The Restoration Nations of Women in Shadwell's Comedies : The Sullen Lovers, The Humorists, and The Virtuoso

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Thomas Shadwell often derides and criticizes social follies and absurd behaviors of the Restoration through his ""humour"" characters. His comedies with the ""humour"" characters provide the audience cynical moments to take a close look at the ways of the silly fashions and the social follies during the Restoration era. Since ""humours"" are psychological concepts of human behaviors, Shadwell's ""humour"" characters vividly demonstrate the stereotyped behaviors and mentality on the social desire to acquire money and sex. Those characters do not show their personalities but represent typical models of the Restoration social fashions.
Shadwell's comedies are filled with ""humour"" characters who represent certain professions and classes of the era, so their relationships in comedies are typified according to their ""humours"" identities in a society such as villains, suitors, and coquettes. Shadwell's ""humors"" provide good materials to the study of the Restoration social notion of a certain type of characters. In this research, I shall examine Restoration notions of women in Shadwell's three comedies: The Sullen Lovers, the Humorists, and The Virtuoso. To research the gender and power dynamics of the plays' characters, I will dichotomize them according to their gender roles in their society. Then, I shall categorize the female characters according to their social identities such as whores, wives, widows, and coquettes, and find out Restoration social notions about various typed female ""humors"" characters through their relationships with male characters such as fops, lecherous villains, husbands, and suitors.