English drama : Restoration and Eighteenth Century, 1660-1789 / Richard W Bevis

Part One: The Restoration 1660-1688;
1 Thespis Redux; King and country;
2 The Noble Experiment: Heroic Drama;
3 The Jaws of Defeat: Tragicomedy;
4 The World Well Lost: Tragedy;
5 Mask and Veil: Comedy; Afterword;
6 Scenes and Machines: Operatic Drama.
Part Two: Reform, Retrenchment and Control 1689-1737
7 From Revolution to Robinocracy; Government and society; Intellectual culture; Theatre and society; 8 Sorrows Like Your Own: Augustan Tragedy;
9 Anything Goes: The Diversity of Comic Drama; The Old Guard; New voices; The dialectics of reform; Stagnation: 1708-1727; The New Wave: 1728-1737;
10 Sister Arts: Operatic Drama 1689-1737; Part Three: The High Georgian Era 1738-1779;
11 Britannia's Rules 1738-1779; The Age of Chatham; The Age of Hume; The Age of Garrick;
12 The Luxury of Grief: Georgian Tragedy and Tragicomedy.
13 The Confused Muse: Georgian Comedy and Farce
14 Lay All Aristotle's Rules Aside: Musicals and Irregular Forms 1738-1779;
15 Epilogue: The 1780s; Matrices: politics, society, culture;

What were the causes of Restoration drama's licentiousness? How did the elegantly-turned comedy of Congreve become the pointed satire of Fielding? And how did Sheridan and Goldsmith reshape the materials they inherited? In the first account of the entire period for more than a decade, Richard Bevis argues that none of these questions can be answered without an understanding of Augustan and Georgian history. The years between 1660 and 1789 saw considerable political and social upheaval, which is reflected in the eclectic array of dramatic forms that is Georgian theatre's essential characteristic