Appearance and Reality in Four Comedies of Shakespeare and Sycherley

Abstract

The general purpose of this paper is to understand the material in the comedies of these two playwrights within the contexts in which they were written. My approach is to take a theme as one perspective to relate the plays contents to the corresponding age. Us1ng this approach, I hope to question the Restoration criticism which ignores the age in which these plays were written and passes judgment on them from within the contexts of later ages.