Publisher's Synopsis
This work complete's Canfield's two-volume cultural history of restoration drama. It analyzes by subgenre the ways in which Restoration playwrights attempted to reinscribe late-feudal aristocratic ideology after the English Civil War. This book demonstrates, for example, how heroic romance and romantic tragedy reaffirm the older ideology after it was tested in the fires of conflict. Tragical satire, the most subversive of these subgenres, exposes not only the failure of the ruling class to live up to its own code but, in some cases, the absurdity of the codes themselves. Canfield concludes the body of work by examining tragicomedy and its blend of idealistic and pragmatic grounds for reaffirmation of aristocratic ideology, thereby bringing his study full circle, back to the world of Restoration comedy.
