Proceedings of the 9th International Academic Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences
Year: 2024
DOI:
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A Pragmatic Analysis of Two Proviso Scenes
Valentina Rossi, Paolo Pepe
ABSTRACT:
The present paper investigates language as it was employed in the Restoration comedy of manners, being it refined and elevated thanks to the so-called witty language – that is, the brilliant and clever speech. Pragmatics proves to be a suitable arena to shed light on the richness of the scripts staged from 1660 onwards. To provide with an example, this contribution draws from the playtext The Careless Lovers (1673) by Edward Ravenscroft and explores the utterances spoken in the proviso scene (Act V, pp. 76-77) by Careless and Hillaria – the main characters of the comedy – in light of Impoliteness theory. Furthermore, the pact will be compared with the verbal contract signed in Act 4 Scene 1 by Mirabell and Millamant, the gay couple of Congreve’s The Way of The World (1700), in order to demonstrate that, although the provisos share the same pragmatic strategies, the libertinage of Ravenscroft’s lovers staged in the early Restoration is dimmed in the late Restoration masterpiece, being this latter qualified by a ‘reformed’ version of the rakish behaviour.
Keywords: Congreve, gay couple, Impoliteness, Ravenscroft, Restoration Theatre