The Image of the Child in English Restoration Comedy

Comedy, it is often said, celebrates fertility. Why is it, then, that childbirth and conception are so rare in comedy, while sexual activity is so common? Copulation thrives in Wycherley's The Country Wife (1675) and in Etherege's The Man of Mode (1676); but in these plays pregancy and childbirth are rarely mentioned and never occur, and it is clear that if they did occur they would not be welcomed. Some years ago a modern critic represented Horner, the compulsive seducer in Wycherley's play, as the ~life force triumphant', and associated him with fertility.' A reviewer, spotting the flaw in the argument, retorted: ~Imagine Horner surrounded by a pack of howling babies'P Another equally thoughtprovoking comment on The Country Wife is dropped by a character in Wycherley's own Plain Dealer (1676) where, in a discussion of the earlier play, the hypocritical Olivia says the name 'Horner' reminds her of a town bull (Act Two, Scene One).3 This is uncomfortably apt. A bull enjoys the pleasures of venery without incurring any of the responsibilities: the same can be said of many stage rakes. It is perhaps right to say that when we think of comedy we think of the life force, and so of sex, and so of breeding. But at this point we find that the logic of association has led us astray. In many comedies babies and children do not appear and are only briefly mentioned; when they do appear, or are mentioned, it is usually the fear and embarrassment, the responsibility and even danger involved in the bearing and rearing of offspring that are foremost in the characters' minds. If anyone welcomes the thought of posterity it is usually the grandparents, who will enjoy the pride and pleasure of children without the trouble. Thus Sir Paul Plyant in Congreve's The Double Dealer (1693) crows delightedly to his daughter Celia, who is to marry Mellefont

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• Satire, Smut, and the Child Actor in Garrick’s Lilliput

  Aparna Gollapudi•Restoration and Eighteenth-Century…•2022

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