Elisabeth Mignon (essay date 1947)
SOURCE: Mignon, Elisabeth. Introduction to Crabbed Age and Youth: The Old Men and Women in the Restoration Comedy of Manners, pp. 3-35. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1947.
[In the following essay, Mignon analyzes the comedy of manner's attack on old age and its reverence for youth, illustrating with numerous examples.]
Superannuated belles and timeworn rakes crowded the English stage between 1660 and 1700. The old women with their decayed charms are always pursuers, never pursued. The old men are...
Source: Literary Criticism (1400-1800), ©2003 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
(The entire page is 11363 words.)
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