Etherege, George | G. S. Street (essay date 1893)
G. S. Street (essay date 1893)
SOURCE: Street, G. S. “Etherege.” In Miniatures and Moods, pp. 34-9. London: David Nutt, 1893.
[In the essay below, Street praises Etherege's display of comedic talent in The Comical Revenge, She Would If She Could, and The Man of Mode.]
When you read Wycherley, you recognise a master of theatrical effects, the able exponent of a robustly vile humanity; then you feel a trifle sickened, and anon are downright bored. He is no cynic, not held by any ethical convention; if in his pages the world be a thing grotesque, obscene, it is because to a modern apprehension the man was even so: honest he was, as well, and, therefore, with little satisfaction for a splenetic mood. Congreve, of course, is pre-eminent in wit and diction; and because there is a malicious subtlety in the wickedness of his world, and his way is to see evil in everything, while you are aware, all the time, that your author has...
[The entire page is 1254 words long]
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