Friday I have lots of thoughts about the Congressional hearings on Donald Trump’s January 6 coup attempt, which opened last night, and am working up a post that references Milton’s rebel angels. I’ll end this week, however, on a lighter note, an interesting footnote that my English professor son alerted me to. Apparently, Laurence Sterne’s […]
Tag Archives: William Wycherley
When a Novel Affected Clock Sales
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged clocks, Country Wife, Enlightenment, John Wilmot, Laurence Sterne, Plain Dealer, Tristram Shandy Comments closed
Trump Scandal as Comedy of Manners
White House scandals are coming into the open. William Wycherley could write a Restoration comedy about it all.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bob Woodward, Country Wife, Donald Trump, White House Comments closed
From Wycherley to Crazy, Stupid, Love
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.
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 Comments closed
A Literary History of the Insult “Cuck”
“Cuck” has become a favorite insult amongst alt-right types. In today’s post I trace literary references to cuckolds going back to Chaucer.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged alt-right, As You Like It, Canterbury Tales, Christopher Marlowe, Country Wife, cuckold jokes, cuckolds, cuckservatives, Doctor Faustus, Donald Trump, Geoffrey Chaucer, Miller's Tale, Othello, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Women Battling the Marriage Plot
Although men got the quest plot while women were relegated to the marriage plot in the 18th century, a number of women writers found imaginative ways to circumvent it. Among these were Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Lover", Aphra Behn, Country Wife, Haywood (Eliza), John Wilmot, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Marriage Plot, quest plot, Rover, To a Lady in a Letter Comments closed
On Supply Side and Self Deception
In Wycherley’s “Country Wife,” the entire society grasps at an implausible story to sustain its self deception. Sounds like the GOP and supply side economics.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged budget cuts, Country Wife, Economics, politics, sequester Comments closed
The Horror of Sex without Love
Sex without love, the subject of several sex comedies this past summer, was also an issue explored by poets and playwrights in the British Restoration.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Against Constancy, Comedy, Country Wife, Film, Friends with Benefits, John Wilmot, Libertine, No Strings Attached, sex, Sex without Love, Sharon Olds Comments closed
