This seminar will introduce students to three eighteenth-century comedies: John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer (1773), and Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The School for Scandal (1777). We will explore developments in the genre of comedy and in the staging of plays across the period 1500-1800, but students will mainly concentrate on the three set plays and the insight they offer into eighteenth-century society and theatrical modes. These witty plays deal with the theme of marriage from a range of angles and contexts whilst depicting very different social scenes, be it the criminal underworld of eighteenth-century London, London High Society, or the infamous disparity between city and country life.
Credit requirements are regular attendance, active participation and an end of term paper of 3000 words. The number of students in this course is limited to thirty. Only the first thirty students to register will be accepted as participants.