When sentimental comedies dominated much of the field of dramaturgy, Oliver Goldsmith and R.B. Sheridan, through their anti-sentimental comedies, tried to bring back humour, wit, and intellectuality to the stage in the 18th century. Their incidents or characters are so chosen as to satirise the ‘sentimental Muse’. They aim to revive and restore ‘the comic Muse, long sick, in sentimentals’.
Goldsmith, in his much celebratéd treatise “The Present State of Polite Learning,” hammers hard the ‘genteel ( or more properly ‘sentimental) comedy. Goldsmith wrote two prose comedies, both of which rank high among their class. The first, called “The Good-Natured Man,” and the second, “She Stoops to Conquer”. Much palpably, “She Stoops to Conquer” wages a war against the overuse of sentimentality and tears. Goldsmith’s comedy is no “weeping comedy” like Cumberland’s “The West Indian”. It is rather a hilarious, ‘laughing comedy’, Horace Walpole criticising fun and humour in the play, branding it as a farce rather than a comedy. But this criticism will prove to be unfair when we consider that Goldsmith just wanted to counter the hybrid genre of Sentimental Comedy. However, Walpole appreciates the fun that arises out of the situations.
R.B. Sheridan’s first play, “The Rivals,” was a prose comedy, and it had enormous success in his time. It was followed by a farce “The Scheming Lieutenant”, and then by an operatic play. “The Duenna”. “The Duenna” had a phenomenal success, but it was followed by the weaker play “A Trip to Scarborough”. The last but one play, “The School for Scandal,” was undoubtedly his best. Sheridan’s very brief dramatic career came to its early end with his last play, “The Critic”: or, a Tragedy Rehearsed”, It is a very telling attack on the popular sentimental drama, and has been called the best burlesque of its age.
Sheridan’s comedies reveal his genius as the inventor of dramatic situations. It is well said that he has ‘an eye for the situation’. He pulls the wires of his situation dexterously, and his plot grows out of this. There is nothing deep or lofty in it. Sheridan’s plot is no world-shaker and lives only in his situations. The comedy of manners, which is the province of Sheridan’s dramatic art, requires no complicated theme or serious action. “The School for Scandal”, “The Rivals,” and “The Critic” have no great plot and are purely concerned with the dramatic invention of some exciting and comic situations.
Sheridan’s prose comedies also forward the tradition of the Restoration comedies. They present the same world of vices and fashions as in the Restoration Tragedies, but with the Restoration immoralities purged. In Sheridan, we see the polite world of fashion, but he makes its vices appear foolish by exaggerating them in humorous portraiture. The plots, often based on complex intrigues, are always ingenious and effective. The characters, among whom we have Mrs Malaprop, Bob Acres, and Sir Fretful Plagiary, are stage types. But they have become quite irresistible by virtue of their inherent humorous potentialities. The dialogue is brilliant in its picturesque, epigrammatic repartee, full of wit, intellectuality, and humour. The plays are remarkable for their vivacity and charm.
Writers of anti-sentimental comedy emphasize realism and lively social interaction. Instead of presenting excessively virtuous heroes and heroines who constantly shed tears and deliver moral lectures, anti-sentimental playwrights portrayed ordinary human beings with natural weaknesses, follies, and comic imperfections. This made the plays more entertaining and closer to real life. Audiences could laugh at the characters’ vanity, pretensions, and foolish behaviour while also recognising the realities of contemporary society.
The anti-sentimental dramatists also restored the importance of laughter as the chief aim of comedy. They believed that comedy should delight and amuse rather than merely preach morality. In sentimental comedy, emotion and moral instruction often overshadowed humour, but writers like Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan revived sparkling dialogue, comic misunderstandings, irony, satire, and witty repartee. Their plays once again brought energy and theatrical excitement to the English stage.
Anti-sentimental comedy acted as a bridge between Restoration comedy and modern realistic comedy. While it inherited wit and elegance from the Restoration tradition, it avoided the excessive immorality and indecency often associated with earlier comedies. Through this, , it appealed to a broader and more respectable middle-class audience of the eighteenth century. The balance between humour and morality made these plays both entertaining and socially acceptable.
Also read: Definition of Epyllion, Its characteristics and examples
