William Wycherley

The Country Wife William Wycherley

The Country Wife is a Restoration comedy, that is, an English theatrical comedy written during the period 1660-1710, when theatrical performances resumed in London following their 18-year spell of illegality under the reign of the Puritan Commonwealth. As a genre, Restoration comedy is notable for displaying a recrudescence of bawdiness, the public expression of which had been suppressed under the Puritans, and for taking a satirical, or even cynical, view of marriage and sexuality. As will be seen, these characteristics owe much to the genre's social and historical contexts. Restoration comedy had for its intended audience the English court and other social insiders; whereas the Elizabethan theater had played to a cross-section of English society, the theater audiences of the Restoration had a far more specific social identity, and the comedies they enjoyed reflect their attitudes and values accordingly. The aristocracy had regained its security and visibility with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, but it had lost for good much of its political and economic significance; as a result, this rather aimless class expended its energies on theatergoing and other, more dissolute antics. As if to compensate for its moral nullity, however, the Restoration aristocracy placed more emphasis than ever on social virtuosity and the punctilios of comportment; essentially, it proposed outward good breeding, rather than virtuous moral conduct, as a principle of societal coherence. This valorization of display, of perfect manners, wit, and the ability to improvise, clearly informs the action and dialogue of Restoration comedies. Moreover, the minimization of genuine moral virtue can be seen to impact the values, such as they are, that inform the plays. Among the Restoration aristocracy, sexual libertinism was fashionable and marriage scorned; consequently, as David Cook and John Swannell put it, marriage generally appears in Restoration plays "at best as a convenient means of acquiring an income, and at worst as a constant source of jealousy and frustration." Husbands, in particular, tend to look absurd, being either compulsively jealous or obtusely complacent.