Critical analysis William Congreve The Way of the World
The Way of The World Critical
Analysis | Critical Summary of 'The Way of the World' | A Critical Overview of
William Congreve The Way of the World |A Critical estimate of 'The Way of the
World'
The Way
of the World is a serious play. By this it is not meant, as one eighteenth
century critic has suggested, that it has the moral intention of safeguarding
mankind against matrimonial falsehood. Its morality is not of that specific
formulable sort that will adorn a tale, even if the final quatrain may lend
colour to that notion. Its seriousness is of the kind proper to comedy, which
is not necessarily an affair of laughter only. It may work, in the same manner
as tragedy, by giving a heightened perception of things as they are, or by
making the reader or spectator apprehend more finely the nice balance of virtue
and stupidity which regulates our activities. In The Way of the World the
central theme is undoubtedly the relation of men and women in marriage, and
Congreve's own contribution to the problems of matrimony may well be found in
the great bargaining scene in Act IV where Mirabell and Millamant convant for
their will and pleasure. Yet the institution of marriage is seen from many
other angles in the play: it may be as a stalking-horse for the avaricious or
the lustful; it becomes purely animal in satisfaction for Waitwell and Foible,
and for Lady Wishfort a belated and ridiculous invitation to debauch. We shall
say that in presenting this many-sided picture Congreve was untrue to life or
unjust to marriage. He is impartially directing his criticism at both men and
human institutions. The surprising thing is that so critical and discerning
intelligence as Congreve's should grant to either the measure of grace which he
actually does. For this final effect is tolerant; a sense of grace is conveyed,
not so much in the behaviour of the persons of the drama as in their speech; so
that in the last scene, when Millamant asks, 'Why does not the man take me?' Would
you have me give myself to you over again? and Mirabell replies, 'Aye, and over
and over again', it is hard not to feel that Congreve was exaggerating when he
wrote, 'I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying
reflections."
The
characters all speak with a recognizably Congrevian idiom, yet their
utterances, within that similarity, are perfectly differentiated. In his letter
concerning Humour in Comedy where, he defines humour as 'a singular and
unavoidable manner of doing, or saving anything peculiar and natural to one man
only; by which his speech and actions are distinguished from those of other
men'. Congreve suggests that it would be 'the work of a long life to make one
comedy true in all its parts, and to give every character in it a true and
distinct humour.' Four years after writing that Congreve as nearly as possible
approached this perfection in his last play. Let the leader examine the
phrasing of Millamant's speeches from her very first appearance and he will
find that in all her sentences (with the possible exception of the scenes in
the fifth act, where she is more an agent in the unravelling of the plot than
her true self 'a sacrifice to your repose, madam, as she says to her aunt)
there is present a suggestion of the same consciously superior and exquisitely
fashionable arrogance. The rhythms are breathless and hurried, as if she were
always in full sail, with her fan spread and streamers out.
Oh,
aye, letters-I had letters-I am prosecuted with letters- I hate letters-nobody
knows how-to write letters and yet one has 'em, does not one know why they
serve one to pin up one's
hair'.
Another train of hers is a fondness for
playing with a particular word and an ability to render it more telling with
each repetition. The supreme instance of this is from the same scene as the
passage just quoted
"Beauty
the lover's gift- lord, what is lover, that it can give ? Why one makes lovers
as one pleases, and they live as long as one pleases, and they die as soon as
one pleases, and then if one pleases
one
makes more.'
It is evident from the delicate elaboration
of such dialogue that Congreve was no believer in the photographic notation of
ordinary conversation. 'I believe', he wrote, if a poet should steal a dialogue
of any length from the extempore discourse of the two wittiest men upon earth,
would find the scene but coldly received by the town'. On the contrary, there
is in his writing the same tireless striving after refinement of style that
delights the admirer of Landor or Peter; but Congreve's result is less removed
from the accent of speech, and is not so purely literary. His lines are
intended to be spoken, and the search for beauty is not permitted to interfere
with this aim; what does sometimes seem to occur is that in particular scenes
the too lovely phrasing may divert attention from the plot and appear so self
conscious that it attracts a disproportionate degree of wonder. In the limits
of this introduction we can do no more than indicate that analysis of other parts
besides Millamant's will show that the ability to discriminate between the
various manners of speaking, in vocabulary, must ungrudgingly be allowed to
Congreve. A good beginning might be made with Lady Wishfort's invective or
Witwoud's very dissimilar volubility.
The plot of The Way of the World is
intricate, yet perhaps a little lacking in coherence and strength. It is
Congreve's invention, for the slight parallels between The Alchemist and Les
Precieuses Ridicules need scarcely be passed; yet there is one obligation of
Congreve's which should not be overlooked. In Dryden's Marriage-do la-Made
occurs the original of the incomparable by Millement, whose manner is to come
extent anticipated by Melanthe Two quarto dos of The Way of the World were
published in Congreve's Meme 1700 and 17.8: the second was corrected by author
and is the next followed by the works (1710) In the presented, which is based
on the text of the works, the spelling and stage directions have been modernized
and in the division of the scenes the practice of the quartos has been
restored.
The last and most artistically finished play
The Way of the World is Congreve's last
and most artistically finished play, and undoubtedly it is to be accepted as
his master piece. The play may be safely called an epoch-making piece of
literary art, in the sense that in it Congreve striped Restoration Comedy of
half the grossness of its other Practitioners and be sharpened the sword play
of will till the flash of it well-nigh blind as to all other considerations
"It
is an essence almost too fine"; says Hazlitt, appreciating this play of
Congreve; and the sense of pleasure evaporates in an aspiration after something
that seems too exquisite ever to have been realised. After inhaling the spirit
of Congreve's wit and tasting loves thrice reputed nectar in his works, the
head grows giddy in turning from the highest point of rapture to the ordinary
business of life, and we can, with difficulty, recall the truant Fancy to those
objects which we are fair to take up with, here: for better, for worse".
It may not be universally known, perhaps,
as he had not thought proper to give any imitation of the kind, that Congreve
took the plot of this play from the French play The Amorous Widow a comedy
translated from Dancourt by Besterton, yet it must be noted that he (Congreve)
was too great a genius to submit to a servile copy; and by his refinement,
additions and alterations, given the thing quite a different air. The plot of
the play has been so carefully and splendidly built that it seems nothing but a
purely original creation of the dramatist's mind In this play, which is the
towering bit of Congreve's dramatic genius we find almost all the
distinguishing features of his dramatic art. His style is best revealed through
it, nowhere do we find such blithe and sunny wit, such radiant humour as in it.
The last testament of a moralist
The Way
of the World has been described by many as a testament - the last testament of
a moralist-to an immoral society.
The central theme of the play is the
relation of men and women in marriage. Through this play Congreve wants to
teach to the men and women of his age-of English- the noble lesson that
marriage is a sacred union of two loving souls and that after being married
When we hear from the woman should cease to be a coquette. When we hear from mouth
of Millamant the following utterance; we are apt to believe that Congreve
wanted to see the married women of his English society as faithful, graceful and
loving as are the ideal wives of our Hindu society:-
"......and
D'ye hear, I won't be called names.........as wife, spouse, my dear, jewel,
love, sweet-heart, and the rest of that nauseous cant, in which men and their
wives are so fulsomely familiar......I shall never hear that- good Mirable, and
don't let us be familiar or fond not kiss before folk, like my Lady Fadler and
Sir Francis: nor go to Hyde Park together the first Sunday in a new chariot, to
provoke eyes and whispers....
Mr. Dobree has described the famous
bargaining scene in the Fourth Act of the play as Congreve's concept of the
philosophy of He calls it "a vision of the conflict in all marriages of
the desire to maintain one's own personality fighting vainly with the love.
desire to love whole-heartedly-Each of them has seen the rocks which bring most
marriage to ruin, and will strive to avoid them.'
Congreve's masterpiece
Says
Collins-'And what is generally considered his master piece is The Way of the
World in which comes his best character, the bewitching heroine Millamant.
Macaulay wrote of this last comedy that its leading situations are superior to
anything found in the whole range of English comedy from the civil war down wards.'
It is quite inexplicable to us that this play should have failed on the stage.
"Here" says Wyatt, "one must look for the features of an original art, of which only Etherege had given a sketch worthy to be compared with it. A plot carefully contrived but not too obviously artificial; contrasted affects a repressed vigour, which bursts out in certain realistic traits moments of comic liveliness, and farcial scenes: such are the elements of variety which save the play from the constant-a distinction, from too dry a preciority. In the solid frame-work, which offers nothing exceptional, psycho- logical raillery and dialogue are displayed by a greatness which is above circumstance, which seem to be its own end, to raise life higher than itself and to carry the painting of character on the plane of poetic and charming creation. There is in The Way of the World, with a personal touch, with an accent of cynical impertinence in which one catches the ring of the epoch, a rapture of imagination recalling the early comedies of Shakespeare; at the same time idealize and strikingly true to life, Millamant and Mirabell are the decisive type of passions which, welling up from the heart, intoxicate the brain with its light vapour, and excite the intellect with- the dialogue reminds us not only of Shakespeare but of Marivaux, out depriving it of its self-command......at times the sparkle of when in its fineness it sets about analysing sentiment. Still it is so of a less highly quintessential turn than that of the French writer, and less uniformly buried with shades of meaning; it reveals wonderful gift of with shades of meaning ; it reveals rather in impertinent rallies and witty diversions, aided by a wonderful gift of repartees and heat phrasing."
It has no false note
According to Nicoll-"In The Way of
the World there is no false note, Millamant rails gloriously through it all,
affected and fascinating; servants, fools, lovers, wits all seems to take from
her something of that air of modish triviality, which belongs to the best
scenes of the Comedy of Manners. We may condemn the realism of some of the
character-portraits in this play: we may say that the plot is no plot, only a
mere series of often impossible incidents designed simply to afford the author
opportunity for uttering his streams of conceited metaphor and bewildering
flights of intellectual fancy; but that never prevents us from acknowledging
The Way of the World as the most perfect example in English of a certain type
of comic endeavour."
The Way of the World says Dr. Barret,
"then is serious. By this it is not meant, as one eighteenth century
critic has suggested, that it has the moral intention of safeguarding mankind
against matrimonial falsehood. Its morality is not of that specific formulable
sort that would adorn a tale, even if the final quatrain may lend colour to
that notion. Its seriousness is of the kind, proper to comedy which is not
necessarily an affair of laughter only. It may work, in the same manner as
tragedy, by giving a heightened perception of things as they are, or by making
the reader or spectator apprehend more finely the nice balance of virtue and
stupidity; which regulates our activities.
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