William Congreve Biography - eNotes.com William Congreve Biography Homework Help William Congreve Biography William Congreve is the source of the often-quoted words, “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” Congreve was a playwright who had one of literature’s shortest careers. He wrote only five plays and all by the age of thirty. However, as public sentiments changed, his audiences began to find his plays immoral. After receiving a few scathing reviews and discovering that the public’s fickle taste was turning away from the Restoration comedies he specialized in, Congreve turned to a life in politics. Though he is not remembered for his later writings, he continued to write, but instead of plays he wrote translations and poetry. In addition to his writing, Congreve is also remembered for his many notable affairs, including one with the duchess Henrietta Godolphin. Congreve’s health was poor near the end of his life, and he died from injuries sustained during a carriage accident. The play The Way of the World remains his most enduring work.

Facts and Trivia Despite being only fifty-nine when he died in 1729, Congreve suffered from both gout and cataracts. He was lifelong friends with Jonathan Swift, whom he met at Kilkenny College. Most of the leading roles in Congreve’s plays were written for his mistress at the time, Anne Bracegirdle. In Congreve's day, female roles in plays were beginning to be predominantly played by women, rather than men. There was another famous British man named William Congreve. Sir William Congreve, an inventor and rocket pioneer, was born in 1772 and died in 1828. Many writers and critics assert that the wit and brilliance of language in Congreve’s plays have only been surpassed by a later author, Oscar Wilde. Near the end of his life, Congreve received a visit from the French writer and philosopher Voltaire, whom Congreve annoyed when he said that he didn’t wish to be treated as a famous author, just a plain and simple gentleman.

Voltaire describes his reaction in Letters Concerning the English Nation: “I answered that had he been so unfortunate as to be a mere gentleman, I should never have come to see him.” Though Way of the World is his most well-known work, at the time of its production, it was a big failure. His most popular play in his own life time, The Mourning Bride, is now one of his most obscure works. link Link William Congreve was born on January 24, 1670, at Bardsey, Yorkshire, England. In 1674, his father, also named William, received a lieutenant’s commission to serve in Ireland, and the family moved to the garrison of Youghal. In 1678, the elder William was transferred to Carrickfergus, another Irish port, and again, the family accompanied him. Congreve’s knowledge of port life may have contributed to his depiction of the sailor, Ben, in Love for Love; Ben’s use of nautical terms demonstrates the playwright’s familiarity with this jargon.

When the elder Congreve joined the regiment of the duke of Ormond at Kilkenny in 1681, his son was able to enroll in Kilkenny College, which was free to all families who served the duke. Here, Congreve received his first formal education and his first exposure to the high society that gathered around the wealthy duke of Ormond. After spending four and a half years at Kilkenny, Congreve entered Trinity College, Dublin (April 5, 1686), where he had the same tutor as Jonathan Swift, Saint George Ashe. The theater in Smock Alley, Dublin, was at this period being run by Joseph Ashbury, who, like Congreve’s father, served under the duke of Ormond. Congreve may already have known Ashbury before coming to Trinity College, and Congreve’s frequent absences from college on Saturday afternoons suggest that he was spending his time at the theater. Here, he would have seen a fine sampling of contemporary drama and could have begun to learn those dramatic conventions that he perfected in his own works. In 1688, James II fled to Ireland.

Perhaps fearing a massacre of Protestants in retaliation for their support of William of Orange against the Catholic Stuart king, the Congreves left Ireland for their family home in England. Congreve went first to Staffordshire to visit his grandfather at Stretton Manor; there, he wrote a draft of The Old Bachelor before coming to London to enroll in the Middle Temple to study law. Congreve was not, however, an ideal law student. Like Steele’s literary Templar in The Spectator, he frequented the Theatre Royal in nearby Drury Lane and Will’s Coffee House rather than the Inns of Court. At Will’s, Dryden held literary court; by 1692, Congreve had become sufficiently friendly with the former laureate that he was asked to contribute a translation of Juvenal’s eleventh satire to Dryden’s forthcoming edition of the satires of Juvenal and Persius. Together with Arthur Manwayring and Thomas Southerne, Dryden was helpful to Congreve in revising The Old... (The entire section is 1051 words.) Get Free Access Start your free trial with eNotes for complete access to this resource and thousands more.

30,000+ Study Guides Save time with thousands of teacher-approved book and topic summaries. Get Homework Help Ask real teachers questions on any subject or search 300,000+ answers. On the Go Access link Link Because William Congreve’s father was in the army, the family moved several times, one of their longest tours being in Ireland. Congreve attended Kilkenny College (where he met Jonathan Swift), Trinity College in Dublin, and finally the Middle Temple in London. After he wrote Incognita and his five plays, Congreve at the age of thirty went into semiretirement as a writer. This action was partially a result of an accusation by the clergyman Jeremy Collier that his work was immoral and profane, and also because he was disappointed in public reaction toward his personal attempts to move toward a more aesthetic art form. Although Congreve never married, he was devoted to at least two women: the actress Anne Bracegirdle, for whom he devised most of his charming, independent, female roles; and Henrietta, the second Duchess of Marlborough, by whom he had a daughter, Mary.

Congreve was in poor health during his later years, suffering from cataracts and poor eyesight, gout and recurring lameness, and obesity. He died in London in 1729 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. link Link William Congreve was born in Yorkshire but grew up in Ireland, where his father served as an army lieutenant. Unlike many poets of his day, he belonged to the gentry: His grandfather was squire of Stretton Hall in Staffordshire. Congreve attended Kilkenny College, where he is reported to have written his first poem on the death of his headmaster’s magpie. Swift was an older classmate of Congreve at Kilkenny and later at Trinity College, Dublin. After college, Congreve moved to London to study law but soon became entranced by the literary life. He frequented Will’s coffeehouse, published a novel, and began writing odes and songs. His translations of Homer won Dryden’s praise and friendship, and Dryden edited and then sponsored Congreve’s first play, The Old Bachelor.

During the play’s run, Congreve fell in love with the young actress Anne Bracegirdle, for whom he wrote many poems and the part of Millamant in The Way of the World. For his promise as a propagandist for William III, Congreve was given his first of a long series of political posts, commissioner for hackney coaches; in gratitude, he produced the standard celebratory odes. The Mourning Bride, Congreve’s only tragedy, was his greatest popular success, although he is most acclaimed now for The Way of the World, a relative failure in its own day. After the less-than-rapturous reception of The Way of the World, suffering from increasing blindness and painful gout, Congreve declined to expend the enormous amount of energy and concentration needed to write plays. He continued to write verses on occasion and became a gentleman about town, friend of prominent writers, and gallant of Henrietta, duchess of Marlborough. Although he stopped writing for the theater, his love for it never waned; in 1705, he became the director of the new Haymarket Theater.

His government posts continued; in 1714, he was made searcher of customs and then secretary to the island of Jamaica, an office that gave him an adequate income for the rest of his life. He died in 1729 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where the duchess was buried beside him a few years later. link Link The satirical vision and pointed wit of William Congreve’s plays expose the hypocrisy, affectation, and moral degradation of the affluent society of his time. The extreme complexity of his plots makes his plays notoriously difficult to follow on the page. It is on the stage that their superbly entertaining quality is most evident: The rapid-fire wit of the dialogue, lively action, and psychological truth of the characterization carry the audience through labyrinthine twists and turns of plot. Indeed, the plays’ complex form aptly reflects the confusion created by the manipulative and self-deceiving characters, for whom no word or action is straightforward, simple, or what it seems. In Congreve’s universe, inverted or...

(The entire section is 124 words.) link Link Considered during his lifetime to be the legitimate rival of practically every English dramatist except William Shakespeare, William Congreve (KAWN-greev) was born in 1670 in Yorkshire, England, where his paternal grandfather led the comfortable life of a country squire. In 1674 Congreve’s father accepted a lieutenant’s commission in Ireland and moved his family first to Youghal and then to Carrickfergus. At the age of eleven young Congreve entered the school at Kilkenny, where his father had recently been posted. Here, along with the slightly older Jonathan Swift, Congreve followed a rigorous and comprehensive program of study centering on Greek and Latin classics. Knowledge of his academic performance at Kilkenny is sparse,... (The entire section is 842 words.) A guide to English Restoration theatre from Crossref-it.info Historical background The puritan Commonwealth Between 1642 and 1660, following the English Civil War and the trial and execution of King Charles I , England became a republic .

It was ruled by Parliament and a Council of State under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell , a puritan army officer who was declared Lord Protector of a united Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653. Because the Stuart Royal family had gone into exile in Europe, this period is also known as the interregnum . The Protectorate As Lord Protector, Cromwell became the head of state, in essence a monarch by another name. His rule was a time of rigid social and religious laws based on extreme Protestant ethics. The country was divided into eleven districts, each under a major-general who was responsible for tax collection, dispensing the law and guarding public morality. Church attendance was compulsory; cockfights and horse racing were banned; gambling dens, brothels and alehouses were closed; and drunkenness and blasphemy were punished harshly. These measures were extremely unpopular with the general public. Cromwell died in 1658 and his son, Richard, tried to carry on as Lord Protector (1658-59), but he was not the strong ruler his father had been. Meanwhile, the harsh results of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate confirmed in the English a hatred of military rule and severe Puritanism.

The restoration of the Stuart monarchy In 1660 Parliament offered to restore the monarchy, provided that Charles Stuart, son of King Charles I, would agree to concessions for religious toleration and a general amnesty . Charles agreed to the proposals and returned to London on a wave of popular support to be crowned King Charles II in 1660. The duration of his reign is known as the Restoration period and was notable for a relaxation of the strict puritan morality of the previous decades. Theatre, sports, and dancing were revived and Charles' court was famous for its licentiousness . English theatre during the Commonwealth Puritans were hostile toward theatre, as they felt that entertainment was sinful and that playwrights and actors were supporters of the crown and the nobility, so in 1642 Parliament banned the staging of plays in London. For the next eighteen years English theatres were closed. The law was sometimes broken and secret performances were given to small audiences in private houses, or in taverns a few miles outside London. However, no actor or spectator was safe, especially during the early days of puritan rule, and there was little incentive for dramatists to be creative.

English theatre after the Restoration French influences Charles II had spent much of his exile in France, where theatre had continued to flourish, so it was quite natural that, on his return, French influences would have an impact on English theatre. The French playwrights Corneille and Racine had established the neo-classical standard for tragedy , while Molière was in the full tide of his success as a writer of farce . These playwrights, with others, supplied English writers with plots and ideas for a short time. More on neo-classical tragedy: Literally a new or revived form of ancient Greek tragedy. The three Unities of action, time and place were originally defined and used in classical Greek theatre as follows: the plot had to have a logical consistency the action had to be completed within a span of twenty-four hours the events had to occur in a single location. In addition: violent events could only happen offstage the vocabulary was limited, with frequently repeated poetic phrases there was no vulgarity. A new style of theatre Although the monarchy had been restored, the mood of the general public had changed during the interregnum.

People no longer felt secure with regard to the old certainties about king, country and religious faith that were evident in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. This led to a change in the literature of the period, with dramatic art that was either critical or cynic al, morally abandoned or seemingly obscene . Charles II however, was an enthusiastic patron of the theatre and helped to breathe new life into British drama after his restoration. In August 1660 the theatres of London were reopened and performances immediately began. Charles also issued patents for two companies of players: The Duke’s Men, a company for younger performers, led by William Davenant The King's Company, a company for older, more experienced actors, led by Thomas Killigrew. The producers William Davenant Davenant had been a playwright and a producer of plays and masque s before the Civil war and had been granted permission to stage some events during the Commonwealth . With the King’s patent he opened the Lincoln’s Inn Fields theatre in 1661, in what had been an indoor traditional tennis court. The theatre was the first in England to have a proscenium arch and moveable scenery and was in use for performance until 1733.

Davenant adapted several Shakespeare plays and was the author of the first English opera, The Siege of Rhodes, which he staged as a revival in his theatre in 1661. Thomas Killigrew Killigrew had also practised as a playwright prior to the execution of Charles I and in 1662 he founded Drury Lane Theatre, which is still regarded as one of the finest in England. Killigrew has been credited with introducing female actors, music and scenery to the stage. He also mounted some of the most significant productions of the period, including revivals of plays by Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher. Killigrew wrote several plays himself, the most notable of which was The Parson’s Wedding, written in 1640 and revived at Drury Lane in 1664. It was so risqué that it was said to have ‘made even Mr Pepys blush’. More on Samuel Pepys: Samuel Pepys (pronounced Peeps) kept a diary from 1660 to 1669.

Written in shorthand, it is a racy and intimate account of his daily life; his many affairs and life in Charles II’s London, including events such as the Fire of London and the Great Plague. He was very fond of the theatre and wrote at length about performers and the plays he had seen. Killigrew also staged works by contemporary playwrights such as John Dryden and William Wycherley and is regarded as one of the cleverest stage craftsmen of the restoration. Like Davenant, he was keen to experiment with technical innovation. The actors and actresses Thomas Betterton Betterton was an actor-manager and the most famous leading man of his day. More on Thomas Betterton: Betterton acted in many of the newly opened theatres, making his first stage appearance at the Cockpit in Drury Lane when it re-opened in 1660. He was much admired by Charles II, who sent him to Paris to examine stage improvements there. Betterton was widely known for his performances in revivals of Elizabethan tragic drama. He married Mary Sanderson, an actress who had made her reputation playing Shakespearean roles and as a couple they were known for their encouragement and training of younger performers.

Their foster daughter, Anne Bracegirdle, also became an actress and in time established herself as the ‘virgin actress’ of English theatre. Betterton was praised for his acting abilities and his beautiful voice and is said to have led a blameless life, in an age which was notorious for extreme behaviour. The introduction of females on stage Since classical times, women’s roles in the theatre had been played by young boys, although in Italy the Commedia dell’Arte had broken with this tradition in the mid-sixteenth century by employing professional actresses. One of the most significant innovations in Restoration theatre was the introduction of actresses on the English stage. Nell Gwynn Perhaps the most notorious female actor of the Restoration was Nell Gwynn, a member of Killigrew’s company, who also became the mistress of Charles II. Elizabeth Barry Barry was a successful comedienne who created a variety of Restoration comedy heroines throughout her career, but her greatest impact on Restoration drama was as a tragic actress. More on Elizabeth Barry: Barry was not a beautiful woman but her acting skill and the beauty of her voice ensured that she was always regarded as one of the most accomplished performers of the period.

Barry had affairs with the notorious Earl of Rochester and the playwright George Etherege. She achieved great public approval for her stage performances and was also a successful business woman, which was unusual for the time. She never married and retired from the stage in 1709. Anne Bracegirdle As a child, Bracegirdle was placed in the care of the actor Thomas Betterton, who became her guardian and with whom she studied acting. Her first appearance on stage may have been when she was only six years old. As her career developed, she became a leading lady and a favourite of William Congreve, playing the heroine in many of his comedies. Bracegirdle was also a skilled tragic actress, an accomplished singer and enjoyed a reputation for virtue that was quite unusual for actresses of the time. Susanna Mountfort / Verbruggen Susanna Mountfort was an extremely versatile and popular with audiences in comic parts especially for her breeches roles . Both men and women in the audience loved Verbruggen’s performances in these types of roles and liked to see her impersonating men and enjoying the social and sexual freedom of the male Restoration rake . She married twice.

Her first husband, William Mountfort, was murdered in 1692, after which she married the actor John Verbruggen. The playwrights George Etheridge Etheridge was the first great writer of the Restoration period, writing social comedies of manners that show the influence of Molière. He was a friend of the notorious Earl of Rochester, whose debauched lifestyle was a model for the Restoration rake. Etheridge was the playwright who set the tone for the great Restoration comedies that followed. More on comedy of manners: The comedy of manners is: a style of comedy that reflects the life, ideals and manners of upper class society in a way that is essentially true to its traditions and philosophy The players must maintain the mask of social artifice whilst revealing to the audience what lies behind such manners In other words it makes the real artificial and the artificial real. The Man of Mode (1676) is the play that made Etheridge’s reputation. It is a full-blown Restoration comedy and particularly notable for the fop pish character, Sir Fopling Flutter. William Wycherley Wycherley trained as a lawyer, but decided to become an actor-manager and writer.

This after he began to associate with Etheredge and the Earl of Rochester, who was used as a model for a number of debauched characters in Restoration plays. Wycherley’s work was often very crude and his plays made pointed social comment by portraying the hypocrisy and vices of the period. The Country Wife (1675) was Wycherley’s most famous play and deals with the social ills of the time. John Dryden A writer, poet and playwright, Dryden’s heroic tragedies were very different to the work of other Restoration dramatists. In 1668 he was made Poet Laureate and he used his poetry and articles to make strong political points. He also wrote part of an operatic libretto as well as translating and adapting many classical texts. Dryden’s play All for Love (1678) is regarded as one of the great Restoration masterpieces. Aphra Behn Behn was the first professional woman dramatist. As well as plays, Behn also wrote poetry and novels and is said to have undertaken assignments as a spy. She is best known for her topical satirical comedies which display an even handed approach to gender issues.

The Rover; or The Banished Cavalier (1677) and its sequel, The Second Part of the Rover (1681), are comedies of intrigue and regarded as examples of Behn’s best work for the stage. Behn wrote eighteen plays, most of them highly successful and each as indecent as any by Wycherley or Vanbrugh. George Farquhar An Irishman who moved to London in 1697 to write for the English stage, Farquhar’s plays were notable for their warmth and sensitivity, balancing satire with sensibility . Farquhar’s best works are his last two plays, The Recruiting Officer (1706) and The Beaux Stratagem (1707). Bertold Brecht’s Trumpets and Drums and Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good are twentieth century plays based on The Recruiting Officer. John Vanbrugh Vanbrugh had several careers; first as a professional soldier, then as a playwright and probably most famously as an architect and surveyor. He designed many important buildings, including Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire and Castle Howard in Yorkshire. He also designed two theatres in London’s West End.

Vanbrugh's most successful plays were The Relapse: or Virtue in Danger (1696) a comedy about a libertine and his long-suffering wife, and The Provoked Wife (1697). Both plays were savagely attacked in a critical pamphlet (see below) written by the puritan clergyman Jeremy Collier in 1698. William Congreve Celebrated as the greatest writer of Restoration comedies of manners, Congreve was regarded as the master of stage comedy, writing plays that often dealt with marriage and extra marital affairs, perhaps written from his own experiences. Congreve had affairs with the Duchess of Marlborough, who bore him a child, and also with the actress Anne Bracegirdle, one of his leading ladies. Congreve’s response to Jeremy Collier’s attack was to write a pamphlet called Amendments of Mr Collier’s False and Imperfect Citations, after which Congreve went on to write his greatest play, The Way of the World (1700).

Reactions to restoration dramas Collier’s pamphlet Written in 1698, Jeremy Collier’s critical pamphlet, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, denounced not only Congreve and Vanbrugh, but also Shakespeare and many of the Elizabethan playwrights. Collier objected to the lewdness of the plays, their frequent irreverent allusions to the Bible and biblical characters, and all criticism of the clergy . Collier believed that only people of ‘low quality’ should be ridiculed on the stage, since it was an insult to do such a thing to someone who was high born. In his eyes, all playwrights were as immoral and sin ful as the characters they wrote about. King James II issued a solemn proclamation ‘against vice and profaneness’ and fines were imposed on some of the most popular writers, actors and actresses. The controversy caused by the pamphlet and the responses made to it went on for years, but the audiences still went to the playhouses and the writers continued to produce plays that satirised and ridiculed their enemies. The audience Restoration audiences were members of the upper class of London society (along with their servants).

The repertoire of the time reflected the audience's tastes for high-brow humour and wit. Playwrights deliberately structured their works to appeal to an audience whose behaviour in real life was often as shocking as that of the characters on stage. The only conduct in the theatre that was frowned on was anything that could be taken as a verbal attack on the King or his courtiers; everyone else was fair game. Audiences were quite rowdy in their behaviour during performances. They spoke back to the actors and arranged assignations with one another during the play. Many only attended the theatre in order to socialise and be admired by their friends and acquaintances, rather than to watch what was happening on stage. By the end of the sixteenth century, with the rise of the merchant class, theatre became more of a commercial activity, attracting a new breed of audience. The nuances of wit and theme so characteristic of the Restoration period were soon replaced with a less intellectually challenging repertoire. (1642-51). Series of military conflicts which rose out of religious, political and financial tensions between King Charles I and Parliament, which was increasingly influenced by Puritan sympathies.

Charles I (1600-49) succeeded to the English throne in 1625, but after the English Civil War of 1642-46 was deposed by Oliver Cromwell leading an army loyal to Parliament and subsequently executed. A state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state. (1599- 1658) English statesman and soldier. Puritan Member of Parliament who led the Roundhead forces during the English Civil War. Following the defeat and death of Charles I, Cromwell ruled as 'Lord Protector' from 1653 to 1658. Originally, a sixteenth and early seventeenth century Protestant, usually a Calvinist, who wished to reform the Church of England of all its Catholic characteristics. 1. The period after 1649 when England was ruled as a republic until the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. 2. A voluntary organisation, made up of many of the countries which used to be part of the British Empire. Literally translates as ‘the period between reigns’.

Christians whose faith and practice stems from the Reformation movement in the sixteenth century which resulted in new churches being created as an alternative to the Roman Catholic Church. Disrespect towards God or sacred things. A general pardon for an offence. Immorality and lack of sexual restraint King of England from 1660 when the monarchy was restored after the English Civil War and Commonwealth period. Pertaining to the movement in the arts beginning in the seventeenth century and coinciding with the Age of Enlightenment. A drama in which the main character falls from power, dignity and prosperity to misery, defeat and (usually) death A comedy based on unlikely situations and exaggerated effects. 1. Someone who dies not believe in the goodness of human nature. 2. A member of an ancient Greek of philosophers, who led a materially simple life, rejecting wealth and material pleasures. Offensive to morality or decency; depraved or repulsive. An early form of the opera, where drama or mime, dance and song interweave, usually in a pastoral setting. Popular in the seventeenth century. A civil war is a war within a specific country or territory between forces from within the country.

Famous civil wars include the English Civil War and the American Civil War (1860-65). 1. The period after 1649 when England was ruled as a republic until the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. 2. A voluntary organisation, made up of many of the countries which used to be part of the British Empire. A proscenium arch creates a ‘frame’ around the scenery and performers. Referring to sex in a rude and slightly shocking way. Samuel Pepys, 1633 – 1703, an English administrator in the Admiralty and Member of Parliament, most noted for his diary covering the English Restoration period 1660 – 1669. Breeches roles were a popular feature of Restoration theatre; they called for an actress to appear in male clothes. A man, especially one who is rich or with a high social position, who lives in an immoral way, particularly by being sexually promiscuous. A film, play or work of literature which satirises the particular behaviours of a certain group. A man concerned with his clothes and appearance in an affected and excessive way: a dandy, excessively concerned with fashion and elegance.

A poet appointed by the Sovereign or Head of State, usually to promote poetry or write poems on national occasions. A genre which ridicules some one or something. It can be poetry, drama or fiction. Mental or emotional responsiveness toward something, such as the feelings of another. A person (especially a man) who leads an immoral life and is mainly interested in sexual pleasure. A small, thin book about a particular subject, often associated with debate and/or satire. Originally, a sixteenth and early seventeenth century Protestant, usually a Calvinist, who wished to reform the Church of England of all its Catholic characteristics. Someone ordained as a priest, deacon or bishop to teach, conduct religious services, administer the sacraments and provide pastoral care within the Christian Church. Until recently, only men could be so ordained. The Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament scriptures inherited from Judaism, together with the New Testament, drawn from writings produced from c.40-125CE, which describe the life of Jesus and the establishment of the Christian church. The collective term for priests and ministers of the church (as opposed to the non-ordained laity). Disobedience to the known will of God.

According to Christian theology human beings have displayed a pre-disposition to sin since the Fall of Humankind. English monarch who succeeded to the throne in 1685. William Congreve William Congreve Location of death: London, England Cause of death: Accident - Misc Nationality: England Executive summary: The Way of the World English dramatist, the greatest English master of pure comedy, born at Bardsey near Leeds, where he was baptized on the 10th of February 1670, although the inscription on his monument gives his date of birth as 1672. He was the son of William Congreve, a soldier who was soon after his son's birth placed in command of the garrison at Youghal. To Ireland, therefore, is due the credit of his education -- as a schoolboy at Kilkenny, as an undergraduate at Dublin, where he was a contemporary and friend of Jonathan Swift . From college he came to London, and was entered as a student of law at the Middle Temple.

The first fruits of his studies appeared under the boyish pseudonym of "Cleophil", in the form of a novel whose existence is now remembered only through the unabashed avowal of so austere a moralist as Samuel Johnson , that he "would rather praise it than read it." In 1693 Congreve's real career began, and early enough by the latest computation, with the brilliant appearance and instant success of his first comedy, The Old Bachelor, under the generous auspices of John Dryden , then as ever a living and immortal witness to the falsehood of the vulgar charge which taxes the greater among poets with jealousy or envy, the natural badge and brand of the smallest that would claim a place among their kind. The discrowned laureate had never, he said, seen such a first play; and indeed the graceless grace of the dialogue was as yet only to be matched by the last and best work of George Etherege , standing as until then it had done alone among the barefaced brutalities of William Wycherley and Thomas Shadwell . The types of Congreve's first work were the common conventional properties of stage tradition; but the fine and clear-cut style in which these types were reproduced was his own.

The gift of one place and the reversion of another were the solid fruits of his splendid success. Next year a better play from the same hand met with worse fortune on the stage, and with yet higher honor from the first living poet of his nation. The noble verses, as faultless in the expression as reckless in the extravagance of their applause, prefixed by Dryden to The Double Dealer, must naturally have supported the younger poet, if indeed such support can have been required, against the momentary annoyance of assailants whose passing clamor left uninjured and secure the fame of his second comedy; for the following year witnessed the crowning triumph of his art and life, in the appearance of Love for Love (1695). Two years later his ambition rather than his genius adventured on the foreign ground of tragedy, and The Mourning Bride (1697) began such a long career of good fortune as in earlier or later times would have been closed against a far better work.

Next year he attempted, without his usual success, a reply to the attack of Jeremy Collier, the nonjuror, "on the immorality and profaneness of the English stage" -- an attack for once not discreditable to the assailant, whose honesty and courage were evident enough to approve him incapable alike of the ignominious precaution which might have suppressed his own name, and of the dastardly mendacity which would have stolen the mask of a stranger's. Against this merit must he set the mistake of confounding in one indiscriminate indictment the levities of a writer like Congreve with the brutalities of a writer like Wycherley -- an error which ever since has more or less perverted the judgment of succeeding critics. The general case of comedy was then, however, as untenable by the argument as indefensible by the sarcasm of its most brilliant and comparatively blameless champion.

Art itself, more than anything else, had been outraged and degraded by the recent school of the Restoration; and the comic work of Congreve, though different rather in kind than in degree from the bestial and blatant license of his immediate precursors, was inevitably for a time involved in the sentence passed upon the comic work of men in all ways alike his inferiors. The true and triumphant answer to all possible attacks of honest men or liars, brave men or cowards, was then as ever to be given by the production of work unarraignable alike by fair means or foul by frank impeachment or furtive imputation. In 1700 Congreve thus replied to Collier with The Way of the World -- the unequalled and unapproached masterpiece of English comedy, which may fairly claim a place beside or but just beneath the mightiest work of Moli�re . On the stage which had recently acclaimed with uncritical applause the author's more questionable appearance in the field of tragedy, this final and flawless evidence of his incomparable powers met with a rejection then and ever since inexplicable on any ground of conjecture.

During the twenty-eight years which remained to him, Congreve produced little beyond a volume of fugitive verses, published ten years after the miscarriage of his masterpiece. His even course of good fortune under Whig and Tory governments alike was counterweighed by the physical infirmities of gout and failing sight. He died, January 19, 1729, in consequence of an injury received on a journey to Bath by the upsetting of his carriage; was buried in Westminster Abbey, after lying in state in the Jerusalem Chamber; and bequeathed the bulk of his fortune to the chief friend of his last years, Henrietta, duchess of Marlborough, daughter of the great duke, rather than to his family, which, according to Johnson, was then in difficulties, or to Anne Bracegirdle , the actress, with whom he had lived longer on intimate terms than with any other mistress or friend, but who inherited by his will only �200. The one memorable incident of his later life was the visit of Voltaire , whom he astonished and repelled by his rejection of proffered praise and the expression of his wish to be considered merely as any other gentleman of no literary fame.

The great master of well-nigh every province in the empire of letters, except the only one in which his host reigned supreme, replied that in that sad case Congreve would not have received his visit. The fame of the greatest English comic dramatist is founded wholly or mainly on but three of his five plays. His first comedy was little more than a brilliant study after such models as were eclipsed by this earliest effort of their imitator; and tragedy under his hands appears rouged and wrinkled, in the patches and powder of Lady Wishfort. But his three great comedies are more than enough to sustain a reputation as durable as our language. Were it not for these we should have no samples to show of comedy in its purest and highest form. Ben Jonson , who alone attempted to introduce it by way of reform among the mixed work of a time when comedy and tragedy were as inextricably blended on the stage as in actual life, failed to give the requisite ease and the indispensable grace of comic life and movement to the action and passion of his elaborate and magnificent work.

Of Congreve's immediate predecessors, whose aim had been to raise on French foundations a new English fabric of simple and unmixed comedy, Wycherley was of too base metal and Etherege was of metal too light to be weighed against him; and besides theirs no other or finer coin was current than the crude British ore of Shadwell's brutal and burly talent. Borrowing a metaphor from Landor, we may say that a limb of Moli�re would have sufficed to make a Congreve, a limb of Congreve would have sufficed to make a Sheridan .

The broad and robust humor of John Vanbrugh 's admirable comedies gives him a place on the master's right hand; on the left stands George Farquhar , whose bright light genius is to Congreves as female is to male, or "as moonlight unto sunlight." No English writer, on the whole, has so nearly touched the skirts of Moli�re; but his splendid intelligence is wanting in the deepest and subtlest quality which has won for Moli�re from the greatest poet of his country and our age the tribute of exact and final definition conveyed in that perfect phrase which salutes at once and denotes him -- "ce moqueur pensif comme un ap�tre." Only perhaps in a single part has Congreve half consciously touched a note of almost tragic depth and suggestion; there is something well-nigh akin to the grotesque and piteous figure of Arnolphe himself in the unvenerable old age of Lady Wishfort, set off and relieved as it is, with grace and art worthy of the supreme French master, against the only figure on any stage which need not shun comparison even with that of C�lim�ne. Girlfriend: Mrs.

Anne Bracegirdle (actress, relationship speculative) Girlfriend: (2nd Duchess of Marlborough, one daughter) Daughter: Lady Mary Godolphin (Duchess of Leeds) High School: Kilkenny, Ireland

Question: To which dramatist was the actress Anne Bracegirdle mistress?
Answer: WILLIAM CONGREVE