William Congreve 34057 225912860 2008-07-15T23:59:59Z JackofOz 33566 /* Famous lines */ well, they were already in the English language {{Infobox Writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox Writer/doc]] --> | name = William Congreve | image = William Congreve.jpg | imagesize = | caption = William Congreve in [[1709]] by [[Godfrey Kneller]]. | pseudonym = | birthdate = {{birth date|1670|1|24|df=yes}} | birthplace = [[Bardsey, West Yorkshire|Bardsey]], [[England]] | deathdate = {{death date and age|1729|1|19|1670|1|24|df=yes}} | deathplace = [[London]], England | occupation = [[Playwright]], [[Poet]] | nationality = [[English people|English]] | period = [[1693]] &ndash; [[1700]] | genre = | subject = | movement = | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | influences = | influenced = | signature = | website = }} {{Otheruses3|William Congreve (disambiguation)}} '''William Congreve''' ([[24 January ]] [[1670]] &ndash; [[19 January]] [[1729]]) was an [[England|English]] [[playwright]] and [[poet]]. ==Early life== Congreve was born in [[Bardsey, West Yorkshire]], England (near [[Leeds]]). His parents were William Congreve (1637–1708) and his wife, Mary (''née'' Browning; 1636?–1715); a sister was buried in London in 1672. He spent his childhood in Ireland, where his father, a [[Cavalier]], had settled during the reign of [[Charles II of England|Charles II]]. Congreve was educated at [[Trinity College, Dublin|Trinity College]] in [[Dublin]]; there he met [[Jonathan Swift]], who would be his friend for the remainder of his life. Upon graduation, he matriculated in the [[Middle Temple]] in [[London]] to study law, but felt himself pulled toward literature, drama, and the fashionable life. Artistically, he became a disciple of [[John Dryden]]. ==Literary career== William Congreve wrote some of the most popular English plays of the Restoration period of the late 17th century. By the age of thirty, he had written four comedies, including ''[[Love for Love]]'' (premiered [[April 30]], [[1695 in literature|1695]]) and ''[[The Way of the World]]'' (premiered [[1700 in literature|1700]]), and one tragedy, ''The Mourning Bride'' ([[1697 in literature|1697]]) Unfortunately, his career ended almost as soon as it began. After writing five plays from his first in 1693 until 1700, he produced no more as public tastes turned against the sort of high-brow sexual comedy of manners in which he specialized. He reportedly was particularly stung by a critique written by [[Jeremy Collier]] (''A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage''), to the point that he wrote a long reply, "Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations." A member of the [[British Whig Party|Whig]] [[Kit-Kat Club]], Congreve's career shifted to the political sector, where he held various minor political positions despite his stance as a Whig among Tories. ==Later life== Congreve withdrew from the theatre and lived the rest of his life on residuals from his early work. His output from 1700 was restricted to the occasional poem and some translation (notably [[Molière]]'s ''Monsieur de Pourceaugnac''). Congreve never married; in his own era and through subsequent generations, he was famous for his friendships with prominent actresses and noblewomen, including [[Anne Bracegirdle]], for whom he wrote major parts in all his plays, and [[Henrietta Godolphin, 2nd Duchess of Marlborough]], daughter of the famous general, [[John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough]], whom he had probably met by 1703 and with whom he had a daughter, Mary (1723–1764). As early as 1710, he suffered both from gout and from cataracts on his eyes. Congreve suffered a carriage accident in late September 1728, from which he never recovered (having probably received an internal injury); he died in London in January 1729, and was buried in the [[Poets' Corner]] of [[Westminster Abbey]]. ==Famous lines== Two of Congreve's turns of phrase from ''The Mourning Bride'' (1697) have become famous, albeit frequently in misquotation: *"Music has charms to soothe a savage breast," spoken by Almeria in Act I, Scene 1. (The word "breast" is often misquoted as "beast".) *"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned," spoken by Perez in Act 3, Scene 2. (This usually appears as "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned".) ==Bibliography== {{wikisource author}} * ''The Old Bachelor'' ([[1693 in literature|1693]]) * ''The Double Dealer'' ([[1693 in literature|1693]]) * ''Love for Love'' ([[1695 in literature|1695]]) * ''The Mourning Bride'' ([[1697 in literature|1697]]) * ''[[The Way of the World]]'' ([[1700 in literature|1700]]) ==See also== * [[Restoration comedy]] ==References== *[[Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay|Macaulay, Thomas Babington]]. ''The Comic Dramatists of the Restoration.'' London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1853. ==External links== {{commons|William Congreve|William Congreve}} {{wikiquotepar|William Congreve}} *{{gutenberg author|id=William_Congreve|name=William Congreve}} *[http://www.theatrehistory.com/british/congreve001.html Biography] * [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1273 Find-A-Grave profile for William Congreve] *[http://www.farid-hajji.net/books/en/Congreve_William/mb-index.html The Mourning Bride - Full Text] {{DEFAULTSORT:Congreve, William}} [[Category:English dramatists and playwrights|Congreve, William]] [[Category:1670 births|Congreve, William]] [[Category:1729 deaths|Congreve, William]] [[Category:Burials at Westminster Abbey]] [[ca:William Congreve]] [[da:William Congreve]] [[de:William Congreve (Autor)]] [[es:William Congreve]] [[fr:William Congreve (auteur)]] [[it:William Congreve (scrittore)]] [[hu:William Congreve]] [[nl:William Congreve]] [[pl:William Congreve (dramaturg)]] [[pt:William Congreve]] [[sv:William Congreve]]