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STATE UINIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH

Department of English Studies

Assignment on 17th century Prose and Drama

Assignment topic

Compare and contrast between William Congreve “The way of the world”, and Francis Bacon “Of marriage and single life”

Crouse code: ENG-1321

Prepared by: Mojahid Billah ID No: UG07-26-12-011

Prepared for:Rashedul Hasan

Lecturer Department of English Studies

Submission Date:22-12-14

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Table of content

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Itroduction

William Congreve was an English dramatist who shaped the English

comedy of manners through his brilliant comic dialogue, his satirical portrayal of

the war of the sexes, and his ironic scrutiny of the affectations of his age. Taking

as its main theme the manners and behaviour of the class to which it was

addressed, that is, the anti-puritanical theatre audience drawn largely from the

court, his plays dealt with imitators of French customs, conceited wits, and

fantastic people of all kinds; but its main theme was the sexual life led by a large

number of courtiers, with their philosophy of freedom and experimentation.

Congreve placed great importance on character sketches and the themes of role

playing, conditional love, mingled with the love for money and the need for

intrigues in almost every facet of life, as can be seen through the plays ―The

Double Dealer‖, ―Love for Love‖ and ―The Way of the World‖.

Francis Bacon’s fame as a writer depends most of all on the fact that he is the

father of modern English prose. He evolved a prose style that proved for the first

time that English could also be used to express the subtleties of thought, in clear

and uninvolved sentences. “I have taken all knowledge for my province” says

Bacon and “Beyond any other book of the same size in any literature they are

loaded with ripest wisdom of experience.” Says Hudson regarding Bacon’s essays.

Nobody can deny the wisdom of Bacon of his understanding of the affairs of the

world. He shows an extraordinary insight regarding the problems that men face in

life. But his wisdom is only practical and not moral. Alexander Pope has given the

following remarks about Bacon in his epic:

If parts allure these think how Bacon shin’d

The wisest, brightest and meanest of mankind

there is some basic truth in this contention. One cannot deny his wisdom, his

observation, intellect and genius. Bacon was a very complex and enigmatic

character. The dichotomy of moral values what one finds in his essays was to be

found in his character, too.

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17th Century Drama

In 1642 the theatres were closed by the authority of the parliament which was

dominated by Puritans and so no good plays were written from 1642 till the Restoration (coming back of monarchy in England with the accession of Charles II

to the throne) in 1660 when the theatres were re-opened. The drama in England after 1660, called the Restoration drama, showed entirely new trends on account

of the long break with the past. The most popular form of drama was the Comedy of Manners which portrayed the sophisticated life of the dominant class of society—its gaiety, foppery, insolence

and intrigue. Thus the basis of the Restoration drama was very narrow. These new trends in comedy are seen in Dryden’s Wild Gallant (1663), Etheredge’s (1635-

1691) The Comical Revenge or Love in a Tub (1664), Wycherley’s The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer, and the plays of Vanbrugh and Farquhar. But the most

gifted among all the Restoration dramatist was William Congreve (1670-1720) who wrote all his best plays he was thirty years of age. He well-known comedies

are Love for Love (1695) andThe Way of the World (1700). It is mainly on account of his remarkable style that Congreve is put at the head of

the Restoration drama. No English dramatist has even written such fine prose for the stage as Congreve did. He balances, polishes and sharpens his sentences until

they shine like chiselled instruments for an electrical experiment, through which passes the current in the shape of his incisive and scintillating wit. As the plays of Congreve reflect the fashions and foibles of the upper classes whose moral

standards had become lax, they do not have a universal appeal, but as social documents their value is very great. Moreover, though these comedies were

subjected to a very severe criticism by the Romantics like Shelley and Lamb, they are now again in great demand and there is a revival of interest in Restoration

comedy.

17th Century prose

The prose of the seventeenth-century is notable for its extreme variety. Although seventeenth-century prose texts vary greatly in mood, tone, focus, and style, each expresses the desire for absolute and unqualified truth. Both the individuality and

the search for truth expressed in these texts are correlated with the possibilities, discoveries, and disappointments of the time in which they were produced. It was

an age of extreme transition, and, within their works, each of the major seventeenth-century prose authors echoed that uncertainty and change.

Francis Bacon also occupies a transitional place in English prose. He is a symbol of the greatness of Elizabethan intellect and the foremost promoter of the scientific

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attitude that ascended in the seventeenth-century. Much of his work, including that which deals with non-scientific matters, promotes inductive reasoning.

Many of Bacon’s statements are platitudes, such as “the vices of authority are chiefly four: delays, corruption, roughness, and facility” (44). His statements, even

when somewhat vague (“so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm” (45)) reflect a complex and effective prose style that sets him apart from

Breton. Bacon’s is not the work of free-association or random reflection; rather, it is the literary manifestation of the inductive method. For example, in Novum

Organum, Bacon explains that “[the inductive method] arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried” (55). He uses this

method of reasoning in his own work, arriving lastly at the general conclusion that “there is taken for the material of philosophy either a great deal out of a few things,

or very little out of many things” (57). His prose is the intellectual answer to Breton’s pastoral meditations. Ultimately, Bacon helped to provide a bridge to the

new scientific age.

William Congreve Biography

William Congreve, 1670-1729, was born in Yorkshire, England. As his father was

an officer in the army and the commander of a garrison near Cork in Ireland,

Congreve was educated at Kilkenny and then at Trinity College, Dublin, where he

was a slightly younger college-mate of Jonathan Swift. In 1691, he was admitted to

the Middle Temple in London to study law. It is likely that, like Young Witwoud

in The Way of the World, his interest in law was only a means to take him to

London, the center of all excitement.By 1692, Congreve was already a recognized

member of the literary world. His first play, The Old Bachelor, was first acted in

January 1693, before he was twenty-three years old, and was triumphantly

successful. His other plays, The Double-Dealer, Love for Love, The Mourning

Bride, and The Way of the World, all followed at short intervals. The last of them

was presented in March 1700.For the rest of his life, Congreve wrote no plays. The

Way of the World was not successful on the stage, and this disappointment may

have had something to do with his decision. He engaged in controversy with

Jeremy Collier on the morality of the stage, a frustrating experience. He suffered

from gout and bad sight. He became an elder statesman of letters at the age of

thirty, honored by the nobility, highly respected by younger writers.

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PLAYS

The Old Bachelor (1693)

The Double-Dealer (1693)

Love for Love (1695)

The Mourning Bride (1697)

The Way of the World (1700)

The Works of William Congreve; Consisting of His Plays and Poems (1761)

Incognita (1922)

The Complete Works (1923)

Comedies of William Congreve (1925)

The Mourning Bride, Poems, & Miscellanies (1928)

Complete Plays (1956)

NON-FICTION

Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations (1698)

Writing Career

During his career as counsel and statesman, Bacon often wrote for the court. In 1584, he wrote his first political memorandum, A Letter of Advice to Queen

Elizabeth. In 1592, to celebrate the anniversary of the queen's coronation, he wrote an entertaining speech in praise of knowledge. The year 1597 marked Bacon's first

publication, a collection of essays about politics. The collection was later expanded and republished in 1612 and 1625.In 1605, Bacon published The Advancement of Learning in an unsuccessful attempt to rally supporters for the sciences. In 1609,

he departed from political and scientific genres when he released On the Wisdom of the Ancients, his analysis of ancient mythology.Bacon then resumed writing about

science, and in 1620, published Novum Organum, presented as Part Two of The Great Saturation. In 1622, he wrote a historical work for Prince Charles,

entitled The History of Henry VII. Bacon also published Historia

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Ventorum and Historia Vitae et Mortis that same year. In 1623, he published De Augmentis Scientarium, a continuation of his view on scientific reform. In 1624,

his works The New Atlantis and Apothegmswere published. Sylva Sylvarium, which was published in 1627, was among the last of his written works.

Now let’s evaluate Congreve’s The Way of the World Plot, style and

theme.

The Way of the World (1700) is Congreve’s best experimental comedy even

though he employs a typical plot formula for a Restoration comedy of manners. The world of the play reflects Congreve’s own society and revolves around a witty

young man winning a lady and her fortune after overcoming the obstacles posed by antagonistic parents and other suitors. The society depicted in The Way of the

World is the upper class fashionable society of London. The action of the play takes place in three places. The first is the chocolate House which was used for

socializing and entertainment during the Restoration. The second is St James’s Park in Londonwhere the upper class people walked before dinner. Witwould says,

“We’ll all walk in the park; the ladies talked of being there.” The third is the house of Lady Wishfort, an aristocratic woman.

Most of the male and female characters of the play are cultured, talented, formal, artificial, fashionable, depraved, ‘cold’ and ‘courtly’. Their qualities are actually a

part of Restoration age culture. The Restoration period was an age of loose morals and, and was devoid of moral

values. The Way of the World contains this current through the illicit love and adulterous relations – e.g. relation between Fainall and Mrs. Marwood, between

Mirabell, the hero, and Mrs. Fainal. Mirabell married Mrs. Fainall off to Fainal, being afraid of her being pregnant. Fainall’s illicit relationship with Mrs. Marwood

having been exposed, Fainall faces the situation fearlessly and shamelessly: “If it must all come out, why let ‘them know it; it’s but the way of the world.”

Even Mrs. Marwood and Lady Wishfort secretly loved Mirabell. Unhappy conjugal life can be treated as another characteristic of the time which is

expressed through the relation between Mr. and Mrs. Fainall. One of them feels uneasy in the presence of another. Mrs. Fainall expresses her uneasiness in St

James’s park in the presence of her husband- “He turned sort upon me unaware, and had almost overcome me.”

The Way of the World also exposes the worldliness and greed of the young men of the time. Mercenary motives led them to seek rich heiresses in marriage Mr.

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Fainall marries Mrs. Fainall, a widow, for her property. Mirabell does not want to marry Millament without her property.

This mercenary tendency led them to intrigue which was the order of the day in

social and domestic life. Mirabell, in order to obtain Milament with her whole legacy, pretends to woo Lady Wishfort. He marries his servant to Wishfort’s maid

and sends his servant as Sir Roland to Lady Wishfort so that the servant can make a marriage contact with the lady. By this intrigue, Mirabell makes Lady Wishfort

agree – “Upon condition that she consents to [his] marriage with her niece,

And surrender[s] the moiety of her fortune in her possession.” Even Sir Wilfull, an exception to other characters of the play, joins the web of

intrigues in the play. Moreover, Fainall makes the legacy-conflict deeper through his cruel condition to Lady Wishfort.

In The Way of The World, we are acquainted with the vanities, affectations and fashions of the time. Mirrabell satirically remarks in the proviso scene on women’s fondness of wearing masks, going to the theatre with or without their husbands’

knowledge, idle gossip, slandering the absent friends etc. In her contact with Mirabell, Millament proves her habit of late rising, contemplation in solitude

general laziness etc. She says, “I’ll ye abed in a morning as long as I please.”

Mirabell also ridicules pregnant women’s wearing tight dresses in order to maintain their figure which can actually deform their children. Moreover,

intelligent women like Millament allowed a crowd of admirers to a school of fools to gather around them in order to show their demand and worth. Millament’s

vanity is revealed in causing her lover pain to have a sense of power: “One’s cruelty is one’s power.”

Above all, Lady Wishfort, a higher class fashionable lady, seeks a husband in her age of fifty five. Mirabell ridicules her saying, “The good lady would marry anything that resembled a men.”

And the make up and dressing up of women of the society is expressed in the

speech of the footman about Lady Wishfort of the house- “I can not swear to her face in a morning, before she is dressed.”

The upper class people could give up anything only to maintain/save the family

name and fame. Lady Wishfort wants to conceal the scandal of her daughter by any means. She says,

“I’ll compound, I’ll give up all, myself and my all, my niece and her all- anything, everything for composition.”

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dialogue is throughout witty which is something unrealistic.. Therefore the play,

like other plays of its kind, is called an ‘artificial’ comedy.

In this play, Witwould and Petulant are presented as fops and false wits, the so-called ‘fine gentlemen’. Their pastime is to accompany ladies and passing

vulgar remarks at them. They are Millament’s suitors for ‘fashions sake’. Their air and activities amuse us. Sir Wilfull, Witwould’s brother, calls Witwould, “the

fashion’s a fool; and you’re a fop, dear brother.” Petulant hires women to come and ask for him at the chocolate – house. Fainall says about his purpose,

“This is in order to have something to brag of the next-time he makes Court to Millament, and swear he has abandoned the whole sex for her sake.”

Prologue

A prologue was a convention of the plays of the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries. It is normally written in verse and states the writer’s aim and theme. It is usually spoken by one of the characters. This prologue was delivered by the actor who played the part of Fainall. Congreve was among the rare group of writers

who possessed the ability to stand back and objectively reflect on their work. His prologue is therefore not a mere convention but expresses some important points.

Although Congreve describes the unfortunate condition of poets, the prologue is not remorseful in tone. Rather, Congreve urges the audience to “save or damn”

him according to their own discretion and judgment. He knows that he cannot rely on his past good fortune and that he is risking everything on this new venture. He

promises that he will not resent it if the audience judges his work harshly.In truth, Congreve was extremely bitter about the poor response towards this play when it

first appeared. His remark in the dedication about the poor taste of the multitudes who favor the “coarsest strokes of Plautus” to the purity of Terence’s style is an

indication of his resentment. Some critics have suggested that Congreve did not Write any other plays after The Way of the World because he was so disheartened by its failure.

FRANCIS BACON Biography

Francis Bacon was born in London on January 22, 1561. His father, Sir Nicolas

Bacon, was Lord Keeper of the Seal. His mother, Lady Anne Cooke Bacon, was

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his father's second wife and daughter to Sir Anthony Cooke, a humanist who was

Edward VI's tutor. Francis Bacon’s mother was also the sister-in-law of Lord

Burghley.The younger of Sir Nicholas and Lady Anne's two sons, Francis Bacon

began attending Trinity College, Cambridge, in April 1573, when he was 11 years

old. He completed his course of study at Trinity in December 1575. The following

year, Bacon enrolled in a law program at Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, the

school his brother Anthony attended. Finding the curriculum at Gray's Inn stale and

old fashioned, Bacon later called his tutors "men of sharp wits, shut up in their

cells if a few authors, chiefly Aristotle, their dictator." Bacon favored the new

Renaissance humanism over Aristotelianism and scholasticism, the more

traditional schools of thought in England at the time. Sir Francis Bacon the man is

the product of Renaissance. Man’s glory, generous or tense, his opportunities of

mind and body, his eyes rolling across the subtle and magnificence of the world his

joy in learning, discovering, weighing – creating all these as it existed in Bacon’s

mind, Essays (counsels: Civil and Moral) exhibits a practical value in life. Bacon’s

essays are counsels and are designed for the practical benefits of man and not for

his emotional or imaginative development. This utilitarian attitude is most evident

in his 59 essays.

Death and Legacy -In March 1626, Bacon was performing a series of experiments

with ice. While testing the effects of cold on the preservation and decay of meat, he

stuffed a hen with snow near High gate, England, and caught a chill. Ailing, Bacon

stayed at Lord Arundel's home in London. The guest room where Bacon resided

was cold and musty. He soon developed bronchitis. On April 9, 1626, a week after

he had arrived at Lord Arundel's estate, Francis Bacon died.

Style

His essays are also important from stylistic point of view, too. To Bacon must go

the credit, not only of introducing a new literary form into England but also that he

developed a style which is marked for its pitch and pregnancy in the

communication of thought. It was the first style set in England which later traveled

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to the age of Addison, Steele and Swift. He discovered the value of brief, crisp and

firmly-knitted sentences of a type hitherto unfamiliar in English. He also rejected

the elaborate euphuistic style overcrowded with imagery and conceits. The most

important characteristic of his style, that which gives the essays the position of a

classic in English Language is the terseness of expression and epigrammatic force.

He has an unraveled ability of packing his thoughts into the smallest possible

space. The essays may be described as one critic says, “Infinite riches in a little

room.” (Give sentential examples from his essays). Bacon was a man of the

renaissance and in his essays; we find a characteristic of his age: the use of

figurative language. Similes and Metaphors and striking comparisons are found in

his essays. The scholar’s love of learning is evidenced by the frequent use of

quotations and allusions in the essays. What is most important regarding his

contribution is the terseness and epigrammatic quality of his essays.

Aphoristic style of Bacon

An aphoristic style means a compact, condensed and epigrammatic style of

writing. Bacon’s writing has been admired for various reasons. Some have admired

them for dazzling rhetoric, others his grace. In Bacon we find a style which is

distinct and at the same time characteristic of his age. His style includes various

qualities. Firstly, he remains the best aphoristic, so he stands the most quotable

writer. There is terseness of expression and epigrammatic brevity, in the essays of

Bacon. His sentences are brief and rapid, but they are also forceful. As Dean

Church says, “They come down like the strokes of a hammer.” The force of

aphoristic style depends on other stylistic qualities which supplement it. He weighs

the pros and cons of a statement and immediately counter-balances it. (Give

examples from the above the extracts).

A Rhetorician

Bacon’s style is definitely rhetorical. In this connection, Saints bury has remarked

that no one, “knows better than —- (Bacon) how to leave a single word to produce

all its effects by using it in some slightly uncommon sense. He has great powers of

attracting and persuading his readers even though he may not convince them. In

prose rhetoric, in the use, that is to say, of language to dazzle and persuade, not to

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convince. He has few rivals and no superiors in English.” There is a constant use

of imagery and analogy in Bacon’s essays. The apt and extensive use of

metaphors, images, similitude’s and analogies is in keeping with the view of the

rhetoricians of the ancient as well as of the Renaissance. Bacon draws his imagery

from the familiar objects o nature, or from the facts of everyday life.

His Allusions and Quotations

The essay bear witness to Bacon’s learned mind in the extensive use of quotations

and allusions drawn from various sources, classical fables, the Bible, History, the

ancient Greek and the Roman writers. Of Truth includes Pilate, Lucian and

Montaigne, In Of Great Place; we have Tacitus, Galba and Vespasian, and Of

Friendship includes reference to Aristotle. Thus Bacon employs allusions to and

quotations in order to explain his point. They serve to make his style more

scholarly and enrich it while lending to his ideas. Though, his style is heavy with

learning, yet it is more flexible than any of his predecessors and contemporaries.

His sentences are short and with this shortness come lucidity of expression. Thus

he shows mastery of the principles of prose. There almost no humor in Bacon’s

essays, but his essays is packed with astounding wit.

Wisdom, Meanness and Brightness

To a religious-minded man like Blake, advice such as what Bacon offers in his

essays must indeed have been shocking. Blake would regard any utilitarian advice

as opposite to God’s ways, but Bacon was not so particular, for he a man of the

Renaissance. It is easy to assume that Bacon’s wisdom was cynical because many

of his advice calmly ignores ethical standards and seems to imply that nothing

succeeds like success. Bacon is utilitarian, but he is so because he realized that the

vast majority of the people in the world are guided by this attitude and success for

them has only one meaning – the material success. His essays reflect the profound

wisdom of his mind, his brightness is ascertained by his vast knowledge and

literary and classical allusions made in his works, his meanness does not deal with

his money. He was reputed to be a very generous man. He was mean because he

showed a surprising lack of principle in promoting his selfish interests.

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Philosopher – cum – moralist:

At least two of his essays present him as entertaining deep regard for high

sentiments and the sanctity of truth. Of Truth speaks of truth, love and fair dealings

in high terms. Here he is a philosopher who advocates the pursuit of truth. He is

also a moralist when he says that “man’s mind should turn upon the “poles of

truth.” Falsehood debases man despite his material gains and success. Bacon

advocates man to follow a path of truth and truthfulness. Similarly, his essay Of

Goodness and Goodness of Nature is on a purely moral plane. He counsels

goodness, charity and benevolence and there is a clear condemnation of evil. There

are some essays in which he puts a number of moral precepts, not ignoring

prudential aspects. When we come to Bacon’s essays dealing with subjects such as

love, marriage, family life and parents and children, we are struck by the cold and

unemotional treatment of topics what could easily admit an emotional approach.

Prudence governs marriage, love and friendship. Love is an emotion, not fit for life

according to Bacon. As a philosopher, he takes a balanced view of everything,

weighs the pros and cons of every issue, presents different aspects of the picture

and counsels moderation. This is a rationalist’s approach and it preludes emotion

and feeling. The essays are a handbook of practical wisdom. Each essay is a

collection of suggestion and guideline for a man of action. His essays lack

coherence and logical sequence, otherwise a quality in a standard essay. But his

essays are unity of ideas.

Major works

1. Natural Philosophy: Struggle with Tradition 2. Natural Philosophy: Theory of the Idols and the System of Sciences 2.1 The Idols

2.2 System of Sciences 2.3 Matter Theory and Cosmology

3. Scientific Method: The Project of the Instauratio Magna 4. Scientific Method: Novum Organum and the Theory of Induction

5. Science and Social Philosophy 6. The Ethical Dimension in Bacon's Thought

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Roughly Bacon's essays can be grouped in three categories-- essays in relation to the world and society, essays in relation to individualism and essays in relation to

his makers i.e. God or Nature. The first group that evaluates the relationship of mankind to the physical world and their mutual relations includes Of Seditions and

Troubles, Of Great Place, Of Discourse, Of Judicature, Of Suitors, Of Gardens etc. The second group describing man in his intellectual and moral relations with others

covers essays like: Of Parents and Children, Of Marriage , Of Envy, Of Love, Of Travel, Of Friendship, Of Health, Of Custom and Education, Of Followers and

Friends, Of Studies, Of Ceremonies and Respects, Of Honor and Reputation, Of Fame etc.Man's relationship with his maker and the unseen world is primary focus

in the third group that include essays like: Of Death, Of Unity in Religion, Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature, Of Atheism, Of Superstition, Of Wisdom for a

Man’s Self, Of Nature in Men etc. But grouping is more pedantic while each of the essays of Bacon marks interrelated studies and views.