Expecting this will be of absolutely no importance to anyone but me: "A man can rise from faeries to Paradise Lost ( I ought to know), but never get from Restoration Comedy to anything of the sublime." CS Lewis, after a tutorial session with John Betjeman and two other students at Magdalen. (Lewis did not think much of Betjeman as a student.)
Restoration Comedy loomed too large too long in me.
I tasted it. Didn't care for it.
ReplyDeleteSo I side with the Don on this one, although I must confess to doing so without his depth of knowledge on the subject.
That's OK though. I do that a lot.
I've never read a real restoration comedy, but I gather the genre is alive and well in the modern romantic comedy or comedy of manners, which I confess I have always enjoyed. It's true that I enjoy a romantic comedy most when the ridicule is directed at the truly ridiculous, not at the essential idea of mores or principles.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather read "Pride and Prejudice" than "The Faerie Queen" any day.
I am completely at a loss here, and find I don't care if I am.
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