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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Since The Way of the World was first presented in 1700, almost every conceivable issue involving this comedy has been subject to critical discussion. For some time, there has been nearly unanimous agreement that the play is a masterpiece of its kind. Yet a notable misunderstanding of what Congreve intended in his portraiture of Mirabell continues to be expressed. Mirabell is commonly but mistakenly regarded as a rake and a cad, who, in spite of his polished manners, is guilty of reprehensible behavior.
1 The Comedy of Manners (London, 1913), p. 194. Palmer qualifies this statement by adding that Mirabell's conduct is villainous according to the moral standards of a later age, but he ordinarily makes no such qualification, as when he describes Congreve's comedies as the highest expression of a wicked and profligate period (p. 143). Felix Schelling in English Drama (London, 1914) professed to find no trace of any standard of rectitude or honor in any of Congreve's characters (p. 268).
2 The Restoration Comedy of Wit (Princeton, N. J., 1952), pp. 185, 187.
3 The First Modern Comedies (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), pp. 188, 203. Cleanth Brooks and Robert B. Heilman in Notes on The Way of the World in Understanding Drama (London, 1946) deny that Congreve presents Mirabell in his new love for Millamant as a changed or “converted” man (p. 443).
4 “Restoration Comedy and its Modern Critics,” Essays in Criticism, vi (October 1956), p. 384.
5 A New View of Congreve's Way of the World, Univ. of Mich. Contributions in Modern Philology, No. 23 (Ann Arbor, 1958), p. 26.
6 Bonamy Dobrée in Restoration Comedy, 1660–1720 (Oxford, 1924) does not attempt to argue the case that Mirabell is a gentleman rather than a rake, but he does maintain that while Congreve's heroes are not excessively righteous, all of them, including Mirabell, have generosity and are never underhand nor malicious (p. 149). More recently, Elinor Fuchs has presented an unusually perceptive study of Mirabell in “The Moral and Aesthetic Achievement of William Congreve,” an Honors Essay (unpubl.) presented in partial fulfillment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts, Radcliffe College (1 March 1955), microfilm, on deposit in the Archives of the Committee on History and Literature, Holyoke 10, Harvard University. The point of view presented by Miss Fuchs is in essential agreement with the point of view expressed in this article, though Miss Fuchs makes no effort to relate Mirabell's character and behavior to the ideals of the gentleman of his age or to answer any of the moral condemnations levelled against Mirabell. Instead, she very ably traces a growing moral seriousness in Congreve's four comedies, culminating in The Way of the World. In Mirabell and Millamant, she sees “complete” personalities, whose social and moral instincts have been refined into self-knowledge and knowledge of the world, with the result that social forms have ceased to be stifling restrictions for them and have become instead a means of preserving human dignity and integrity (Intro., p. i; pp. 49–52).
7 See Dale Underwood, Etherege and the Seventeenth-Century Comedy of Manners (New Haven, Conn., 1957), pp. 10–40, for a discussion of the Restoration libertine. See also the first scene of Etherege's She Wou'd If She Cou'd where Courtall complains that the town has grown wicked because a gentleman is no longer given assistance by some “civil Officer” in finding a new mistress and is forced to become his own “purveyor.” In the same scene Sir Oliver, in lamenting his long absence from town, declares that he had “e'ne grown a Sot for want of Gentleman-like recreations,” such as coupling with his neighbour's daughter “without the help of the Parson of the Parish.”
8 See the excellent unpublished dissertation (Univ. of Chicago, 1925) by Virgil B. Heltzel, “Chesterfield and the Tradition of the Ideal Gentleman” (microfilm).
9 Robert Ashley's definition of honor in Of Honour, ed. Virgil B. Heltzel (San Marino, Calif., 1947), p. 34, carefully incorporates these ideas and is typical of many Renaissance definitions of honor.
10 William Ramesey, The Gentlemans Companion (London, 1672), p. 212. Thomas Culpepper also denied that honor is assigned only to merit. Such an idea, in his opinion, “is indeed the proper subject of a declamation, but it speaks rather Utopian then good English” (Morali Discourses and Essayes, London, 1655, p. 125).
11 London, 1693, p. 69.
12 Francis Osborne in his Advice to a Son (Oxford, 1659) cautioned him not to be “over-passionate” in his prosecution of learning because “Company,” if it is good, “is a better Refiner of the spirits, then ordinary Bookes” (p. 9). The anonymous author of The Courtier's Calling (London, 1675) argued that without “Knowledge of the World” learning becomes “barbarous and displeasing” (p. 207). William de Britaine in Humane Prudence (London, 1689) advised the young gentleman that the “whole Universe” should be his library and that in observation and experience he would find “a way of learning as far beyond that which is got by precept, as the knowledge of a Traveller exceeds that which is got by a Map” (p. 4).
13 From the time of Castiglione, courtesy writers had instructed gentlemen in the rules of decorum governing polite conversation. But the courtesy books of the latter half of the seventeenth century devoted more space to the art of conversation than had earlier books. A number of books treated that subject alone.
14 See Heltzel, “Chesterfield and the Tradition of the Ideal Gentleman,” pp. 364–365, 376.
15 Osborne, p. 9.
16 The Courtier's Calling (London, 1675), p. 208.
17 The edition used in this article is William Congreve, ed. A. C. Ewald, The Mermaid Series (London, 1948).
18 Owen Feltham, Resolves: Divine, Moral, Political, 11th ed. (London, 1696), p. 71.
19 The anonymous author of The Courtier's Calling recommended the value of both conversation with ladies and intrigues with them as the best possible training in the “Rules” whereby a gentleman might become more agreeable (pp. 207–208). See also Richard Lingard, A Letter of Advice to a Young Gentleman (Dublin, 1670), pp. 23–24. In The Letters of Lord Chesterfield, ed. Bonamy Dobrée, 6 vols. (London, 1932), Lord Chesterfield often recommends that his son not only frequent the company of women of fashion to polish his manners but have what he sometimes calls “arrangements” with them. In letter No. 1753 (iv, 1662–63) he inquires whether or not his son is still in love with Madame de Berkenrode, and he recommends that, if so, the “arrangement” be conducted with the utmost discretion, for to brag of it or hint of it or even to disclaim it affectedly would discredit him with both men and women. In letter No. 1774 (iv, 1732) he inquires about his son's relations with Madame Dupin and declares that an “arrangement” with her would be both creditable and advantageous to him. In letter No. 1867 (v, 1975) he confesses that in the company of men he always tried to outshine or at least equal, if possible, the most brilliant man in the company. In this way he acquired a reputation as a man of fashion and was thought to have had some women of condition. This report, whether true or false, readily got him other women of fashion.
20 See William de Britaine, Humane Prudence (London, 1689), p. 316 and Baltasar Gratian, The Oracle, trans. T. B. Watson (London, 1953), p. 69. Gratian was one of the earliest and most influential of those authors who insisted that a gentleman's learning must be adorned by good breeding. His works, including The Compleat Gentleman, first published in 1646, were frequently translated into English.
21 See, for example, Gratian, The Oracle, p. 55, and Richard Brathwaite, The English Gentleman and English Gentlewoman, 3rd ed. (London, 1641), pp. 25, 35, 202.
22 There is no place in the play where we are specifically told that Lady Wishfort knows that Mirabell is her daughter's former lover, but everything points in that direction. Neither Fainall nor Marwood would have any motive for refraining from naming Mirabell. If Fainall did not choose to identify his wife's lover, it is unlikely that his scheme for blackmail would have a profoundly disturbing effect upon Lady Wishfort. Moreover, Fainall could not carry through his threat to divorce Mrs. Fainall unless he could name her lover, and Lady Wishfort would surely realize this fact.