Thomas Shadwell (1642-1692): "Towards a More Benevolent Humour"

Picture taken from "Thomas Shadwell ." Find a Grave. (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15849678/thomas-shadwell. June 28, 2019.)

※ The following is taken intact from Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes's book, A Source Book of Literary and Philosophical Writings about Humour and Laughter (Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2009. 204-205), without any of my personal critique. This blog post is therefore subject to immediate removal upon notice. ※

p.204:
Notwithstanding, Ben Jonson became a model for later comedy writers in the seventeenth century, particularly in the Restoration period. Most comedies of the 1660s, 70s and 80s have an allegedly didactic, satirical intent which is meant to afford them some moral value.

p. 205: Restoration comedy is largely based on Jonsonian humours and satire, but enlivened by Fletcherian wit to suit a more educated and courtly audience. In the preface to his comedy meaningfully entitled The Humourists (1671), Thomas Shadwell endorses Jonson's views and argues that the proper and useful way of writing comedy is to reprehend the vices and follies of the age. The poet should render them so ugly and detestable that people may hate them both in others and themselves (cf. 1997a: 86). And in his dedication of The Virtusos (1676) to the Duke of Newcastle, Shadwell claims that, in this play, he has endeavoured to combine "humour, wit, and satire, which are the three things [which] are the life of a comedy" (1997b: 1-2). He obviously understands humour in the Jonsonian sense, with an emphasis on affectation and "artificial folly," because he believes that "natural imperfections are not fit subjects for comedy, since they are not to be laugh'd at, but pitied. But the artificial folly of those, who are not coxcombs by nature, but with great art and industry make themselves so, is a proper subject of comedy" (2). This means that, for Shadwell, comedy and laughter are intrinsically interrelated, that natural defects should not be derided, and that only affected foolishness is fit for ridicule. Regulating the butts of humoristic practice is nothing new, but in this case it becomes one of the first steps towards a more "benevolent" humour in the eighteenth century.

Shadwell, Thomas. 1997a. "Preface" to The Humorists (1671). Augustan Critical Writing. Ed David Womersley. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 85-93.
---. 1997b. The Virtuoso. Ed. J. A. Prieto-Pablos, M. J. Mora, M. J. Gómerz-Lara, and R. Portillo. Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla.

Figueroa-Dorrego, Jorge and Cristina Larkin-Galiñanes. A Source Book of Literary and Philosophical Writings about Humour and Laughter: The Seventy-Five Essential Texts from Antiquity to Modern Times. Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2009. 198-200. ISBN-13: 978-0-7734-4730-1; ISBN-10: 0-7734-4730-X.