The Wild Gallant is a Restoration comedy written by John Dryden. Restoration comedy is the name given to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710 John Dryden (– was an influential English poet Literary critic, Translator and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England It was Dryden's earliest play, and written in prose, not verse; it was premiered on the stage by the King's Company at their Vere Street theatre, formerly Gibbon's Tennis Court, on February 5, 1663. The King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London at the start of the English Restoration. Vere Street may be Vere Street Westminster - a street off Oxford Street, London Vere Street Camden - a Gibbon's Tennis Court was a building off Vere Street and Clare Market, near Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, England. (The play's opening scene features astrologers drawing horoscopes on the play's fortunes for that date. ) As Dryden himself stated in his Preface, it was "the first attempt I made in Dramatique Poetry. "
Like the earliest works of many authors, and also like many other Restoration plays, The Wild Gallant is a derivative work: Dryden borrowed from several previous authors and plays, as far back as Ben Jonson's Every Man Out of His Humour (1599). The English Restoration, or simply The Restoration began in 1660 when the English monarchy, Scottish monarchy and Irish monarchy were restored Benjamin Jonson ( c 11 June 1572 &ndash 6 August 1637) was an English Renaissance Dramatist Every Man out of His Humour is a satirical comedy written by English Playwright Ben Jonson, acted in 1599 by the Lord Chamberlain's Men [1] Dryden admired the versification of Sir John Suckling, and quoted and paraphrased Suckling in his play. Sir John Suckling ( February 10 1609 &ndash June 1 1642) was an English Cavalier poet whose best known poem may be
In his Preface to the first edition of the play, Dryden admitted that "The Plot was not Originally my own. . . . " Critic Alfred Harbage argued that Richard Brome was the likely author of the work in its original form. Alfred Bennett Harbage ( July 18 1901 &ndash May 1976 was an influential Shakespeare scholar of the mid-20th century Richard Brome (c 1590? &ndash 1653 (pronounced "Broom" was an English dramatist of the Caroline era (Harbage made this argument regarded two plays connected with the Dryden canon, The Wild Gallant and The Mistaken Husband. The Mistaken Husband is a Restoration comedy in the canon of John Dryden 's dramatic works where it has constituted a long-standing authorship problem )[2] Harbage noted that in The Wild Gallant Lady Constance fakes a pregnancy with a pillow under her dress, just as Annabelle does in Brome's The Sparagus Garden. The Sparagus Garden is a Caroline era stage play a Comedy by Richard Brome. Other elements in the play's plotting and style also indicate Brome, in Harbage's view. The play's stylistic inconsistencies have been observed by other critics — one referring to the "Jonsonian" aspects of the play;[3] but Brome was a dedicated follower of Jonson, and the play's "Jonsonian" features can just as easily be considered "Bromian. Benjamin Jonson ( c 11 June 1572 &ndash 6 August 1637) was an English Renaissance Dramatist "
If Harbage's argument is valid, it contains a measure of irony: Dryden mixed Brome with Suckling in his potpourri of influences and borrowings, and Suckling and Brome were theatrical rivals. [See: Aglaura; The Court Beggar. Aglaura is a late Caroline era stage play written by Sir John Suckling. The Court Beggar is a Caroline era stage play written by Richard Brome. ]
Dryden composed a set of verses addressed to Lady Castlemaine, the mistress of King Charles II, crediting her with "encouraging" this early play. Barbara Palmer 1st Duchess of Cleveland ( 12 May 1641 Old Style &ndash 9 October 1709) was a royal Courtesan and one Charles II (Charles Stuart 29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685 was the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Dryden's first effort was not, however, a success with its original audience; "the greater part condemn'd it," as Dryden himself put it. Samuel Pepys saw the second Court performance on February 23, 1663, and in his Diary called it "so poor a thing as ever I saw in my life almost. Samuel Pepys, FRS (23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703 was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament, who is now most famous for . . . " (Pepys complained that even at the end of the play he could not tell which character was the Wild Gallant. ) Some commentators considered it coarse, even by the libertine standards of the era. Dryden re-wrote the comedy, and it was more successful when revived in 1667.
The play was first published in 1669, in a quarto printed by Thomas Newcomb for the bookseller Henry Herringman. The size of a specific Book is measured from the head to tail of the spine and from edge to edge across the covers Henry Herringman (1628 &ndash 1704 was a prominent London bookseller and publisher in the second half of the seventeenth century That text is the revised version of 1667, not the original of 1663. Other editions followed in 1684 and 1694, both from Herringman. [4]
References
- ^ Adolphus William Ward and Alfred Rayney Waller, eds. , The Cambridge History of English Literature, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1912; Vol. 8, p. 18 n. 1.
- ^ Alfred Harbage, "Elizabethan-Restoration Palimpsests," Modern Language Review Vol. 35 No. 3 (July 1940), pp. 287-319.
- ^ Harbage, p. 308 n. 2.
- ^ Hugh MacDonald, John Dryden: A Bibliography of Early Editions and of Drydeniana, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1939, reprinted Kessinger Publishing, 2006; pp. 99-101.
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