A notable dramatist of the Restoration period, George Farquhar was instrumental in reforming the theatrical practices of his age. For the most part, his most famous plays, The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux Stratagem, maintain the witty, vulgar, cynical, and amoral tone characteristic of Restoration drama, also known as comedy of manners. However, Farquhar’s work demonstrates a natural humor, warmth, and joy for life that the writing of his contemporaries lacked. Because of the lighthearted and somewhat idealistic remarks in his plays, Farquhar is considered by some to have signaled the end of Restoration comedy by moving toward sentimental drama.
Works in Biographical and Historical Context
The English Restoration Farquhar was born at a time when England had only recently recovered from a violent civil war, during which the ruling English monarchy was removed from power. In its place, a commonwealth led by Puritan military commander Oliver Cromwell was created. Under Cromwell’s strict rule, theaters throughout England were closed down due to their alleged debasement of moral values. When the monarchy was finally restored to power in 1660 under the rule of Charles II—hence the term ‘‘Restoration’’—theaters were once again opened, and the exuberant feelings of the day made their way into the comedies that became popular during that time.
Born in Londonderry, Ireland, Farquhar’s education began with his attending the Londonderry Free Grammar School under the instruction of Ellis Walker, an educator who acquired local fame for having his students perform the comedies of Terence, an ancient Roman writer, and William Shakespeare. In 1694 Farquhar entered Trinity College in Dublin as a sizar, or a student who performs menial duties for a small allowance, but his studies ended abruptly in 1696 when he left Trinity without a degree. Some biographers speculate that he may have been expelled from the college.
Accidental Stabbing Farquhar joined Dublin’s Smock Alley Theatre, where he became acquainted with stage life and began a lifelong friendship with the Irish actor Robert Wilks. Farquhar was a poor actor who had a thin voice and occasionally suffered from stage fright. His acting career ended in 1697 after he accidentally stabbed and seriously injured a fellow player during a dueling scene. Nonetheless, his theater experience proved invaluable in helping him gain an understanding of both the potential and the limitations of the stage.
Encouraged by Wilks to try writing comedies, Far-quhar traveled to London and contacted Christopher Rich, manager of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, where Farquhar’s first play, Love and a Bottle, was successfully produced in 1698. Early audiences treated the play with good-natured praise. Compared to Farquhar’s later comedies, Love and a Bottle seems old-fashioned in its determination to be bawdy, its reliance on stock characters and plot devices, its harsh treatment of the cast mistress, and its focus on sexual pursuit. With this first drama, Farquhar tested his theatrical skills, but he created little that was new or influential.
Attempt at Fiction Writing The year his first play appeared on stage, Farquhar was not yet completely committed to drama as a vocation, for he anonymously published a novella, The Adventures of Covent-Garden, a few weeks after Love and a Bottle opened. The Adventures of Covent-Garden was supposedly based on Antoine Fur-etiere’s Scarron’s City Romance, Made English (1671). None of Farquhar’s early biographers attributed the novella to him. In 1795, Isaac Reed reproachfully noted in his copy that Farquhar plagiarized a bit from it for The Constant Couple. Indeed, Farquhar’s novella introduced plots and dramatic theory that he expanded in later works. Leigh Hunt, who had acquired Reed’s copy, was the first to recognize that Farquhar himself was the author of the novella. Hunt said Farquhar was the author described in the novella as ‘‘a young gentleman somewhat addicted to poetry and the diversions of the stage.’’
Fame The success of Farquhar’s second play, The Constant Couple; or, a Trip to the Jubilee, affirmed Farquhar’s ability as a playwright. It features the character of Sir Harry Wildair, played by Wilks, whose tremendous popularity inspired Farquhar to write Sir Harry Wildair: Being the Sequel of the Trip to the Jubilee. An unexpected failure, it received little critical attention and was the first in a series of unsuccessful productions. In 1703, likely supposing she was wealthy, Farquhar married a widow who, he soon discovered, was penniless. Farquhar left London the following year to accept a commission as a lieutenant of Grenadiers in the army. Farquhar’s service on a recruiting campaign in England’s west country inspired one of his most famous pieces, The Recruiting Officer—an immediate success upon its production in 1706. Despite his revived fame, the final years of Farqu-har’s life were marred by poverty and failing health. Living in London, Farquhar received enough financial support from Wilks to work on his last play, The Beaux Stratagem. Completed in only six weeks, it is regarded by many to be Farquhar’s finest work. In 1707, shortly after The Beaux Stratagem was staged, Farquhar died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-nine.
Works in Literary Context
Critics stress Farquhar’s importance as a transitional figure in English literary history. He began his career during a time when Restoration drama was extremely popular, but critics of the morality embodied by these plays were also gaining prominence. Jeremy Collier’s A Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage (1698), for instance, attacked the lax morality and sexual attitudes in Restoration drama. Scholars have noted that although Farquhar is usually identified with writers of the comedy of manners, he stands apart from them in several significant ways.
Moving Beyond Restoration Drama Farquhar’s early comedies, Love and a Bottle, The Constant Couple, and Sir Harry Wildair are similar to other Restoration dramas in that they are bawdy in tone and tend to focus on sexual intrigue. They also contain intricate plots that involve mistaken identities, multiple disguises, and trick marriages, all of which provide a sharp contrast to the simple story lines of fellow Restoration dramatists such as John Vanbrugh. In addition, the dialogue in Farquhar’s plays, though lively, lacks the witty, cynical hardness of comedies of his contemporaries William Wycherley and William Congreve. While still an important trait, wit in Farquhar’s plays is less apparent and is often secondary to plot and character, with comedy achieved through situation and natural plot progress rather than through daring wordplay.
Farquhar’s later plays, The Inconstant and The Twin Rivals, diverge even more from the comedy of manners form, for they follow Aristotle’s belief that comedies should instruct their audience by rewarding virtue, chastising vice, and laughing at weakness. The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux Stratagem, Farquhar’s most celebrated plays, also reflect this new moral dimension, only their morality is less forced and more natural as a result of Farquhar’s portrayal of provincial life and country manners.
Furthermore, Farquhar’s characters in his later plays differ from the heartless rogues of Restoration drama in that his country maids, innkeepers, and highwaymen are genteel instead of crude and are presented in a sympathetic light. Contributing to an atmosphere of unaffected cheerfulness and freshness, their vivacity, openness, and unpredictable behavior render them more realistic than traditional character types of Restoration drama. Even Farquhar’s treatment of the common Restoration theme of marital incompatibility sets him apart from his predecessors. In The Beaux Stratagem, for example, Farquhar resolves the couple’s conflict by introducing a separation by mutual consent or divorce, a serious note that also suggests equality of the sexes.
Legacy Farquhar’s drama is marked by its movement away from the over-the-top, overtly sexual humor of Restoration drama. He is credited with extending the range of Restoration drama by introducing country settings, manners, and characters, aspects that were later adopted and perfected by Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Sheridan. Because of his changes, one senses that Farqu-har has a greater interest in the humanity of his characters and avoids simply using them as props for his humor. He analyzes characters as much as situations, just as the twentieth-century dramatist George Bernard Shaw does. In fact, pointing out that the naturalism and simplicity of Farquhar’s plays are distinctly modern, Bonamy Dobree proposed that Farquhar was ‘‘the Shaw of his time.’’
Works in Critical Context
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George Farquhar
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