Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland ,

2392-507: Was buried at Southfleet Church on the 26th. The Sedley baronetcy became extinct on his death. Sedley is famous as a patron of literature in the Restoration period , and was the Francophile Lisideius of Dryden 's Essay of Dramatic Poesy . However, it was above all Sedley's wit that his contemporaries admired him for. Sedley was reputed as a notorious rake and libertine , part of the " Merry Gang " of courtiers which included

2444-599: Was first written in detail by Edmund Gosse in Seventeenth Century Studies (1883). Dramatist The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks . William Shakespeare is amongst the most famous playwrights in literature, both in England and across the world. The word "play" is from Middle English pleye , from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word wright

2496-548: Was performed at the Duke's Theatre in 1664 and a few copies were printed in the same year. It is partly in rhymed heroic verse, like the stilted tragedies of the Howards and Thomas Killigrew , but it contains comic scenes that are notably bright and fresh. The sparring between Sir Frederick and the Widow introduced a style of wit hitherto unknown upon the English stage. The success of this play

2548-629: Was probably Sedley who wrote the Ballers' Oath on their behalf. Sedley's parliamentary career started in the 1660s but around 1677/78 he joined the Whig cause. When Charles II died in 1685, Sedley was illegally excluded from the parliament of his successor James II, which convened in May 1685. There can be no doubt that Sedley opposed the Catholic James and supported William of Orange in the crucial year of 1688. Sedley

2600-647: Was returned in the second Parliament of William, elected in March 1690. More speeches and parliamentary motions followed in 1690, including discussions on the Bill for regulating trials for High Treason, which sheds light on Sedley's political commitment after the Revolution. Sedley's speeches were included in the 1702 edition of The Miscellaneous Works . Sedley kept his seat in Parliament until his death in 1701. Charles Sedley inherited

2652-721: Was seen as a portrait of Beau Hewit, the reigning exquisite, Dorimant to be a reference to the Earl of Rochester , and Medley a portrait of Etherege himself (or equally plausible, his fellow playwright and wit, Sir Charles Sedley). Even the drunken shoemaker was a real character, who made his fortune from being brought to public notice in this fashion. Etherege was part of the Merry Gang (as Andrew Marvell described them). The Merry Gang flourished for about 15 years after 1665 and included John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester ; Henry Jermyn ; Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset ; John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave ; Henry Killigrew ; Sir Charles Sedley ;

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2704-400: Was very great, but Etherege waited four years before repeating the experiment. Meanwhile he gained a high reputation as a poetical beau and moved in the circle of Sir Charles Sedley , Lord Rochester and other noble wits of the day. His temperament is best shown by the names his contemporaries gave him: "gentle George" and "easy Etheredge". In 1668, he brought out She Would If She Could ,

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