The Man of Mode

by Etherege, Goerge; Barnard, John

• ISBN13: 9780713681932
• ISBN10: 0713681934
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-10-22
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama

Summary

Verbal brilliance, urbane sophistication and sexual conquest are the measures of success for the fashionable set who watched themselves being represented on the Restoration stage. Yet idealization and satire, as this edition of Etherege's masterpiece shows, are flip sides of the same coin, and the play betrays deep anxieties about ridicule and social failure. Any London beau would emulate Dorimant, the unconscionable rake who loves 'em and leaves 'em, but he would also secretly fear that he in fact resembled Sir Fopling Flutter, the model of all Restoration fops, in his vanity and affectation. The women fare no better, being offered for identification Dorimant's discarded mistress Loveit, scheming for revenge, or the beautiful but hard-headed Harriet, who dares Dorimant to woo her in the country, for 'I know all beyond Hyde Park is a desert to you and that no gallantry can draw you farther'.

Author Biography

John Barnard is Professor Emeritus, University of Leeds. His research interests are in Restoration literature, Keats and the second generation Romantics, textual criticism, and book history. Recent publications include The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume IV 1557-1695 (2002).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vi
Note to Revised Edition	p. vi
Introduction	p. ix
About the Play	p. ix
Summary of the Plot	p. x
The Play	p. x
Realism and Comedy	p. xi
Dorimant and the Moral Issue	p. xvi
A Society in Flux	p. xx
'Wildness' and 'Extravagance'	p. xxvi
'Complaisance' and Manners	p. xxx
An Uneasy Balance: Cynicism or Romance?	p. xxxii
Recent Stage History	p. xxxvii
Note on the Text	p. xlv
Early Stage History and Reception	p. xlviii
The Author	p. li
Further Reading	p. lvi
Abbreviations	p. lix
The Man of Mode	p. 1
Dedication	p. 2
Prologue	p. 4
Dramatis Personae	p. 6
Text	p. 7
Epilogue	p. 157
Dr Staggins's Settings of Dorimant's Song and Sir Car Scroope's Song	p. 159
The Bullies' Song	p. 164
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