Lecture 10—Wycherly’s The Country Wife

I. Restoration Comedy: The Joke’s on the Puritans

A. The End of the Ban: 1660

B. Actresses

C. Compromising Situations: Restoration Audiences

II. William Wycherly’s Notorious Life (1640-1715)

A. A Shropshire Birth and a French Education

B. Studying at Oxford—1660

C. Pretending to Practice the Law

D.  “Manly” Wycherly: Career in the Theater

E. The Duchess of Cleveland’s Favorite

F. An Ill-Advised Marriage

G. Friendship with Pope

H. A Final Trick

III. The Country Wife and the Seductions of the City

A. Horner’s Problem

B. The City and the Country

C. Honorable Behavior

D. The Double Standard

Lady Fidget: Well, Horner, am I not a woman of honor? You see I’m as good as my word.

Horner: And you shall see, madam, I’ll not be behindhand with you in honor and I’ll be as good as my word too, if you please but to withdraw into the next room.

Lady Fidget: But first, my dear sir, you must promise to have a care of my dear honor.

Horner: If you talk a word more of your honor, you’ll make me incapable to wrong it. To talk of honor in the mysteries of love is like talking of heaven or the deity in an operation of witchcraft, just when you are employing the devil; it makes the charm impotent.

E. Sex and Gambling

IV. China, Anyone?

A. Act IV, Scene iii

B. Shopping and Sex

C. Needs to be Fulfilled

D. Love Flies Out the Door When Money Comes Innuendo

E. Why is Sex Funny?