Volume 46, Number 2 · February 4, 1999
Sheridan the Revolutionary
By James Fenton
A Traitor's Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan
by Fintan O'Toole
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 519 pp., $30.00
The first useful thing to say about Richard Brinsley Sheridan is that he did not, despite what people think, write Restoration comedies. The Restoration of the Monarchy took place in 1660, and the period of what we call Restoration drama covers the next five decades (the last play of consequence being George Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem in 1707). Sheridan was born in 1751 and the three plays of his which survive in the repertoire were all written under George III: they are The Rivals (1775), The School for Scandal (1777), and The Critic (1779). This last is a rewrite of a Restoration burlesque, Buckingham's The Rehearsal.
Review, 6132 words
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