Sir George Etherege

Sir George Etherege , 1636-1692, English dramatist. His witty, licentious comedies— The Comical Revenge; or, Love in a Tub (1664) and She Wou'd If She Cou'd (1668)—set the tone of the Restoration comedy of manners that Congreve was to continue. His last play, The Man of Mode (1676), is famous for its creation of the great fop, Sir Fopling Flutter. His years spent as English minister to Ratisbon (1685-89) are recorded in his Letterbook (ed. by Sybil Rosenfeld, 1928).

Bibliography: See his works (2 vol., ed. by H. F. B. Brett-Smith, 1927; repr. 1971); study by A. Huseboe (1987).

Etherege, Sir George (1634–91), English dramatist, the first to attempt the social comedy of manners imported from Paris and later perfected by Congreve and Sheridan. His first play, The Comical Revenge; or, Love in a Tub (1664), was a serious verse drama with a comic prose subplot. Etherege explored this latter style further in his two later comedies, She Would if She Could (1668) and The Man of Mode (1676). The latter is a picture of a society living exclusively for amusement, with a tenuous plot of entangled love-affairs offering an opportunity for brilliant dialogue and character-drawing. It contains the ‘prince of fops’, Sir Fopling Flutter, and the heartless, witty Dorimant, often considered a portrait of Lord Rochester, just as the poet Bellair is supposed to be Etherege himself.