PRINCIPLE TYPES OF COMEDY – SENTIMENTAL COMEDY

    Sentimental comedy represents a comic subgenre that emerged to prominence in England during the closing years of the 17^th century. The playwright cum actor Colley Cibber’s work Love’s Last Shift (1696) is widely regarded as heralding the vogue for this type of comedy on the English stage. The Careless Husband (1704) also by Cibber and Richard Steele’s The Lying Lover (1703) and The Conscious Lovers (1722) represent noteworthy instances of sentimental comedy that serve to establish the cannon in the drama of England.

    In tackling sentimental comedy, there are specifically two factors that we require to take into advisement. The first is exemplified by the moral reform movements of the 1690s, which came down heavily on English plays particularly the comedy of manners. The most notable instance of such an attack is arguably the pamphlet A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698) by the clergyman Jeremy Collier. In this work, Collier levels several charges at the early restoration comedies for failing to fulfil the proper function of drama, which he upholds to be the recommendation of virtue and the discountenance of vice. Some of the significant charges set forth by Collier in this regard include, smuttiness of expression, lewd application of the scriptures, abuse of the clergy, and perhaps the most severe of them all, immoral characterisation. It is however noteworthy that over and beyond the reform movements at the time, there was one other catalyst which exerted a much stronger influence in abetting the shift from satirical to sentimental comedies in England. This is the socio-economic transition that swept across the country post the Charles II era, which constitutes the second of the factors referred to above. After the glorious revolution of 1688, we find that England steadily began to transform from being a land based political economy dominated by aristocrats into a capitalist one that was controlled by the mercantile class. The preeminence of aristocracy in other words, was giving way to plutocracy, in which the middle and upper classes of the English social fabric through their new found wealth were gaining ascendancy. This naturally brought about an inevitable change in the dominant ideology in place, whose repercussion in the domain of drama was particularly felt with regard to the nature of the audiences that attended the performances. This is to say, while earlier the theatre was for the most part frequented by a courtly crowd, now a relatively ordinary class of business and trades people became the prominent patrons of the playhouses. This new audience though did cherish the aristocratic plays of the previous generation, also clamored to see their own diverse cultural ethos and experience enacted. The inevitable result was that the primacy attributed to sophisticated behavior in the comedy of manners, came to be overtaken by the depiction of sincere emotions in the form of sentimentality. Thus arose sentimental comedy with edification and emotion as its two linchpins, a point which is most vividly borne out by the ensuing explanation of the chief features that underlie its framework.

 

    Before dealing with the features however, it is necessary to specify that the charm commanded by sentimental comedy   was relatively short lived. In fact, post its prime phase of development during the early 18^th century, sentimental comedy pretty much went out of favour for good. Today it is basically as a matter of academic interest that sentimental comedies are taken up for consideration, with no serious efforts thus far instituted to revive their fortunes on the stage as such. This however should not be allowed to take away anything from the point that they entail a distinctive milestone in the progress of English drama, both in terms of content and character.

 

HUMAN NATURE: Sentimental comedy is often construed as a dramatic form that primarily arose as a reaction against comedy of manners, specifically the aspect of lewdness in it. Though many contend such a view represents an unjust simplification of what the former exemplifies in earnest, the fact still remains that the two are significantly at odds with each other. Probably nowhere is this distinction more telling than in the mutually contradictory vision of human nature they enforce. In comedy of manners for instance, human nature is envisioned as fundamentally corrupt in nature. The characters accordingly are delineated as polished but perverted individuals, whose actions are utterly instigated by motives of self-interest. In sentimental comedy on the contrary, human nature is seen as inherently benevolent. The characters concomitantly are depicted as plain but virtuous individuals, whose actions are impelled by an innate feeling of sympathy or compassion towards fellow beings. Thus, while one upholds vice as the overwhelming facet that characterizes the human condition, the other reinforces goodwill as its most prominent disposition.

 

TEAR JERKING: Unlike regular comic plays that sought to provoke laughter in the audience, sentimental comedy basically strove to move them to tears through appealing to their feelings or emotions. The very adjective employed to describe this type of drama most succinctly reinforces the point. After all, the base word sentiment from which we get sentimental, primarily derives itself from the Latin sentie meaning ‘to feel’. The fact that these plays also are popularly referred to as weeping comedies consolidates the notion. Thus, in a sentimental comedy, rather than invoking humour traditionally designated to be the main business of a comic play, dramatists endeavor to evoke their audience emotionally through impacting their sense of pity. This they did through suffusing the plot with melodramatic scenes that involved depictions of deep distress, suffering and self-sacrifice, endured by characters who were conspicuously virtuous and utterly undeserving of such ordeals. The ultimate belief was that human disposition that is not already perfect, could be perfected through an appeal to emotions which represented a more genuine sensibility than reason.

 

OVERT MORALISING: The professed aim of a sentimental comedy is to inculcate moral or ethical values in the audience. To transform the theatre into a temple, the stage into a make shift pulpit, and the actual play itself into a kind of sermon, this is precisely what sentimental comedies sought to accomplish as their avowed goal. The idea becomes obvious when we consider the typical pattern of the plot in these plays, which invariably runs as follows. The central character who is a person of exemplary virtue is forced to endure many travails, which are brought about by the erroneous ways or machinations of the vicious ones in the plot. The former however suffers through all the ordeals without making any ethical or moral compromise, remaining firmly upright throughout. This uprightness is finally rewarded with a turn of good fortune at the play’s conclusion, which also sees the vicious ones transforming into reformed individuals. The critical thing here of course is the impact that the pattern of the narrative has on the sensibility of the audience. Carefully managed from the start to side with the fortunes of the central character in the play, the audience experience a feeling of cathartic joy or delight at the happy ending, which in the ultimate analysis propels them to replicate the virtuous temperament of such a personage. The motivation is of course incited by the hope that they would also be similarly rewarded, if only they would persist with virtue without giving into vice. The performance thus successfully instilled an orientation towards virtuous living, not only projecting such a mode of existence as noble but attractive.