This Companion illustrates the vitality and diversity of dramatic work 1660 to 1710. Essays by leading scholars in the field bring together the best recent insights into the full range of dramatic practice and innovation at the time. Introduces readers to the recent boom in scholarship that has revitalised Restoration drama. Explores historical and cultural contexts, genres of Restoration drama, and key dramatists, among them Dryden and Behn.

Table of Contents

• About the Contributors
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Part I The Drama in Context
• 1 The Post-1660 Theatres as Performance Spaces
• 2 Restoration Dramatic Theory and Criticism
• 3 Theatrical Regulation during the Restoration Period
• 4 Libertinism and Sexuality
• 5 The Restoration Actress
• 6 Masculinity in Restoration Drama
• 7 Images of Monarchy on the Restoration Stage
• 8 Restoration Drama and Politics: An Overview
• 9 Restoration Drama and Social Class
• 10 Race, Performance and the Silenced Prince of Angola
• 11 Restoration Drama after the Restoration: The Critics, the Repertory and the Canon
• Part II Kinds of Drama
• 12 Heroic Drama and Tragicomedy
• 13 Restoration Comedy
• 14 Tragedy and Varieties of Serious Drama
• 15 London Theatre Music, 1660–1719
• 16 Shakespeare and Other Adaptations
• 17 Rakes, Wives and Merchants: Shifts from the Satirical to the Sentimental
• Part III Dramatists
• 18 William Davenant and John Dryden
• 19 ‘Still on the Criminal's Side, against the Innocent’: Etherege, Wycherley and the Ironies of Wit
• 20 ‘Who Vices Dare Explode’: Thomas Shadwell, Thomas Durfey and Didactic Drama of the Restoration
• 21 Otway, Lee and the Restoration History Play
• 22 Elkanah Settle, John Crowne and Nahum Tate
• 23 Two Female Playwrights of the Restoration: Aphra Behn and Susanna Centlivre
• 24 William Congreve and Thomas Southerne
• 25 Sir John Vanbrugh and George Farquhar in the Post-Restoration Age