Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage
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Jeremy Collier
Jeremy Collier was an English theatre critic, non-juror bishop and theologian.-Life:Born in Stow cum Quy, Cambridgeshire, Collier was educated at Caius College, University of Cambridge, receiving the BA and MA . A supporter of James II, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and...
published his anti-theater pamphlet, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage; in the pamphlet, Collier attacks a number of playwrights: William Wycherley
William Wycherley
William Wycherley was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for the plays The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer.-Biography:...
, John Dryden
John Dryden
John 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...
, William Congreve
William Congreve
William Congreve was an English playwright and poet.-Early life:Congreve was born in Bardsey, West Yorkshire, England . His parents were William Congreve and his wife, Mary ; a sister was buried in London in 1672...
, John Vanbrugh
John 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...
, and Thomas D’Urfey. Collier attacks rather recent, rather popular comedies from the London stage; he accuses the playwrights of profanity, blasphemy, indecency, and undermining public morality through the sympathetic depiction of vice.
Collier begins his pamphlet with this conclusion: “[N]othing has gone farther in Debauching the Age than the Stage Poets, and Play-House” (Collier A2). He goes on, in great detail—despite the title—to give his evidence. For Collier, the immorality of the title stems from Restoration
English Restoration
The 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...
comedy’s lack of poetic justice. With his exhaustively thorough readings—in a sense, pre-close reading close readings—he condemns the characters of Restoration comedies as impious and wicked and he condemned their creators (the playwrights) for failing to punish the playwrights’ wicked “favorites.” As the title suggests, Collier also charges the playwrights with profaneness, supporting his allegations with a number quotations from the plays (i.e. The Provoked Wife
The Provoked Wife
The Provoked Wife is the second original comedy written by John Vanbrugh. The often-repeated claim that Vanbrugh wrote part of his comedy The Provoked Wife in the Bastille is based on allusions in a couple of much later memoirs, but is regarded with some doubt by modern scholars...
, The Relapse
The Relapse
The 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....
, et cetera). However, most of these charges are rather mild (at least according to the standards of most modern readers). Collier is, of course, unable to give examples of blatant blasphemy, for at the time, they were neither allowed on stage nor in print (Cordner 213). However, Collier’s strategy was innovative for his time (not to mention effective). Before A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, most anti-theatre pamphlets were merely nondescript diatribes (e.g. William Prynne
William Prynne
William Prynne was an English lawyer, author, polemicist, and political figure. He was a prominent Puritan opponent of the church policy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Although his views on church polity were presbyterian, he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for...
’s Histriomastix
Histriomastix
Histriomastix: The Player's Scourge, or Actor's Tragedy is a critique of professional theatre and actors, written by the Puritan author and controversialist William Prynne....
(1633)), but with his innovative techniques, Collier comprehensively indicted the entire Restoration stage (Cordner 215).
Therefore, due to its publication, a pamphlet war ensued (for and against Collier’s case), lasting sporadically until about 1726. In 1698, John Dennis, an English critic, wrote a pamphlet entitled: The Usefulness of the Stage. Yet, John Vanbrugh hardly took the attacks on his plays seriously. Therefore, he wrote a jestful retort, A Short Vindication of The Relapse and The Provok'd Wife From Immorality and Prophaneness (1698); in his pamphlet, Vanbrugh accuses Collier of being more upset by the unflattering depictions of clergymen than actual blasphemy (Cordner 217). On the other hand, William Congreve took the attacks on his plays quite seriously and refuted Collier’s allegations in his riposte, Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations (1698). Other playwrights preferred to give their reply on the stage (as Thomas D’Urfey did). In his play, Campaigners (1698), D’Urfey incidentally commented on Collier’s strictures imposed on the stage. Collier would later fire back with his Defence of the Short View in 1699 and Edward Filmer
Edward Filmer
Edward Filmer , was an English dramatist.Filmer was born in or about 1657, was the second son of Sir Robert Filmer, 1st Baronet, of East Sutton, Kent, who died 22 March 1676, by his wife, Dorothy, daughter of Maurice Tuke of Layer Marney, Essex. Hasted wrongly describes him as the ‘second son of...
would go on to defend Restoration theatre in 1707 with A Defence of Plays.
Yet, by the end of the 17th century, the Restoration comic style had collapsed: the satiric presentation of English life gave way to the sentimental portrait (beginning in 1696 with Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...
’s Love's Last Shift
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...
) (Bernbaum 72). A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage only signaled the swelling of public opposition to the real or imposed indecency of the plays staged over the last three decades (Cordner 210). Collier writes in the introduction: “The business of plays is to recommend Vertue, and discountenance Vice” (Collier 1). However, the Restoration playwright rarely saw his/her function within Collier’s strictures; in Congreve’s dedication to The Double-Dealer (1693), he writes, “It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of humankind” (Congreve 174). Congreve implies that the purpose of the comic playwright was to portray the vices and follies of society in order to correct them. Collier, instead, preferred his restrictions imposed on comedy (e.g. his rigid Neoclassical notions of dramatic decorum), and in doing so he followed the same twisted moral logic found in the work of other critics who had imposed the law of poetic justice on tragedy (e.g. Thomas Rymer
Thomas Rymer
Thomas Rymer , English historiographer royal, was the younger son of Ralph Rymer, lord of the manor of Brafferton in Yorkshire, described by Clarendon as possessed of a good estate, who was executed for his share in the Presbyterian rising of 1663.-Early life and education:Thomas Rymer was born at...
and his A Short View of Tragedy (1693)).
A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage is often credited with turning the tide against the sexually explicit nature of Restoration comedy, but the tide had already begun turn; Collier’s pamphlet was only “swimming” with the “tide” of public opinion (Cordner 210). The truth was Restoration comedy was over; it had been worn down by external factors, such as: the Glorious Revolution and William and Mary’s bête-noire for theatre. Maybe the most obvious sign of Restoration theatre’s death came with the nolle prosequi (immunity from prosecution for earlier offenses) granted to Collier by William III
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
(for A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage) (Cordner 210).