CRITICISM

Ashton, John W. “The Comedy of Manners.” In Types of English Drama, pp. 385-88. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940.

Overview of the comedy of manners; discusses its characteristics and praises William Congreve's contributions.

Knutson, Harold C. “Corneille and the Comedy of Manners.” Papers on French Seventeenth Century 11, no. 21 (1984): 393-407.

Finds resemblances in tone, character, and structure between the English comedy of manners and the comedies of French dramatist Pierre Corneille.

Muir, Kenneth. “Decline and Renewal.” In The Comedy of Manners, pp. 154-65. London: Hutchinson University Library, 1970.

Views the late eighteenth-century comedies of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith as a revival of the comedy of manners, and a reaction to the sentimental comedy that had gained ascendancy.

Sharma, R. C. “The Gay and the Wild.” In Themes and Conventions in the Comedy of Manners, pp. 18-77. New York: Asia Publishing House, 1965.

Examines various characteristics and conventions in the depiction of the relations between the sexes in the comedy of manners.

Singh, Sarup. Family Relationships in Shakespeare and the Restoration Comedy of Manners. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983, 233 p.

Finds and explores continuities in the handling of human relationships by Shakespeare and the Restoration comic playwrights.

Underwood, Dale. Etherege and the Seventeenth-Century Comedy of Manners. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957, 165 p.

Explains that George Etherege's plays lie somewhere between pre-Restoration comedy and the comedy of manners, and examines Etherege's contributions to drama.