Volume 2, Number 6 · April 30, 1964
Congreve in His Letters
By Louis Kronenberger
William Congreve: Letters & Documents
collected and edited by John C. Hodges
Harcourt, Brace & World, 259 pp., $6.75
As a playwright, Congreve still calls for more precise definition; as a man he is all but lost to us. Nor does any mere disguise blot out the man: what we have is more like an empty chair. And though few would deny that The Way of the World is the most brilliant artificial comedy in the language, Congreve seems to leave the critic as indifferent as he leaves the biographer stranded. Occasional stage revivals aside, Congreve has become a boneyard for the academic scholar who contrives that every small gain in substance shall mean a falling off in style, that every new effort to resurrect him shall be another interment. But if an effort to make flesh and blood of the man must clearly fail, there being nothing left to work with, just as clearly Congreve's temperament and relation to his age, Congreve's talent and relation to his art, could be asserted by some one consanguineous and perceptive enough.
Review, 1486 words
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