Colley Cibber (ˈ; 6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757) was an English
actor-managerAn actor-manager is a leading actor who sets up their own permanent theatrical company and manages the company's business and financial arrangements, sometimes taking over the management of a theatre, to perform plays of their own choice and in which they will usually star...
, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir
Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber (1740) describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style. He wrote 25 plays for his own company at
Drury LaneDrury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....
, half of which were adapted from various sources, which led Robert Lowe and
Alexander PopeAlexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
, among others, to criticise his "miserable mutilation" of "crucified
MolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
[and] hapless
ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
". He regarded himself as first and foremost an actor and had great popular success in comical
fopFop became a pejorative term for a foolish man over-concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th century England. Some of the very many similar alternative terms are: "coxcomb", fribble, "popinjay" , fashion-monger, and "ninny"...
parts, while as a tragic actor he was persistent but much ridiculed. Cibber's brash, extroverted personality did not sit well with his contemporaries, and he was frequently accused of tasteless theatrical productions, shady business methods, and a social and political opportunism that was thought to have gained him the laureateship over far better poets. He rose to ignominious fame when he became the chief target, the head Dunce, of Alexander Pope's satirical poem
Dunciad.
Cibber's poetical work was derided in his time, and has been remembered only for being poor. His importance in British theatre history rests on his being one of the first in a long line of actor-managers, on the interest of two of his comedies as documents of evolving early 18th-century taste and ideology, and on the value of his autobiography as a historical source.
Life
Cibber was born in Southampton Street, in
Bloomsbury-Places:* Bloomsbury is an area in central London.* Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland...
, London. He was the eldest child of
Caius Gabriel CibberCaius Gabriel Cibber was a Danish sculptor, who enjoyed great success in England, and was the father of the actor, author and poet laureate Colley Cibber. He was appointed "carver to the king's closet" by William III....
, a distinguished sculptor originally from Denmark. His mother, Jane née Colley, came from a family of
gentryGentry denotes "well-born and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past....
from
GlastonGlaston is a village in the county of Rutland in the East Midlands of England.Glaston is about four miles south of Rutland Water and is on the A47 two miles east of Uppingham. There are approximately 80 houses in total with one public house 'The Old Pheasant' on Main Road , and a flooring...
,
RutlandRutland is a landlocked county in central England, bounded on the west and north by Leicestershire, northeast by Lincolnshire and southeast by Peterborough and Northamptonshire....
. He was educated at
the King's School, GranthamThe King's School is a British grammar school located in the market town of Grantham, in Lincolnshire, England, and one of the oldest schools in the UK.-History:...
, from 1682 until the age of 16, but failed to win a place at
Winchester CollegeWinchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...
, which had been founded by his maternal ancestor
William of WykehamWilliam of Wykeham was Bishop of Winchester, Chancellor of England, founder of Winchester College, New College, Oxford, New College School, Oxford, and builder of a large part of Windsor Castle.-Life:...
. In 1688, he joined the service of his father's patron,
Lord DevonshireWilliam Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire KG PC was a soldier and Whig statesman, the son of William Cavendish, 3rd Earl of Devonshire and Lady Elizabeth Cecil.-Life:...
, who was one of the prime supporters of the
Glorious RevolutionThe Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
. After the revolution, and at a loose end in London, he was attracted to the stage and in 1690 began work as an actor in
Thomas BettertonThomas Patrick Betterton , English actor, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London.-Apprentice and actor:...
's
United CompanyThe United Company was a London theatre company formed in 1682 with the merger of the King's Company and the Duke's Company.Both the Duke's and King's Companies suffered poor attendance during the turmoil of the Popish Plot period, 1678–81...
at the
Drury Lane TheatreThe Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
. "Poor, at odds with his parents, and entering the theatrical world at a time when players were losing their power to businessmen-managers", on 6 May 1693 Cibber married Katherine Shore, the daughter of Matthias Shore, sergeant-trumpeter to the King, despite his poor prospects and insecure, socially inferior job.
Cibber and Katherine had 12 children between 1694 and 1713. Six died in infancy, and most of the surviving children received short shrift in his will. Catherine, the eldest surviving daughter, married Colonel James Brown and seems to have been the dutiful one who looked after Cibber in old age following his wife's death in 1734. She was duly rewarded at his death with most of his estate. His middle daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, went into business. Anne had a shop that sold fine wares and foods, and married John Boultby. Elizabeth had a restaurant near
Gray's InnThe Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
, and married firstly Dawson Brett, and secondly (after Brett's death) Joseph Marples. His only son to reach adulthood,
TheophilusTheophilus Cibber was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager Colley Cibber.He began acting at an early age, and followed his father into theatrical management. In 1727, Alexander Pope satirized Theophilus Cibber in his Dunciad as a youth who "thrusts his person full...
, became an actor at Drury Lane, and was an embarrassment to his father because of his scandalous private life. His other son to survive infancy, James, died in or after 1717 before reaching adulthood. Colley's youngest daughter
CharlotteCharlotte Charke was an English actress, playwright, novelist, autobiographer, and noted transvestite. She acted on the stage from the age of 17, mainly in breeches roles, and took to wearing male clothing off the stage...
followed in her father's theatrical footsteps, but she fell out with him and her sister Catherine, and she was cut off by the family.
After an inauspicious start as an actor, Cibber eventually became a popular comedian, wrote and adapted many plays, and rose to become one of the newly empowered businessmen-managers. He took over the management of Drury Lane in 1710 and took a highly commercial, if not artistically successful, line in the job. In 1730, he was made
Poet LaureateA poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
, an appointment which attracted widespread scorn, particularly from
Alexander PopeAlexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
and other
ToryToryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
satirists. Off-stage, he was a keen gambler, and was one of the investors in the South Sea Company.
In the last two decades of his life, Cibber remained prominent in society, and summered in
GeorgianThe Georgian era is a period of British history which takes its name from, and is normally defined as spanning the reigns of, the first four Hanoverian kings of Great Britain : George I, George II, George III and George IV...
spaThe term spa is associated with water treatment which is also known as balneotherapy. Spa towns or spa resorts typically offer various health treatments. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters goes back to prehistoric times. Such practices have been popular worldwide, but are...
s such as Tunbridge, Scarborough and Bath. He was friendly with the writer
Samuel RichardsonSamuel Richardson was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded , Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and The History of Sir Charles Grandison...
, the actress
Margaret WoffingtonMargaret "Peg" Woffington was a well-known Irish actress in Georgian London.- Early life :Woffington was born of humble origins in Dublin. Her father is thought to have been a bricklayer, and after his death, the family became impoverished...
and the memoirist–poet
Laetitia PilkingtonLaetitia Pilkington was a celebrated Anglo-Irish poet and important source of information on the early 18th century. Her Memoirs are the source of much of what is known of the personalities and habits of Jonathan Swift and others.Laetitia was born of two distinguished families...
. Aged 73 in 1745, he made his last appearance on the stage as Pandulph in his own "deservedly unsuccessful"
Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John. In 1750, he fell seriously ill and recommended his friend and protégé
Henry Jones-Life:Jones was born at Beaulieu, near Drogheda, co. Louth, in 1721. He was apprenticed to a bricklayer, but contrived to study privately. Some complimentary verses which he addressed to the corporation of Drogheda and some lines 'On Mr. Pope's Death,' attracted the attention of Lord-chief-justice...
as the next Poet Laureate. Cibber recovered and Jones passed into obscurity. Cibber died suddenly at his house in
Berkeley SquareBerkeley Square is a town square in the West End of London, England, in the City of Westminster. It was originally laid out in the mid 18th century by architect William Kent...
, London, in December 1757, leaving small pecuniary legacies to four of his five surviving children, £1000 each to his granddaughters Jane and Elizabeth (the daughters of Theophilus), and the residue of his estate to his eldest daughter Catherine. He was buried on 18 December, probably at the
Grosvenor ChapelGrosvenor Chapel, is an Anglican church in what is now the City of Westminster, England, built in 1730s it inspired many churches in New England...
on South Audley Street.
Autobiography
Cibber's colourful autobiography,
An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber (1740), was chatty, meandering, anecdotal, vain and occasionally inaccurate. At the time of writing the word "apology" meant an
apologia, a statement in defence of one's actions rather than a statement of regret for having transgressed.
The text virtually ignores his wife and family, but Cibber wrote in detail about his time in the theatre, especially his early years as a young actor at Drury Lane in the 1690s, giving a vivid account of the cut-throat theatre company rivalries and chicanery of the time, as well as providing pen portraits of the actors he knew. The
Apology is vain and self-serving, as both his contemporaries and later commentators have pointed out. For the early part of Cibber's career, it is unreliable in respect of chronology and other hard facts, understandably, since it was written 50 years after the events, apparently without the help of a journal or notes. Nevertheless, it is an invaluable source for all aspects of the early 18th-century theatre in London, for which documentation is otherwise scanty. Because he worked with many actors from the early days of Restoration theatre, such as
Thomas BettertonThomas Patrick Betterton , English actor, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London.-Apprentice and actor:...
and
Elizabeth BarryElizabeth Barry was an English actress of the Restoration period.She worked in big, prestigious London theatre companies throughout her successful career: from 1675 in the Duke's Company, 1682 – 1695 in the monopoly United Company, and from 1695 onwards as a member of the actors' cooperative...
at the end of their careers, and lived to see
David GarrickDavid Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
perform, he is a bridge between the earlier mannered and later more naturalistic styles of performance.
The
Apology was a popular work and gave Cibber a good return. Its self-complacency, however, infuriated some of his contemporaries, notably Pope, but even the usually critical
Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
had to admit that it was "very entertaining and very well done". It went through four editions in his lifetime, and more after his death, and generations of readers have found it an amusing and engaging read, projecting an author always "happy in his own good opinion, the best of all others; teeming with animal spirits, and uniting the self-sufficiency of youth with the garrulity of age."
Actor
Cibber began his career as an actor at Drury Lane in 1690, and had little success for several years. "The first Thing that enters into the Head of a young Actor", he wrote in his autobiography half a century later, "is that of being a Hero: In this Ambition I was soon snubb'd by the Insufficiency of my Voice; to which might be added an uninform'd meagre Person ... with a dismal pale Complexion. Under these Disadvantages, I had but a melancholy Prospect of ever playing a Lover with
Mrs. BracegirdleAnne Bracegirdle was an English actress.Little is known of Bracegirdle's early life. Her precise date of birth is a source of great dispute due to conflicting records of her life. She was baptised in Northampton on 15 November 1671, although her tombstone says that she died at the age of 85...
, which I had flatter'd my Hopes that my Youth might one Day have recommended me to."
At this time the London stage was in something of a slump after the glories of the early
RestorationThe Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
period. The
King'sThe King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London at the start of the English Restoration. It existed from 1660 to 1682.-History:...
and
Duke's companiesThe Duke's Company was one of the two theatre companies that were chartered by King Charles II at the start of the English Restoration era, when the London theatres re-opened after their eighteen-year closure during the English Civil War and the Interregnum.The Duke's Company had the patronage of...
had merged into a monopoly, leaving actors in a weak negotiating position and much at the mercy of the dictatorial manager
Christopher RichChristopher Rich was a lawyer and theatrical manager in London in the late 17th and early 18th century, and the father of the important impresario John Rich...
. When the senior actors rebelled and established a cooperative company of their own in 1695, Cibber—"wisely", as the
Biographical Dictionary of Actors puts it—stayed with the remnants of the old company, "where the competition was less keen". After five years, he had still not seen significant success in his chosen profession, and there had been no heroic parts and no love scenes. However, the return of two-company rivalry created a sudden demand for new plays, and Cibber seized this opportunity to launch his career by writing a comedy with a big, flamboyant part for himself to play. He scored a double triumph: his comedy
Love's Last Shift, or The Fool in FashionLove's Last Shift, or The Fool in Fashion is an English Restoration comedy by Colley Cibber from 1696.The play is regarded as an early herald of a shift in audience tastes away from the intellectualism and sexual frankness of Restoration comedy and towards the conservative certainties and gender...
(1696) was a great success, and his own uninhibited performance as the Frenchified
fopFop became a pejorative term for a foolish man over-concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th century England. Some of the very many similar alternative terms are: "coxcomb", fribble, "popinjay" , fashion-monger, and "ninny"...
Sir Novelty Fashion ("a coxcomb that loves to be the first in all foppery") delighted the audiences. His name was made, both as playwright and as comedian.
Later in life, when Cibber himself had the last word in casting at Drury Lane, he wrote, or patched together, several tragedies that were tailored to fit his continuing hankering after playing "a Hero". However, his performances of such parts never pleased audiences, which wanted to see him typecast as an affected fop, a kind of character that fitted both his private reputation as a vain man, his exaggerated, mannered style of acting, and his habit of ad libbing. His most famous part for the rest of his career remained that of Lord Foppington in
The RelapseThe Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger is a Restoration comedy from 1696 written by John Vanbrugh. The play is a sequel to Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift, or, Virtue Rewarded....
, a sequel to Cibber's own
Love's Last Shift but written by
John VanbrughSir John Vanbrugh – 26 March 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife , which have become enduring stage favourites...
, first performed in 1696 with Cibber reprising his performance as Sir Novelty Fashion in the newly ennobled guise of Lord Foppington. Pope mentions the audience jubilation that greeted the small-framed Cibber donning Lord Foppington's enormous wig, which would be ceremoniously carried on stage in its own sedan chair. Vanbrugh reputedly wrote the part of Lord Foppington deliberately "to suit the eccentricities of Cibber's acting style".
His tragic efforts, however, were consistently ridiculed by contemporaries: when Cibber in the role of
Richard IIIRichard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...
made love to Lady Anne, the
Grub Street JournalPublished from January 8, 1730 to 1738, The Grub-Street Journal was a satire on popular journalism and hack-writing as it was conducted in Grub Street in London. It was largely edited by Richard Russel and the botanist John Martyn...
wrote, "he looks like a pickpocket, with his shrugs and grimaces, that has more a design on her purse than her heart". Cibber was on the stage in every year but two (1727 and 1731) between his debut in 1690 and his retirement in 1732, playing more than 100 parts in all in nearly 3,000 documented performances. After he had sold his interest in Drury Lane in 1733 and was a wealthy man in his sixties, he returned to the stage occasionally to play the classic fop parts of
Restoration comedyRestoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama...
for which audiences appreciated him. His Lord Foppington in Vanbrugh's
The Relapse, Sir Courtly Nice in
John CrowneJohn Crowne was a British dramatist and a native of Nova Scotia.His father "Colonel" William Crowne, accompanied the earl of Arundel on a diplomatic mission to Vienna in 1637, and wrote an account of his journey...
's
Sir Courtly Nice, and Sir Fopling Flutter in
George EtheregeSir George Etherege was an English dramatist. He wrote the plays The Comical Revenge or, Love in a Tub in 1664, She Would if She Could in 1668, and The Man of Mode or, Sir Fopling Flutter in 1676.-Early life:George Etherege was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire, around 1635, to George Etherege and...
's
Man of Mode were legendary. Critic John Hill in his 1775 work
The actor, or, A treatise on the art of playing, described Cibber as "the best Lord Foppington who ever appeared, was in real life (with all due respect be it spoken by one who loves him) something of the coxcomb". These were the kind of comic parts where Cibber's affectation and mannerism were desirable. In 1738–39, he played Shallow in Shakespeare's
Henry IV, Part 2Henry IV, Part 2 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed written between 1596 and 1599. It is the third part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 and succeeded by Henry V.-Sources:...
to critical acclaim, but his Richard III (in his own version of the play) was not well-received. In the middle of the play, he whispered to fellow actor
Benjamin Victor-Life:He began life as a barber near Drury Lane. In 1722 he was at Norwich, perhaps to establish a textile business. Later he dealt in Irish linen, and established a business at a large house on Pall Mall. Between 1734 and 1746 he made visits to Ireland in order to extend his connections; but the...
that he wanted to go home, perhaps realising he was too old for the part and its physical demands. Cibber also essayed tragic parts in plays by Shakespeare,
Ben JonsonBenjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
,
John DrydenJohn Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
and others, but with less success. By the end of his acting career, audiences were being entranced by the innovatively naturalistic acting of the rising star
David GarrickDavid Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
, who made his London debut in the title part in a production of Cibber's adaptation of
Richard III in 1741. He returned to the stage for a final time in 1745 as Cardinal Pandulph in his play
Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John.
Love's Last Shift
Cibber's comedy
Love's Last Shift (1696) is an early herald of a massive shift in audience taste, away from the
intellectualismIntellectualism denotes the use and development of the intellect, the practice of being an intellectual, and of holding intellectual pursuits in great regard. Moreover, in philosophy, “intellectualism” occasionally is synonymous with “rationalism”, i.e. knowledge derived mostly from reason and...
and sexual frankness of
Restoration comedyRestoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama...
and towards the conservative certainties and gender-role backlash of exemplary (or sentimental) comedy. According to Paul Parnell,
Love's Last Shift illustrates Cibber's opportunism at a moment in time before the change was assured: fearless of self-contradiction, he puts something for everybody into his first play, combining the old outspokenness with the new preachiness.
The central action of
Love's Last ShiftLove's Last Shift, or The Fool in Fashion is an English Restoration comedy by Colley Cibber from 1696.The play is regarded as an early herald of a shift in audience tastes away from the intellectualism and sexual frankness of Restoration comedy and towards the conservative certainties and gender...
is a celebration of the power of a good woman, Amanda, to reform a
rakishA rake, short for rakehell, is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless womanizer. Often a rake was a man who wasted his fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process...
husband, Loveless, by means of sweet patience and a daring bed-trick. She masquerades as a prostitute and seduces Loveless without being recognised, and then confronts him with logical argument. Since he enjoyed the night with her while taking her for a stranger, a wife can be as good in bed as an illicit mistress. Loveless is convinced and stricken, and a rich choreography of mutual kneelings, risings and prostrations follows, generated by Loveless' penitence and Amanda's "submissive eloquence". The première audience is said to have wept at this climactic scene. The play was a great box-office success and was for a time the talk of the town, in both a positive and a negative sense. Some contemporaries regarded it as moving and amusing, others as a sentimental tear-jerker, incongruously interspersed with sexually explicit Restoration comedy jokes and semi-nude bedroom scenes.
Love's Last Shift is today read mainly to gain a perspective on Vanbrugh's sequel
The Relapse, which has by contrast remained a stage favourite. Modern scholars often endorse the criticism that was levelled at
Love's Last Shift from the first, namely that it is a blatantly commercial combination of sex scenes and drawn-out sentimental reconciliations. Cibber's follow-up comedy
Woman's Wit (1697) was produced under hasty and unpropitious circumstances and had no discernible theme; Cibber, not usually shy about any of his plays, even elided its name in the
Apology. It was followed by the equally unsuccessful tragedy
Xerxes (1699). Cibber reused parts of
Woman's Wit for
The School Boy (1702).
Richard III
Perhaps partly because of the failure of his previous two plays, Cibber's next effort was an adaptation of
ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's
Richard IIIRichard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...
. Neither Cibber's adaptations nor his own original plays have stood the test of time, and hardly any of them have been staged or reprinted after the early 18th century, but his popular adaptation of
Richard III remained the standard stage version for 150 years. The American actor
George BerrellGeorge Berrell was an American actor of both the 19th and early 20th Century stage and of the silent era...
wrote in the 1870s that
Richard III was:
Richard III was followed by another adaptation, the comedy,
Love Makes a Man, which was constructed by splicing together two plays by
John FletcherJohn Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
:
The Elder BrotherThe Elder Brother is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. Apparently dating from 1625, it may have been the last play Fletcher worked on before his August 1625 death.-Date:...
and
The Custom of the Country. Cibber's confidence was apparently restored by the success of the two plays, and he returned to more original writing.
The Careless Husband
The comedy
The Careless Husband (1704), generally considered to be Cibber's best play, is another example of the retrieval of a straying husband by means of outstanding wifely tact, this time in a more domestic and genteel register. The easy-going Sir Charles Easy is chronically unfaithful to his wife, seducing both
ladies of qualityThe word lady is a polite term for a woman, specifically the female equivalent to, or spouse of, a lord or gentleman, and in many contexts a term for any adult woman...
and his own female servants with insouciant charm. The turning point of the action, known as "the Steinkirk scene", comes when his wife finds him and a maidservant asleep together in a chair, "as close an approximation to actual adultery as could be presented on the 18th-century stage". His periwig has fallen off, an obvious suggestion of intimacy and abandon, and an opening for Lady Easy's tact.
SoliloquizingA soliloquy is a device often used in drama whereby a character relates his or her thoughts and feelings to him/herself and to the audience without addressing any of the other characters, and is delivered often when they are alone or think they are alone. Soliloquy is distinct from monologue and...
to herself about how sad it would be if he caught cold, she "takes a Steinkirk off her Neck, and lays it gently on his Head" (V.i.21). (A "steinkirk" was a loosely tied lace collar or scarf, named after the way the officers wore their
cravatThe cravat is a neckband, the forerunner of the modern tailored necktie and bow tie, originating from 17th-century Croatia.From the end of the 16th century, the term band applied to any long-strip neckcloth that was not a ruff...
s at the
Battle of SteenkirkThe Battle of Steenkerque was fought on August 3, 1692, as a part of the Nine Years' War. It resulted in the victory of the French under Marshal François-Henri de Montmorency, duc de Luxembourg against a joint English-Scottish-Dutch-German army under Prince William of Orange...
in 1692.) She steals away, Sir Charles wakes, notices the steinkirk on his head, marvels that his wife did not wake him and make a scene, and realises how wonderful she is. The Easys go on to have a reconciliation scene which is much more low-keyed and tasteful than that in
Love's Last Shift, without kneelings and risings, and with Lady Easy shrinking with feminine delicacy from the coarse subjects that Amanda had broached without blinking. Paul Parnell has analysed the manipulative nature of Lady Easy's lines in this exchange, showing how they are directed towards the sentimentalist's goal of "ecstatic self-approval".
The Careless Husband was a great success on the stage and remained a
repertoryRepertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
play throughout the 18th century. Although it has now joined
Love's Last Shift as a forgotten curiosity, it kept a respectable critical reputation into the 20th century, coming in for serious discussion both as an interesting example of
doublethinkDoublethink, a word coined by George Orwell in the novel 1984, describes the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. It is related to, but distinct from, hypocrisy and neutrality. Its opposite is cognitive dissonance, where...
, and as somewhat morally or emotionally insightful. In 1929, the well-known critic
F. W. BatesonFrederick Wilse Bateson was an English literary scholar and critic.Bateson was born in Cheshire, and educated at Charterhouse and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he took a BA in English , and then the B.Litt., which he completed in 1927...
described the play's psychology as "mature", "plausible", "subtle", "natural", and "affecting".
Other plays
The Lady's Last Stake (1707) is a rather bad-tempered reply to critics of Lady Easy's wifely patience in
The Careless Husband. It was coldly received, and its main interest lies in the glimpse the prologue gives of angry reactions to
The Careless Husband, of which we would otherwise have known nothing (since all contemporary published reviews of
The Careless Husband approve and endorse its message). Some, says Cibber sarcastically in the prologue, seem to think Lady Easy ought rather to have strangled her husband with her steinkirk:
Many of Cibber's plays, listed below, were hastily cobbled together from borrowings. Alexander Pope said Cibber's drastic adaptations and patchwork plays were stolen from "crucified Molière" and "hapless Shakespeare".
The Double Gallant (1707) was constructed from Burnaby's
The Reformed Wife and
The Lady's Visiting Day, and
Centlivre'sSusanna Centlivre born Susanna Freeman, also known professionally as Susanna Carroll, was an English poet, actress and one of the premier dramatists of the 18th century. During her long career at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, she became known as the Second Woman of the English Stage after Aphra Behn...
Love at a Venture. In the words of Leonard R. N. Ashley, Cibber took "what he could use from these old failures" to cook up "a palatable hash out of unpromising leftovers".
The Comical Lovers (1707) was based on
Dryden'sJohn Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
Marriage à la Mode.
The Rival Fools (1709) was based on
Fletcher'sJohn Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
Wit at Several WeaponsWit at Several Weapons is a seventeenth-century comedy of problematic date and authorship.-Authorship and Date:In its own century, the play appeared in print only in the two Beaumont and Fletcher folios of 1647 and 1679; yet modern scholarship has determined that the Wit at Several Weapons is a...
. He rewrote
Corneille'sPierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
Le CidLe Cid is a tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille and published in 1636. It is based on the legend of El Cid.The play followed Corneille's first true tragedy, Médée, produced in 1635. An enormous popular success, Corneille's Le Cid was the subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic...
with a happy ending as
Ximena in 1712.
The Provoked Husband (1728) was an unfinished fragment by
John VanbrughSir John Vanbrugh – 26 March 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife , which have become enduring stage favourites...
that Cibber reworked and completed to great commercial success.
The Nonjuror (1717) was adapted from
MolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's
TartuffeTartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...
, and features a Papist spy as a villain. Written just two years after the
Jacobite RisingThe Jacobite Risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings were aimed at returning James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne after he was deposed by...
of 1715, it was an obvious propaganda piece directed against Roman Catholics.
The Refusal (1721) was based on Molière's
Les Femmes SavantesLes Femmes savantes is a play by Molière in five acts, written in verse. A satire on academic pretention, female education, and préciosité , it was one of his most popular comedies...
. Cibber's last play,
Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John was "a miserable mutilation of Shakespeare's
King John". Heavily politicised, it caused such a storm of ridicule during its 1736 rehearsal that Cibber withdrew it. During the
Jacobite Rising of 1745The Jacobite rising of 1745, often referred to as "The 'Forty-Five," was the attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the British throne for the exiled House of Stuart. The rising occurred during the War of the Austrian Succession when most of the British Army was on the European continent...
, when the nation was again in fear of a Popish pretender, it was finally acted, and this time accepted for patriotic reasons.
Manager
Cibber's career as both actor and theatre manager is important in the history of the British stage because he was one of the first in a long and illustrious line of actor-managers that would include such luminaries as Garrick,
Henry IrvingSir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
, and
Herbert Beerbohm TreeSir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
. Rising from actor at Drury Lane to advisor to the manager Christopher Rich, Cibber worked himself by degrees into a position to take over the company, first taking many of its players—including
Thomas DoggettThomas Doggett was an Irish actor.Doggett was born in Dublin, and made his first stage appearance in London in 1691 as Nincompoop in Thomas D'Urfey's Love for Money. In this part, and as Solon in the same author's Marriage-Hater Matched, he became popular...
,
Robert WilksRobert Wilks was a British actor and theatrical manager who was one of the leading managers of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in its heyday of the 1710s...
, and
Anne OldfieldAnne Oldfield , English actress, was born in London, the daughter of a soldier.She worked for a time as apprentice to a seamstress, until she attracted George Farquhar's attention by reciting some lines from a play in his hearing...
—to form a new company at the
Queen's TheatreThe Queen's Theatre is a West End theatre located in Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. It opened on 8 October 1907 as a twin to the neighbouring Gielgud Theatre which opened ten months earlier. Both theatres were designed by W.G.R...
in the Haymarket. The three actors squeezed out the previous owners in a series of lengthy and complex manoeuvres, but after Rich's
letters patentLetters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
were revoked, Cibber, Doggett and Wilks were able to buy the company outright and return to the Theatre Royal by 1711. After a few stormy years of power-struggle between the prudent Doggett and the extravagant Wilks, Doggett was replaced by the upcoming actor
Barton BoothBarton Booth was one of the most famous dramatic actors of the first part of the 18th century.Booth was from Lancashire and was educated at Westminster School, where his success in the Latin play Andria gave him an inclination for the stage...
and Cibber became in practice sole manager of Drury Lane. He set a pattern for the line of more charismatic and successful actors that were to succeed him in this combination of roles. His near-contemporary Garrick, as well as the 19th-century actor-managers Irving and Tree, would later structure their careers, writing, and manager identity around their own striking stage personalities. Cibber's
forte as actor-manager was, by contrast, the manager side. He was a clever, innovative, and unscrupulous businessman who retained all his life a love of appearing on the stage. His triumph was that he rose to a position where, in consequence of his sole power over production and casting at Drury Lane, London audiences had to put up with him as an actor. Cibber's one significant mistake as a theatre manager was to pass over
John GayJohn Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
's
The Beggar's OperaThe Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
, which became an outstanding success for
John RichJohn Rich was an important director and theatre manager in 18th century London. He opened the New Theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields and then the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden and began putting on ever more lavish productions...
's theatre at
Lincoln's Inn FieldsLincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London, UK. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes...
. When Cibber attempted to mimic Gay's success with his own ballad-opera—
Love in a Riddle (1729)—it was shouted down by the audience and Cibber cancelled its run. He rescued its comic subplot as
Damon and Phillida.
Cibber had learned from the bad example of Christopher Rich to be a careful and approachable employer for his actors, and was not unpopular with them; however, he made enemies in the literary world because of the power he wielded over authors. Plays he considered non-commercial were rejected or ruthlessly reworked. Many were outraged by his sharp business methods, which may be exemplified by the characteristic way he abdicated as manager in the mid-1730s. In 1732, Booth sold his share to John Highmore, and Wilks' share fell into the hands of John Ellys after Wilks' death. Cibber leased his share in the company to his scapegrace son
TheophilusTheophilus Cibber was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager Colley Cibber.He began acting at an early age, and followed his father into theatrical management. In 1727, Alexander Pope satirized Theophilus Cibber in his Dunciad as a youth who "thrusts his person full...
for 442 pounds, but when Theophilus fell out with the other managers, they approached Cibber senior and offered to buy out his share. Without consulting Theophilus, Cibber sold his share for more than 3,000 pounds to the other managers, who promptly gave Theophilus his notice. According to one story, Cibber encouraged his son to lead the
actors in a walkoutThe Actor Rebellion of 1733 was an event that took place at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, England when the actors who worked there, disapproving of the changes in the management, attempted to seize control. Before the rebellion, the theatre was controlled by the managers Theophilus...
and set up for themselves in the
HaymarketThe Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
, rendering worthless the commodity he had sold. On behalf of his son, Cibber applied for a
letters patentLetters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
to perform at the Haymarket, but it was refused by the
Lord ChamberlainThe Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State....
, who was "disgusted at Cibber's conduct". The Drury Lane managers attempted to shut down the rival Haymarket players by conspiring in the arrest of the lead actor, John Harper, on a charge of vagrancy, but the charge did not hold, and the attempt pushed public opinion to Theophilus' side. The Drury Lane managers were defeated, and Theophilus regained control of the company on his own terms.
Poet
Cibber's appointment as Poet Laureate in December 1730 was widely assumed to be a political rather than artistic honour, and a reward for his untiring support of the
WhigsThe Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
, the party of Prime Minister
Robert WalpoleRobert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....
. Most of the leading writers, such as
Jonathan SwiftJonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
,
Alexander PopeAlexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
, and
Henry FieldingHenry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
, were excluded from contention for the laureateship because they were
ToriesToryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
. Cibber's verses had few admirers even in his own time, and Cibber acknowledged cheerfully that he did not think much of them. His 30 birthday odes for the royal family and other duty pieces incumbent on him as Poet Laureate came in for particular scorn, and these offerings would regularly be followed by a flurry of anonymous
parodiesA parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
, some of which Cibber claimed in his
Apology to have written himself. In the 20th century,
D. B. Wyndham-LewisDominic Bevan Wyndham-Lewis FRSL was a British writer best known for his humorous contributions to newspapers and for biographies. His family were originally from Wales, but he was born in Liverpool and brought up in Cardiff...
and
Charles LeeCharles Lee was born in London. He published five novels in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in addition to many short stories and plays about the working people of Cornwall.-Works:*Our Little Town*Paul Carah Cornishman...
considered some of Cibber's laureate poems funny enough to be included in their classic "anthology of bad verse",
The Stuffed Owl (1930). However, Cibber was at least as distinguished as his immediate four predecessors, three of whom were also playwrights rather than poets.
Pamphlet wars
From the very beginning of the 18th century, when Cibber first rose to be Rich's right-hand man at Drury Lane, his opportunism and his brash, thick-skinned personality gave rise to many barbs in print, especially against his patchwork plays. The early attacks were mostly anonymous, but
Daniel DefoeDaniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
and
Tom BrownTom Brown was an English translator and writer of satire, largely forgotten today save for a four-line gibe he wrote concerning Dr John Fell....
are suggested as potential authors. Later,
Jonathan SwiftJonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
, John Dennis and
Henry FieldingHenry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
all lambasted Cibber in print. The most famous conflict Cibber had was with
Alexander PopeAlexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
, the greatest poet of the age.
Pope's animosity began in 1717 when he helped
John ArbuthnotJohn Arbuthnot, often known simply as Dr. Arbuthnot, , was a physician, satirist and polymath in London...
and
John GayJohn Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
write a farce,
Three Hours After MarriageThree Hours After Marriage was a restoration comedy, written in 1717 as a collaboration between John Gay, Alexander Pope and John Arbuthnot. It premiered in 1717 and among its satirical targets were Richard Blackmore....
, in which one of the characters, "Plotwell" was modelled on Cibber. Notwithstanding, Cibber put the play on at Drury Lane with himself playing the part of Plotwell, but the play was not well-received. During the staging of a different play, Cibber introduced jokes at the expense of
Three Hours After Marriage, while Pope was in the audience. Pope was infuriated, as was Gay who got into a physical fight with Cibber on a subsequent visit to the theatre. Pope published a pamphlet satirising Cibber, and continued his literary assault for the next 25 years.
In the first version of his landmark literary satire
Dunciad (1728), Pope referred contemptuously to Cibber's "past, vamp'd, future, old, reviv'd, new" plays, produced with "less human genius than God gives an ape". Cibber's elevation to laureateship in 1730 further inflamed Pope against him. Cibber was selected for political reasons, as he was a supporter of the Whig government of
Robert WalpoleRobert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....
, while Pope was a Tory. The selection of Cibber for this honour was widely seen as outlandish, at a time when Pope, Gay, Thomson,
Ambrose Philips-Life:He was born in Shropshire of a Leicestershire family. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and St John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1699. He seems to have lived chiefly at Cambridge until he resigned his fellowship in 1708, and his pastorals were probably written in...
, and
Edward YoungEdward Young was an English poet, best remembered for Night Thoughts.-Early life:He was the son of Edward Young, later Dean of Salisbury, and was born at his father's rectory at Upham, near Winchester, where he was baptized on 3 July 1683. He was educated at Winchester College, and matriculated...
were all in their prime. As one
epigramAn epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
of the time put it:
Pope, mortified by the elevation of Cibber to laureatehood and incredulous at the vainglory of his
Apology (1740), took every opportunity to attack him in his poetry, and easily got the laughers on his side. Mostly Cibber replied quite good-humouredly to Pope's aspersions ("some of which are in conspicuously bad taste", as Lowe points out), until 1742 when he hit below the belt in "A Letter from Mr. Cibber, to Mr. Pope, inquiring into the motives that might induce him in his Satyrical Works, to be so frequently fond of Mr. Cibber's name". In this pamphlet, Cibber's most effective ammunition came from a reference in Pope's
Epistle to Arbuthnot (1735) to Cibber's "whore", which gave Cibber a pretext for retorting in kind with a scandalous anecdote about Pope in a
brothelBrothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
. "I must own", wrote Cibber, "that I believe I know more of your whoring than you do of mine; because I don't recollect that ever I made you the least Confidence of my Amours, though I have been very near an Eye-Witness of Yours." Since Pope was around four and a half feet tall and hunchbacked due to a
tubercularTuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
infection of the spine he contracted when young, Cibber regarded the prospect of Pope with a woman as something humorous, and he speaks mockingly of the "little-tiny manhood" of Pope. For once the laughers were on Cibber's side, and the story "raised a universal shout of merriment at Pope's expense". Pope made no direct reply, but took one of the most famous revenges in literary history. In the revised
Dunciad that appeared in 1743, he changed his hero, the King of Dunces, from
Lewis TheobaldLewis Theobald , British textual editor and author, was a landmark figure both in the history of Shakespearean editing and in literary satire...
to Colley Cibber.
King of Dunces
The derogatory allusions to Cibber in consecutive versions of Pope's
mock-heroicMock-heroic, mock-epic or heroi-comic works are typically satires or parodies that mock common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature...
Dunciad, from 1728 to 1743, became more elaborate as the conflict between the two men escalated, until, in the final version of the poem, Pope crowned Cibber King of Dunces. From being merely one symptom of the artistic decay of Britain, he was transformed into the demigod of stupidity, the true son of the goddess Dulness. Apart from the personal quarrel, Pope had reasons of literary appropriateness for letting Cibber take the place of his first choice of King, Lewis Theobald. Theobald, who had embarrassed Pope by contrasting Pope's impressionistic Shakespeare edition (1725) with Theobald's own scholarly edition (1726), also wrote Whig propaganda for hire, as well as dramatic productions which were to Pope abominations for their mixing of tragedy and comedy and for their "low"
pantomimePantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
and
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
. However, Cibber was an even better King in these respects, more high-profile both as a political opportunist and as the powerful manager of Drury Lane, and with the crowning circumstance that his political allegiances and theatrical successes had gained him the laureateship. To Pope this made him an epitome of all that was wrong with British letters. Pope explains in the "Hyper-critics of Ricardus Aristarchus" prefatory to the 1743
Dunciad that Cibber is the perfect hero for a mock-heroic parody, since his
Apology exhibits every trait necessary for the inversion of an
epicAn epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
hero. An epic hero must have wisdom, courage, and
chivalric lovePlatonic love is a chaste and strong type of love that is non-sexual.-Amor Platonicus:The term amor platonicus was coined as early as the 15th century by the Florentine scholar Marsilio Ficino. Platonic love in this original sense of the term is examined in Plato's dialogue the Symposium, which has...
, says Pope, and the perfect hero for an anti-epic therefore should have vanity, impudence, and debauchery. As wisdom, courage, and love combine to create magnanimity in a hero, so vanity, impudence, and debauchery combine to make buffoonery for the satiric hero. His revisions, however, were considered too hasty by later critics who pointed out inconsistent passages that damaged his own poem for the sake of personal vindictiveness.
Writing about the degradation of taste brought on by theatrical effects, Pope quotes Cibber's own
confessio in the
Apology:
Pope's notes call Cibber a hypocrite, and in general the attacks on Cibber are conducted in the notes added to the
Dunciad, and not in the body of the poem. As hero of the
Dunciad, Cibber merely watches the events of Book II, dreams Book III, and sleeps through Book IV.
Once Pope struck, Cibber became an easy target for other satirists. He was attacked as the epitome of morally and aesthetically bad writing, largely for the sins of his autobiography. In the
Apology, Cibber speaks daringly in the first person and in his own praise. Although the major figures of the day were jealous of their fame, self-promotion of such an overt sort was shocking, and Cibber offended Christian humility as well as gentlemanly modesty. Additionally, Cibber consistently fails to see fault in his own character, praises his vices, and makes no apology for his misdeeds; so it was not merely the fact of the autobiography, but the manner of it that shocked contemporaries. His rather diffuse and chatty writing style, conventional in poetry and sometimes incoherent in prose, was bound to look even worse than it was when he squared up to a master of style like Pope. The contrast caused
Henry FieldingHenry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
to try Colley Cibber on a charge of murder of the English language in the 17 May 1740 issue of
The Champion. The Tory wits were altogether so successful in their satire of Cibber that the historical image of the man himself was almost obliterated, and it was as the King of Dunces that he came down to posterity.
Plays
The plays below were produced at the
Theatre Royal, Drury LaneThe Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
, unless otherwise stated. The dates given are of first known performance.
- Love's Last Shift
Love's Last Shift, or The Fool in Fashion is an English Restoration comedy by Colley Cibber from 1696.The play is regarded as an early herald of a shift in audience tastes away from the intellectualism and sexual frankness of Restoration comedy and towards the conservative certainties and gender...
(Comedy, January 1696)
- Woman's Wit (Comedy, 1697)
- Xerxes (Tragedy, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1699)
- The Tragical History of King Richard III
Richard III is an adapted version of Shakespeare's history play of the same name , reworked for Williamite or Orange audiences by British Poet Laureate Colley Cibber....
(Tragedy, 1699)
- Love Makes a Man (Comedy, December 1700)
- The School Boy (Comedy, advertised for 24 October 1702)
- She Would and She Would Not (Comedy, 26 November 1702)
- The Careless Husband (Comedy, 7 December 1704)
- Perolla and Izadora (Tragedy, 3 December 1705)
- The Comical Lovers (Comedy, Haymarket, 4 February 1707)
- The Double Gallant (Comedy, Haymarket, 1 November 1707)
- The Lady's Last Stake (Comedy, Haymarket, 13 December 1707)
- The Rival Fools (Comedy, 11 January 1709)
- The Rival Queans (Comical-Tragedy, Haymarket, 29 June 1710), a parody of Nathaniel Lee
Nathaniel Lee was an English dramatist.He was the son of Dr Richard Lee, a Presbyterian clergyman who was rector of Hatfield and held many preferments under the Commonwealth...
's The Rival Queens.
- Ximena (Tragedy, 28 November 1712)
- Venus and Adonis (Masque, 12 March 1715)
- Myrtillo (Pastoral, 5 November 1715)
- The Nonjuror (Comedy, 6 December 1717)
- The Refusal (Comedy, 14 February 1721)
- Cæsar in Egypt (Tragedy, 9 December 1724)
- The Provoked Husband (with Vanbrugh
Sir John Vanbrugh – 26 March 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife , which have become enduring stage favourites...
, comedy, 10 January 1728)
- Love in a Riddle (Pastoral, 7 January 1729)
- Damon and Phillida (Pastoral Farce, Haymarket, 16 August 1729)
- Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John (Tragedy, Covent Garden, 15 February 1745)
Bulls and Bears, a farce performed at Drury Lane on 2 December 1715, was attributed to Cibber but was never published.
The Dramatic Works of Colley Cibber, Esq. (London, 1777) includes a play called
Flora, or Hob in the Well, but it is not by Cibber.
Hob, or the Country Wake. A Farce. By Mr. Doggett was attributed to Cibber by William Chetwood in his
General History of the Stage (1749), but
John Genest-Life:He was the son of John Genest of Dunker's Hill, Devon. He was educated at Westminster School, entered 9 May 1780 as a pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. 1784 and M.A. 1787. He took holy orders, and was for many years curate of a Lincolnshire village...
in
Some Account of the English Stage (1832) thought it was by
Thomas DoggettThomas Doggett was an Irish actor.Doggett was born in Dublin, and made his first stage appearance in London in 1691 as Nincompoop in Thomas D'Urfey's Love for Money. In this part, and as Solon in the same author's Marriage-Hater Matched, he became popular...
. Other plays attributed to Cibber but probably not by him include
Cinna's Conspiracy, performed at Drury Lane on 19 February 1713, and
The Temple of Dullness of 1745.
In popular culture
Cibber is a character in the play
Masks and Faces (and its prose adaptation
Peg Woffington). In the silent film adaptation he is portrayed by
Dion Boucicault Jr.Dion Boucicault Jr. was an actor and stage director. Son of the well-known playwright, Dion Boucicault, he followed his father into the theatrical profession and made a career as a character actor and a director...
"
Kolley KibberKolley Kibber is a fictional character from Graham Greene's 1938 novel Brighton Rock. He was portrayed by Alan Wheatley in the 1947 film adaptation. His name is a reference to Colley Cibber, the English playwright....
" is the newspaper nom de plume for Fred Hale, a former gangster, who returns to Brighton to anonymously distribute prize-bearing cards for a newspaper competition and disappears, presumably murdered, at the end of the first chapter of the novel
Brighton Rock (1938) by
Graham GreeneHenry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
.
Further reading