The Virtuoso (Regents Restoration Drama) - Softcover
First published in 1676, The Virtuoso set a standard for theatrical satire. It was the most extensive dramatic treatment of modern science since Jonson's The Alchemist and took as its target no less than the Royal Society of London. Shadwell's barbs hit their targets often and cleanly. In 1689 he became Poet Laureate of England, a position he held until his death in 1692.
The virtuoso of the title is Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, who like many after him confuses the extent of a collection with the depth of a science. Sir Gimcrack is fascinated by the geography of the moon, the worlds in his microscope, and the possibilities of human flight. More seriously and―for Shadwell's audience―more comically, his obsession with his arrays of worms and spiders proceeds at the expense of his wife and two beautiful nieces.
The play also introduces Sir Formal Trifle, a pedantic ciceronian orator and coxcomb. His character established thereafter the theatrical type of the know-it-all blowhard. Famous for its wit and high-speed changes, The Virtuoso is also a display of the prestige of modern science and the pomposity of its ameteurs.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From the Back Cover:
Now regarded as one of the most amusing plays of the Restoration, Thomas Shadwell's The Virtuoso (1676) is an entertaining satire on scientific pretensions and sexual mores. This new critical edition, the first in three decades, is fully annotated to enable today's reader to enjoy and understand the text to the full. The introduction presents a picture of the author and his time as well as the play in the context of the Restoration stage and of the later productions. Making use of the most recent scholarship, the editors also focus on Thomas Shadwell as the direct inheritor of the Jonsonian comedy of humours and his critical attitude towards the new comedy of manners. They also discuss his long standing political and literary feud with John Dryden who had satirised him mercilessly but who was eventually ousted by Thomas Shadwell as Poet Laureate.
From the Inside Flap:
Thomas Shadwell's The Virtuoso, edited by Juan A. Prieto-Pablos, Maria Jose Mora, Manuel J. Gomez-Lara and Rafael Portillo
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherHodder & Stoughton Educational
- Publication date1966
- ISBN 10 0713152591
- ISBN 13 9780713152593
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages180
- EditorNicolson Marjorie Hope, Rodes David Stuart
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