The Radical background

Pepys's Diary

Defoe, Shortest Way with the Dissenters

Wycherley, The Country Wife & controversy over the stage

There will be two parts to the exam.

Part I.  25 minutes.
Explaining significance.  Explain in 2 (or a few) complete sentences the significance of 5 of the following items.  Do not use the sentence “X is significant because . . .” 
            You have approximately 5 minutes for each item.

Sample items:

1. mercy

2. cuckold

3. honor

4. Horner

5. dissenter

6. disguise

7. virtuous gang

8. irony

9. the Country Wife

10. State of Nature

Part II. 25 minutes
Use one of the following quotations (A or B) as a starting point for discussing the cultural problem(s) dealt with by the work from which the quotation comes.  How does this work respond to new conditions, new pressures, new problems? Make a clear connection between the details of the quoted material and your overall claim(s) about the work.

Example from Defoe:

It is now near Fourteen Years, that the Glo∣ry and Peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the World has been Ecclips'd, Buf∣fetted, and Disturb'd, by a sort of Men, who God in his Providence has suffer'd to insult o∣ver her, and bring her down; these have been the Days of her Humiliation and Tribulation: She has born with an invincible Patience the Re∣proach of the Wicked, and God has at last heard her Prayers, and deliver'd her from the Oppression of the Stranger.

And now they find their Day is over, their Power gone, and the Throne of this Nation possest by a Royal, English, True, and ever Con∣stant Member of, and Friend to the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just Resent∣ments; now they cry out Peace, Ʋnion, Forbear∣ance, and Charity, as if the Church had not too long harbour'd her Enemies under her Wing, and nourish'd the viperous Brood, till they hiss and fly in the Face of the Mother that cherish'd them.

Example from Wycherley: Please note that this section for practice is longer than the section on the exam will be. It is nevertheless a good one to use for studying for the exam. Please note also that the names of speakers are abbreviated after the first listing (Hor = Horner; La Fid = Lady Fidget; Dayn= Dainty).

The Scene changes again to Horner's Lodging: Horner, Lady Fidget, Mrs. Daynty Fidget, Mrs. Squeamish, a Table, Banquet, and Bottles.

Horner: A Pox they are come too soon---before I have / sent back my new---Mistress, all I have now to do, is to / lock her in, that they may not see her--- [Aside.

Lady Fidget: That we may be sure of our wellcome, we have / brought our entertainment with us, and are resolv'd to treat / thee, dear Toad. /

Dainty: And that we may be merry to purpose, have left Sir / Jaspar and my old Lady Squeamish quarrelling at home at Baggammon. /

Squeamish: Therefore let us make use of our time, lest they / should chance to interrupt us. /

La. Fid. Let us sit then. /

Hor.: First that you may be private, let me lock this door, / and that, and I'le wait upon you presently. /

La. Fid.: No Sir, shut 'em only and your lips for ever, for we / must trust you as much as our women. /

Hor. You know all vanity's kill'd in me, I have no occasion / for talking. /

La. Fid. Now Ladies, supposing we had drank each of us /our two Bottles, let us speak the truth of our hearts.

Dayn. and Squeam. Agreed. /

La. Fid. By this brimmer, for truth is no where else to be / found, [Not in thy heart false man [Aside to Hor.

Hor. You have found me a true man I'm / sure. / [Aside to Lady Fid.

La. Fid. Not every way--- [Aside to Hor.
But let us sit and be Merry.
Lady Fidget sings:
Why should our damn'd Tyrants oblige us to live,
On the pittance of Pleasure which they only give.
We must not rejoyce,
With Wine and with noise.
In vaine we must wake in a dull bed alone.
Whilst to our warm Rival the Bottle, they're gone.
Then lay aside charms,
And take up these arms
2.
'Tis Wine only gives 'em their Courage and Wit,
Because we live sober to men we submit.
If for Beauties you'd pass.
Take a lick of the Glass.
'Twill mend your complexions, and when they are gone,
The best red we have is the red of the Grape.
Then Sisters lay't on.
And dam a good shape.

Dainty: .Dear Brimmer, well in token of our openness and / [375] plain dealing, let us throw our Masques over our heads. /

Hor. So 'twill come to the Glasses anon. /

Squeam. Lovely Brimmer, let me enjoy him first. /

La. Fid. No, I never part with a Gallant, till I've try'd / him. Dear Brimmer that mak'st our Husbands short / sighted. /

Dayn. And our bashful gallants bold. /

Squeam.
And for want of a Gallant, the Butler lovely in our / eyes, drink Eunuch. /

La. Fid.
Drink thou representative of a Husband, damn a / Husband. /

Dayn. And as it were a Husband, an old keeper. /

Squeam. And an old Grandmother. /

Hor. And an English Bawd, and a French Chirurgion. /

La. Fid. Ay we have all reason to curse 'em. /

Hor. For my sake Ladies. /

La. Fid. No, for our own, for the first spoils all young gallants / industry. /

Dayn. And the others art makes 'em bold only with common / women. /

Squeam. And rather run the hazard of the vile distemper / amongst them, than of a denial amongst us. /

Dayn. The filthy Toads chuse Mistresses now, as they do / Stuffs, for having been fancy'd and worn by others.

Squeam. For being common and cheap. /

La. Lid. Whilst women of quality, like the richest Stuffs, / lye untumbled, and unask'd for. /
Hor. Ay neat, and cheap, and new often they think / best. /

Dayn. No Sir, the Beasts will be known by a Mistriss longer / than by a suit. /

Squeam. And 'tis not for cheapness neither. /

La. Fid. No, for the vain fopps will take up Druggets, / and embroider 'em, but I wonder at the depraved appetites of / witty men, they use to be out of the common road, and hate / imitation, pray tell me beast, when you were a man, why you / rather chose to club with a multitude in a common house, / for an entertainment, than to be the only guest at a good / Table. /

Hor. Why faith ceremony and expectation are unsufferable / to those that are sharp bent, people always eat with the / best stomach at an ordinary, where every man is snatching for / the best bit. /

La. Fid. Though he get a cut over the fingers---but I / have heard people eat most heartily of another man's meat, / that is, what they do not pay for. /

Hor. When they are sure of their wellcome and freedome, / for ceremony in love and eating, is as ridiculous as in fighting, / falling on briskly is all should be done in those occasions. /

La. Fid. Well then let me tell you Sir, there is no where / [425] more freedome than in our houses, and we take freedom from / a young person as a sign of good breeding, and a person may / be as free as he pleases with us, as frolick, as gamesome, as / wild as he will. /

Hor. Han't I heard you all declaim against wild men. /

La. Fid. Yes, but for all that, we think wildness in a man, / as desirable a quality, as in a Duck, or Rabbet; a tame man, / foh. /

Hor. I know not, but your Reputations frightned me, as / much as your Faces invited me. /

La. Fid. Our Reputation, Lord! Why should you not / think, that we women make use of our Reputation, as you / men of yours, only to deceive the world with less suspicion; / our virtue is like the State-man's Religion, the Quakers / Word, the Gamesters Oath, and the Great Man's Honour, but / to cheat those that trust us. /

Squeam. And that Demureness, Coyness, and Modesty, / that you see in our Faces in the Boxes at Plays, is as much a / sign of a kind woman, as a Vizard-mask in the Pit. /

Dayn. For I assure you, women are least mask'd, when they / have the Velvet Vizard on. /

La. Fid. You wou'd have found us modest women in our / denyals only. /
Squeam. Our bashfulness is only the reflection of the / Men's. /

Dayn. We blush, when they are shame-fac'd. /

Hor. I beg your pardon Ladies, I was deceiv'd in you devilishly, / but why, that mighty pretence to Honour? /
La. Fid. We have told you; but sometimes 'twas for the / 

same reason you men pretend business often, to avoid ill company, / to enjoy the better, and more privately those you / love. /

Hor. But why, wou'd you ne'er give a Friend a wink / then? /

La. Fid. Faith, your Reputation frightned us as much, as / ours did you, you were so notoriously lewd. /

Hor. And you so seemingly honest. /

La. Fid. Was that all that deterr'd you? /

Hor. And so expensive---you allow freedom you say. /

La. Fid. Ay, ay. /

Hor That I was afraid of losing my little money, as well as / my little time, both which my other pleasures required. /

La. Fid. Money, foh---you talk like a little fellow now, / do such as we expect money? /

Hor. I beg your pardon, Madam, I must confess, I have / heard that great Ladies, like great Merchants, set but the / higher prizes upon what they have, because they are not in / necessity of taking the first offer. /

Dayn. Such as we, make sale of our hearts? /

Squeam. We brib'd for our Love? Foh. /

Hor. With your pardon, Ladies, I know, like great men / in Offices, you seem to exact flattery and attendance only / from your Followers, but you have receivers about you, and / such fees to pay, a man is afraid to pass your Grants; besides / we must let you win at Cards, or we lose your hearts; and / if you make an assignation, 'tis at a Goldsmiths, Jewellers, / or China house, where for your Honour, you deposit to him, / he must pawn his, to the punctual Citt, and so paying for / what you take up, pays for what he takes up. /

Dayn. Wou'd you not have us assur'd of our Gallants / Love? /

Squeam. For Love is better known by Liberality, than / by Jealousie. /

La. Fid. For one may be dissembled, the other not---but / my Jealousie can be no longer dissembled, and they are telling / ripe: / [Aside.

 
Come here's to our Gallants in waiting, whom we must name, / and I'll begin, this is my false Rogue. / Claps him on the back.

Squeam. How! /

Hor. So all will out now--- /

Squeam. Did you not tell me, 'twas for my sake only, you / reported your self no man? [Aside to Horner.
Dayn. Oh Wretch! did you not swear to me, 'twas for my / Love, and Honour, you pass'd for that thing you / do? / Aside to Horner.

Hor. So, so. /

La. Fid. Come, speak Ladies, this is my false Villain. /

Squeam. And mine too. /

Dayn. And mine. /

Horn. Well then, you are all three my false Rogues too, / and there's an end on't. /

La. Fid. Well then, there's no remedy, Sister Sharers, let / us not fall out, but have a care of our Honour; though we / get no Presents, no Jewels of him, we are savers of our Honour, / the Jewel of most value and use, which shines yet to / the world unsuspected, though it be counterfeit. /

Hor. Nay, and is e'en as good, as if it were true, provided / the world think so; for Honour, like Beauty now, / only depends on the opinion of others. /

La. Fid. Well Harry Common, I hope you can be true to / three, swear, but 'tis no purpose, to require your Oath; / for you are as often forsworn, as you swear to new women. /

Hor. Come, faith Madam, let us e'en pardon one another, / for all the difference I find betwixt we men, and you women, / we forswear our selves at the beginning of an Amour, / you, as long as it lasts. /

Replies to Section I (The numbers do not correspond to the numbers on the exam.)

1. occasional conformity

a. Occasional conformity refers to the (debated) allowance of dissenters to hold public office so long as they practice Communion at least once a year, however ineffectually practicing the state religion of High Anglican faith. There was debate as to whether the practice was hypocritical and opportunistic, a compromise of the law, or rather an attempt to bridge the gap between the dissenters and the Anglicans (referred to in Defoe's The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.

b. This term refers to the action of the dissenters in following the laws requiring religious observance such as the requirement to take communion once a year. In an effort to get around the law, the dissenters interpreted it literally and only conformed once a year, then went back to their own practices. It can be viewed as indefensible, hypocritical and a compromise of the law, or it can be viewed as defensible and a means to bring the people together.

2. contract

According to Thomas Hobbes, a contract is a mutual transferrring of rights. In a contract, power is given to a sovereign figure and thus, people are relieved of unendurable equality. When looking at The Country Wife in a Hobbesian perspective, the social contract in the plan is a contract to continue lying and keeping society in order (which alows Horner to continue sleeping with women). Hobbes' ideas of allowing authority and represing desires thorugh a contract is undermined inWycherley's play.

3. Clarendon Code

The Clarendon Code was a series of laws governing religious practice and, nominally, curtailing dissent in England. Its severity is echoed in Defoe's The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, with ironic intent.

The Clarendon Code was a set of regulations made shortly after Charles II's return to the throne. While the king previously made a speech aiming for peace within the country, the Clarendon Code placed many restricitons on religious practices separate from the Church of England, such as limiting the number of people allowed to congregate.

4. Charles I:

The Stuart King who, in 1649, was tried and executed, beginning the interregnum/Cromwell's Commonwealth. This marked a signifcant shift to the "new" in that England was holding a king responsible for his actions and throwing off the power of the monarchy. Even when the monarchy returned under Chalres II, the power of the king was limited.

5. china

a. "China" is mentioned in The Country Wife as Lady Fidget's reason for visiting Horner. Although the initial reason was for an affair, in order to divert attention away from the affair, looking at and taking china is used as an excuse. China is almost a metaphor for the affair--the reason for coming over was to take a piece of Horner's china--aka, to have a piece of Horner.

b. The term "china" refers to a scene in William Wycherley's The County Wife in whcih Horner, under the pretext of showing Lady Fidget his china collection and knowledge of china, tricks her husband into allowing them to be alone in a secluded (and locked) room. Here, china serves as a double entendre. His knowledge of china is actually representative of his own sexual prowess. It also serves as a phallic symbol in the film. Horner and Lady Fidgetexit the room after studying the china (i.e., having sex) and she is holding a rather phallic china vase, signifying their construction of a sexual partnership.

6. Lucy

Lucy is the maid who restores the balance and mediates the social contract at the end of The Country Wife. In the tradition of comedy, the maid is often the accomplice to much of the amoral action. Because of her lower social status, Lucy often goes unnoticed even though she is a constant presence. She assumes Horner's original authority when he cannot exlain himself, using the information she has accumulated through observation, to create a social contract everyone will agree to for the sake of salvaging everyone's individual honor/reputation.

Replies to Section II, essay based on close analysis of text

1. Defoe's The Shortest Way with the Dissenters addresses the tensions between the High Church and occasional conformists in England. More specifically, the pamphlet exposes the extreme ideology of the church and its inability to adapt to a population that does not necessarily conform to its ideals. Defoe's pamphlet responds to these new pressures through its use of irony, extending the High Church's radical perspective to such a length as to no longer be plausible.

Perhaps the most pressing issue the pamphlet adresses is the notion of a divided England. Defoe writes, "Had King James sent all the Puritans in England away to the West Indies, we had seen a national, unmixed church." Defoe, of course, is reflecting a real idea of the High Church and extending it to its logical extreme: if all dissenters are sent away, then there can be no more dissent in England. The deeper notion that Defoe is exploring is the idea that the High Church cannot tolerate a segment of the population that does not support its views. Since church and statewere so closely wedded, this becomes an indictment against an intolerant government. By reflecting the opinions of the High Church, Defoe is, in fact, exposing the institution's unreasonable rigidity. The question that arises from this tension directs itself at the state of the country. Defoe may in fact be addressing a real need; England may truly be divided, though not along the lines the High Church prescribes, and may require a unifying element.

This question is further explored in the line, "If one severe law were made, and punctually executed . . ., we shou'd soon see an end of the tale, they wou'd all come to Church; and one age wou'd make us all one again." This is another example of Defoe sympathizing with the High Church's perspective for ironic effect. Yet there may be a deeper purpose to these lines. Irony aside, Defoe is portraying an England stratified not according to the High Church and occasional conformists, but reactionaly radicalism and religious progress. The central tension i The Shortest Way is that the High Church, and government by extension, cannot accommodate a changing society. The irony is that the High Church cannot see itself and its unreasonable policies in the pamphlet's language.

2. In the ending of scene V, The Country Wife makes the concluding statement upon marriage that it is fundamentally a concept created by society that the majority of people do not desire. Alithea is the most well spoken of the ladies in the play, yet in this instance even she lies, through the fact of wit, reinstating Margery's image as a naive and innocently imaginative woman from the simple countryside. Lucy bolsters the argument by cleverly adding that Margery is a "wild thing" and that naturally, when restrained, can only grow "more fierce and hungry." Lucy's mastery of langauge truly shines, as her commentary obviously alluds to Margery's sexual hunger for Horner, yet tames her words enough to appease the turbulent situation.

As a satirical play, the Country Wife does not offer an ultimate solution, but rather reveals the restraining problem with marriage in a lewd and entertaining manner. Alithea states that husbands must follow a certain "doctrine" yet the specific terms remain open to interpretation, again demonstrating the combat of wit. For Alithea, the husbnd doctrine may be jealousy, considering how important she holds it to marriage. Harcourt wishes to marry Alithea which is why he openly claims that he possesses jealousy over Alithea and is "impatient till" he can become a husband.

3. At the end of The Country Wife, the characters find themselves forced to lie about their goings-on in order to maintain stability in their respective marriages and social positions. In the play lying and reputation become a substitute for real honour and virtue, such that honour becomes merely an affectation. Pinchwife unwittingly inspires his wife to desire the playgoers by forbidding her to go to the the plays; while Alithea taunts him for blaming her for Margery's curiosity.

In the passage, Alithea compares her brother Pinchwife to an over-concerned gambler and assures him that "Women and Fortune are truest still to those that trust 'em." By comparing women to fortune, she emphasizes the somewhat capricious and contingent nature of women in the play. Both Alithea's advice and Lucy's further observation--"any wild thing grows more . . . hungry for being kept up"--underscore the concept that prohibition breeds desire. Thus, the play comments on the strict prohibition of women's desires in an effort to maintain social order. Forcing women to be "kept up" does not keep women ignorant as husbands such as Pinchwife would have it. Ultimately his wife is a country wife, which is an ambivalently innocent quality.

Margery claims she "must be" a country wife, beasue she cannot be like a "City one," but if she were truly innocent she would not know the wiles of an urban wife. Indeed the very description country wife misleads us to believe that Margery is only capable of being naive. The similarity of the word "country" with a vulgar term for female genetalia reveals how deceitful intention can lie in an innocent epithet like "country wife." In much the same way, Margery, although new to the city, comes upon her taste for player-men and Horner through her own husband's prohibition. Despite her naivete and innocentce, she gains a taste for city life. Thus, the audience sees the fault in prohibition, as a social structure meant to edify.

At the end of the play Harcourt and Dorilant use the word "edify," meaning that they agree with Alithea, but the world "edify" still retains some notion of structure. Harcourt agrees with new terms for the society which Alithea lays out: husbands should trust their wives. Because he uses the word "edify" thre is a sense that he is rebuilding the concept of what it means to have a social order. Earlier in the play, Alithea converses with Sparkish telling him that a husband compliments his wife's honour by trusting her, esteeming her to be honourable, as opposed to being suspicious of her. it is only when Sparkish doubts Alithea's honour tht she feels it virtuous to relinquish him as a suitor. Alithea still operates in a world of true honour. . . .

. . . . . . . .

4. The quotation from Wycherley's The Country Wife deals with the problem of virtue and a sexual contract. The quotation reveals that the society described by the play is based on lies and false virtue, thus responding to the problem of keeping virtue in a society of debauchery where everyone's basic instincts are toward lust.

The faulty contract that this society is founded upon is revealed at about the middle of this quotation when the characters share, listing their parts. By listing the parts they are in the play, they are solidifying their part in the social contract based on a lie of virtue. For example Pinchwife states his part when he says, "I must be one against my will, to a country wife." This, combined with Horner's line before, begins to shift what the word "ore" refers to in this quotation. initially, Harcourt hs it referring to the world "husband" based on what Alithea said int he previous line. However, the meaning slowly begins to change as the speaker ----- from "husband" to "cuckold." When Pinchwife speaks, then, he is saying that he has been cuckolded and must still be married to his cheating wife. The shift in the meaning of the word reveals the faultiness of this society in that it reveals the lies the societ in the play is based on. Though, literally, everyone is referring back to the word "husband," the hint of the word "cuckold" makes the two almost synonymous. Wycherley's characters, then, are revealing that the virtue of the women in this story is false and that lust will always win against virtue. The society, then, must accept this fact and build their social contract on such a faulty foundation.

Another example of the problem of a fault in he social contract based on lies comes when Margery Pinchwife speaks her aside to Lucy and Mr. Horner. In addressing them, she says, "you'll have me tell more lies" and then lies to Pinchwife to keep the lie from unwinding. By consenting to lie to her husband, Margery has agreed to live in the social contract based on lies that both Horner and Lucy wish her to enter. While before in the play, she had tried to shift her place in the social contract, she now accepts her role as a silent observer of the lies her society is based on. She does so in order to prevent anarchy and chaos, for if she told the truth, the onlt person that wold get off as innocent would be Alithea. Thus, her consent to abide by the social contract holds the society together. Her disagreement would cause a collapse, just as Hobbes explains in his idea of the "body politic": in order for he society to function, every one must enter int the social contract and uphold it. Thus, in a way, almost everyone's virtue and honor in the play is based on Margery's decision to lie to her husband in this scene because if she hadn't accepted the social contract and helped to solve the problem .......

The final person to seal the social contract in an ------- society is Mr. Pinchwife. In be grudgingly believing wha his "friends" have said about Mr. Horner, and accepting the lie that his wife says to him, Pinchwife is entering the social contract and abiding by the faulty society. We can see his acceptance in the last lines of this quotation, when he states that "for [his] own sake, fain [he] would believe." By consenting to believe everyone, even if it is just for the sake of his own sanity, Pinchwife is entering into the social contrat based on a faulty virtue . . . . . . .