George Etherege

English playwright

• Born: c. 1635
• Birthplace: Maidenhead(?), England
• Died: c. May 10, 1691
• Place of death: Paris(?), France

Biography

Sir George Etherege (EHTH-uh-rihj) is one of those intriguing figures in history about whom biographers, literary historians, and other scholars wish they knew more. Only a few facts covering a relatively short period in his life are known. He was born about 1635, the second child and first son of George Etherege and Mary Powney of the Thames village of Maidenhead. Sometime in the year of young George’s birth the elder George became the purveyor to Queen Henrietta Maria, whom he followed into exile in France in 1644, leaving his wife and children in the care of his own father. It is possible that young George spent some time in France with his father before the latter’s death in September, 1650. Tradition suggests that the future playwright attended Cambridge briefly, but no evidence exists to support that idea.

Better documented are the four years from 1654 to 1658 that George Etherege spent as a law apprentice to George Gosnold of Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. Gosnold’s influence helped Etherege to gain admission to study law at Clement’s Inn in London, and Etherege began his formal law studies on February 19, 1659. There is no information about his activities for the next five years, although textual evidence in his plays suggests that he may have been in Paris for a time and that he availed himself of the opportunity to attend the theater in London.

Etherege’s first play, The Comical Revenge: Or Love in a Tub, was first produced in 1664 (probably in March) at the Duke’s Playhouse in London. More successful than any previous comedy in Restoration England, the play is considered by scholars to be the first comedy distinctly in the tradition of the Restoration period, when Charles II was on the British throne. The accent of the play is on wittiness, and the theme is a “war” between the sexes.

In the years that followed Etherege became a figure of some notoriety in Restoration London. A compatriot of Sir Charles Sedley and the infamous Lord Rochester, both notorious rakes and scoundrels, Etherege cut a wide swath as a beau and wit, almost like one of the characters in a comedy of the times. He is thought to have had a love affair with the well-known actress Mrs. Barry, and she and he allegedly had a daughter.

The year 1668 proved a period of much activity for Etherege. On February 6, his second play, She Would if She Could, opened at the Duke’s Playhouse. Samuel Pepys and Thomas Shadwell both record that Etherege was unhappy with the poor acting exhibited by the cast; certainly the play was not the success that Etherege’s first attempt had been. In July of the same year Etherege was sworn a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber in Ordinary; in August he left for Constantinople as secretary to Sir Daniel Harvey. In 1671 Etherege traveled to Paris, and by 1673, or perhaps earlier, he was back in London.

No records exist for Etherege’s activities from 1671 to 1676. In March, 1676, his third play, The Man of Mode: Or, Sir Fopling Flutter, opened at the Dorset Garden Theatre and was a great success, enjoying revivals on the London stage until the 1750’s. Sometime later in 1676 Etherege was involved with Lord Rochester (on whom the main character in The Man of Mode was based) in a brawl with the watchmen at Epsom.

Etherege was knighted in 1679. Later that year he married Mary Sheppard Arnold, the wealthy widow of a successful London attorney. Although the marriage apparently was not a love match, Etherege corresponded regularly with his wife while he was away on his diplomatic missions. Rumor at the time said that he had either bought his title to win her or that he was given the title as a reward by the king for having done so.

In 1685 he was appointed British ambassador to the Diet of the Empire at Ratisbon, and from his letters written while in that official capacity come most of the information known of him. These documents indicate that he was tolerant and well-mannered—too tolerant and well-mannered to become a great diplomat or a great playwright; he adopted the pose at least of a man who shunned enthusiasms. In 1689 George Etherege left Ratisbon to join the exiled King James of England in Paris. What he did for the next three years is unclear, but he almost certainly remained in France.

On May 10, 1692, according to the testimony of a nephew who had remained in touch with Etherege, “Sr. George Etherege dyed without Issue.” In many ways Etherege was typical of the man-about-town, the loyal courtier of Charles II. He invented the comedy of intrigue, but others developed it. Perhaps money, fame, and women came too easily for him. Certainly his contemporaries all admitted that he was an affable and good-natured companion, for which they nicknamed him “Gentle George” and “Easy Etherege.”

Bibliography

Boswell, Eleanore. “Sir George Etherege.” The Review of English Studies: A Quarterly Journal of English Literature and the English Language 7 (1931): 207-209. Offers some new information on Etherege’s life, particularly during his diplomatic stay at Ratisbon.

Dobree, Bonamy. “His Excellency Sir George Etherege.” In Essays in Biography, 1680-1726. 1925. Reprint. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1967. In 1685 Etherege went to Ratisbon, in Bavaria, as James II’s envoy, and three years later he left for Paris after the accession of William and Mary. Dobree does not discuss the plays but provides an amusing account of Etherege’s licentious behavior and the eventual diminishment of his powers.

Etherege, George, Sir. The Poems of Sir George Etherege. Edited by James Thorpe. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. This collection is included in secondary sources because the preface by James Thorpe provides some useful insights into Etherege’s poetry. Notes that in his own time, Etherege was a poet of consequence, his poems being frequently copied. Thorpe remarks that although Etherege chose conventional themes, he nevertheless gave an edge to them in his poems.

Gill, Pat. Interpreting Ladies: Women, Wit, and Morality in the Restoration Comedy of Manners. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995. This study of women in Restoration comedies examines Etherege’s The Man of Mode as well as works by William Wycherley and William Congreve.

Holland, Norman N. The First Modern Comedies: The Significance of Etherege, Wycherly, and Congreve. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959. Reprint. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967. Holland provides “readings” of Etherege’s three plays, devoting a chapter to each. His essay entitled “Scenes and Heroes” fills in some essential background to Restoration comedy, and “The Critical Failure” analyzes questions of morality that these plays raise. The copious notes are useful to beginning students of the period.

Huseboe, Arthur R. Sir George Etherege. Boston: Twayne, 1987. A useful volume on Etherege’s works, including background information on his life and the times in which he lived. Chapter 5 comments on his poetry and mentions that in his time Etherege’s poems were widely known but are not so today. Discusses his love poems, including those that were also songs, and poems of praise.

Mann, David D. A Concordance to the Plays and Poems of Sir George Etherege. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. A valuable resource for Restoration scholars. Includes approximately thirty poems written between 1663 and 1688. Discusses Etherege’s use of language and allusions in the introduction. Cites Bracher’s comments on Etherege as a man with a “shrewd eye for pretense and hypocrisy.”

Mann, David D. Sir George Etherege: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1981. This vade mecum to Etherege scholarship is designed to help scholars find their way in Restoration drama. Although it needs to be supplemented with bibliographies of recent work, this guide is extremely useful for the period it covers.

Thorpe, James E., ed. The Poems of George Etherege. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. More than seventy pages of notes and bibliographical references enhance this standard edition of the poems.

Underwood, Dale. Etherege and the Seventeenth-Century Comedy of Manners. 2d ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1969. Underwood interprets Etherege’s plays in terms of a “configuration of forces in seventeenth-century thought and manners.” The chapter entitled “The Fertile Ground” treats the Restoration libertine in a context of the clash between art and nature. Etherege’s language gets special attention, and the plays are viewed under two rubrics: “The Comedy of Love” and “The Comedy of Manners.”

Young, Douglas M. The Feminist Voices in Restoration Comedy: The Virtuous Women in the Play-Worlds of Etherege, Wycherley, and Congreve. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1997. Sir George Etherege, William Wycherley, and William Congreve introduce into their play-worlds major female characters who demand independence from and equality with their male counterparts. Young focuses on each of these major female characters and how they fit into the social and marital relationships typically found in English Restoration society.