Plot
The protagonist of The Man of Mode is Dorimant, a notorious libertine and man-about-town.
The story opens with Dorimant addressing a billet-doux to Mrs. Loveit, with whom he is having an affair, to lie about his whereabouts. An "Orange-Woman" is let in and informs him of the arrival in London of a beautiful heiress – later known to be Harriet. Dorimant's closest friend and fellow rake, Medley, arrives and offers more information on her. Dorimant expresses his wish to break off his relationship with Mrs. Loveit, being already involved with her younger friend Belinda. The two friends plot to encourage Mrs. Loveit's jealousy so that she will break off the relationship with Dorimant. Young Bellair, the handsome acquaintance of both men, enters and relates his infatuation with Emilia, a woman serving as companion to Lady Townley—his devotion is ridiculed. The three debate the fop Sir Fopling Flutter, newly come to London. Bellair learns of his father's arrival, that he lodges in the same place as his Emilia and of his desire for a different match for his son. A letter arrives from Mrs. Loveit and Dorimant departs.
Lady Townley and Emilia discuss the affairs of town, particularly Old Bellair's professing of love for Emilia and his lack of awareness about his son's affections for her; he intends instead for him to marry Harriet. Young Bellair admits to having written a letter promising his acquiescence to his father's will in due time so as to deceive him. Medley arrives and boasts to the ladies of Dorimant's womanising status.
Mrs. Loveit becomes enraged with jealousy at Dorimant's lack of attention to her, while her woman, Pert, attempts to dissuade her from such feelings. Belinda enters and informs her of a masked woman that Dorimant was seen in public with. Dorimant appears and accuses the women of spying on him and also that Mrs. Loveit has encouraged the affections of Sir Fopling; in a pretended state of jealousy, he leaves.
Harriet and Young Bellair act as if they are in love to trick the onlooking Lady Woodvill and Old Bellair. Meanwhile, Dorimant and Belinda meet at Lady Townley's and arrange an imminent meeting. Emilia then reveals her interest in Dorimant to Belinda and Lady Townley. Belinda persuades Mrs. Loveit, on Dorimant's request, to take a walk on The Mall and be 'caught' in the act of flirting with Fopling. Dorimant meets with Fopling and pretends that Mrs. Loveit has affections for him (Fopling). When Mrs. Loveit encounters Fopling she acts flirtatious, in spite of not liking him and succeeds in making Dorimant jealous. Medley suggests he attends a dance at Lady Townley's which Harriet will be, though in the disguise of "Mr Courtage", to take his mind off Mrs. Loveit. Woodvill chides Dorimant and his reputation in front of him, not seeing through his disguise. Dorimant admits to Emilia that he loves Harriet but continues to be obstinate. Fopling appears and almost uncovers Dorimant but the latter leaves to meet Belinda. She expresses her jealousy at Mrs. Loveit, imploring him to never see her again. Young Bellair discovers his father's affections for Emilia, Harriet's for Dorimant and tells Dorimant.
Belinda returns to Mrs. Loveit's in the early hours but taking the same hired chair that Mrs. Loveit had taken when she left Dorimant's, is suspected of being up to something. Dorimant arrives afterwards and confronts Mrs. Loveit; she says she is aware that he is only faking jealousy to spend time with another woman.
Lady Woodvill and Old Bellair rush their children to get married. Dorimant interrupts; his true identity is revealed when Mrs. Loveit and Belinda arrive to confront him. Mrs. Woodvill is in dismay. Young Bellair and Emilia publicly show their love for each other. Old Bellair concedes to the match and Woodvill admits that she likes Dorimant despite the gossip she has heard about him. Harriet admits she loves Dorimant, so Woodvill allows for their marriage while warning Harriet that the match will bring ruin upon her. Both young couples will marry.
Harriet advises Belinda and Mrs. Loveit to stay away from Dorimant (for their own good) and perhaps join a nunnery to preserve their goodness. Dorimant and Harriet will move back to the country to live with the Woodvills. Fopling is glad not to commit to anyone.
"Restoration comedy" is English comedy written and performed in the Restoration period of 1660–1710. Comedy of manners is used as a synonym for this. After public stage performances were banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, reopening of the theatres in 1660 marked a renaissance of English drama. Sexually explicit language was encouraged by King Charles II (1660–1685) personally and by the rakish style of his court. Historian George Norman Clark argues:
The best-known fact about the Restoration drama is that it is immoral. The dramatists did not criticize the accepted morality about gambling, drink, love, and pleasure generally, or try, like the dramatists of our own time, to work out their own view of character and conduct. What they did was, according to their respective inclinations, to mock at all restraints. Some were gross, others delicately improper.... The dramatists did not merely say anything they liked: they also intended to glory in it and to shock those who did not like it.
The Country Wife is a Restoration comedy written by William Wycherley and first performed in 1675. A product of the tolerant early Restoration period, the play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. The title contains a lewd pun with regard to the first syllable of "country". It is based on several plays by Molière, with added features that 1670s London audiences demanded: colloquial prose dialogue in place of Molière's verse, a complicated, fast-paced plot tangle, and many sex jokes. It turns on two indelicate plot devices: a rake's trick of pretending impotence to safely have clandestine affairs with married women, and the arrival in London of an inexperienced young "country wife", with her discovery of the joys of town life, especially the fascinating London men. The implied condition the Rake, Horner, claimed to suffer from was, he said, contracted in France whilst "dealing with common women". The only cure was to have a surgeon drastically reduce the extent of his manly stature; therefore, he could be no threat to any man's wife.
Fop became a pejorative term for a man excessively concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th-century England. Some of the many similar alternative terms are: coxcomb, fribble, popinjay, dandy, fashion-monger, and ninny. Macaroni was another term of the 18th century more specifically concerned with fashion.
Susanna Verbruggen, aka Susanna Mountfort, was an English actress working in London.
Sir George Etherege was an English dramatist. He wrote the plays The Comical Revenge or, Love in a Tub in 1664, She Would If She Could in 1668, and The Man of Mode or, Sir Fopling Flutter in 1676.
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The Beaux' Stratagem is a comedy by George Farquhar, first produced at the Theatre Royal, now the site of Her Majesty's Theatre, in the Haymarket, London, on March 8, 1707. In the play, Archer and Aimwell, two young gentlemen who have fallen on hard times, plan to travel through small towns, entrap young heiresses, steal their money and move on. In the first town, Lichfield, they set their sights on Dorinda. Aimwell falls truly in love, and comedy ensues. Foigard, a priest and chaplain to the French officer, is actually an Irish priest called MacShane.
Wit at Several Weapons is a seventeenth-century comedy of uncertain date and authorship.
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Mary Saunderson (1637–1712), later known as Mary Saunderson Betterton after her marriage to Thomas Betterton, was an actress and singer in England during the 1660s and 1690s. She is considered one of the first English actresses.
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Camilla, subtitled A Picture of Youth, is a novel by Frances Burney, first published in 1796. Camilla deals with the matrimonial concerns of a group of young people: Camilla Tyrold and her sisters, the sweet tempered Lavinia and the smallpox scarred Eugenia, and their cousin, the beautiful Indiana Lynmere—and in particular, with the love affair between Camilla herself and her eligible suitor, Edgar Mandlebert. They have many hardships, however, caused by misunderstandings and mistakes, in the path of true love.
George Knightley is a principal character depicted by Jane Austen in her novel Emma, published in 1815. He is a landowner and gentleman farmer, though "having little spare money". A lifetime friend of Emma's, though nearly seventeen years older than she, he is one of the only characters willing to correct her when he believes her to be doing wrong.
Azemia is a satirical novel, written by William Thomas Beckford, that was first published in 1797. The book parodies what Beckford considered sensationalist writing, as well as political issues of the time.
Mary, Lady Slingsby, born Aldridge, was an English actress. After a marriage lasting 1670 to 1680 to John Lee, an actor, during which she was on the stage as Mrs. Lee, she was widowed. She then married Sir Charles Slingsby, 2nd Baronet, a nephew of Sir Robert Slingsby, and performed as Lady Slingsby. Theatre historians have pointed out the difficulty in identifying her roles in the period when Elinor Leigh, wife of Anthony Leigh, was performing as Mrs. Leigh, because the homophones "Lee" and "Leigh" were not consistently spelled at the time.
Sophia is a novel published in 1762 by Charlotte Lennox, a British novelist best known for her 1752 satirical novel The Female Quixote. Originally published in Lennox's periodical The Lady's Museum as Harriet and Sophia between 1760-1, this novel is only the second British novel to be serialized in a magazine, and the first one to be published this way by a woman.
The Rival Widows, or the Fair Libertine is a 1735 comedy play by the British writer Elizabeth Cooper. The plot is a re-gendered mashup of two popular eighteenth-century genres: the libertine comedy and the comedy of sentiment. It is a comedic work that revolves around a complex web of romantic entanglements, misunderstandings, and schemes.
She Would If She Could is a 1668 comedy play by the English writer George Etherege. It was originally staged at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre by the Duke's Company. The play's novelty lies in its shedding of the romantic verse element to attain a unified tone. The play deals with the lustfulness of Cockwood couple; the title referring to Lady Cockwood looking for an opportunity to cheat Sir Oliver Cockwood.
Henry Norris (1665–1730?), also known as "Jubilee Dicky", was an English actor.
William Smith was a British actor.
