In my “Restoration and 18th Century Couples Comedy” class, my students paired old rom-coms with contemporary films, including “Ten Things I Hate about You,” “How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, “Friends with Benefits,” and others.
Tag Archives: Belle's Stratagem
From Wycherley to Crazy, Stupid, Love
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged 10 Things I Hate about You, Alexander Pope, Aphra Behn Country Wife, Austenland, Belle's Stratagem, Brave, Crazy Stupid Love, Don Jon, Friends with Benefits, Hannah Cowley, He’s Just Not That into You, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Jane Austen, Mean Girls, Oliver Goldsmith, Rape of the Lock, Richard Sheridan, Rivals, Rover, Say Anything, Sense and Sensibility, She Stoops to Conquer, William Wycherley Comments closed
Finding Freedom in Masquerade
Looking for sexual freedom in a rigid confines of the marriage plot, 18th century playwrights Susanna Centlivre and Hannah Cowley turned to the masquerade motif.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Belle's Stratagem, Busybody, Hannah Cowley, Marriage Plot, patriarchy, quest plot, Sexism, sexual desire, Susanna Centlivre Comments closed
Bumpkin by Day, Enchantress by Night
Yesterday I talked about Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer (1773) and male shyness. Today I discuss another Neo-Restoration comedy, Hannah Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem (1780), and how it addresses an equally thorny relationship problem: low self-esteem. In the play Letetia and Doricourt are to marry, even though they haven’t seen each other since they […]
