Rice University
The Language of the Libertines: Subversive Morality in The Man of Mode
Author(s): Lisa Berglund
Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 30, No. 3, Restoration and Eighteenth
Century (Summer, 1990), pp. 369-386
Published by: Rice University
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/450702
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in English Literature, 1500-1900
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SEL 30 (1990)
ISSN 0039-3657
The Language of the Libertines:
Subversive Morality in
The Man of Mode
LISA BERGLUND
When the practical but unhelpful maid Pert advises he
to renounce Dorimant, Mrs. Loveit defends her devotion by
indicting her tormentor's paradoxical nature. "I know he is a
devil," she cries, "but he has something of the angel yet undefaced
in him, which makes him so charming and agreeable that I must
love him, be he never so wicked" (II.ii.15-17).1 Critics of Etherege's
The Man of Mode suffer similar distress when faced with Dorimant,
who, though the hero, is after all a damned libertine. He
maintains three mistresses, treats them all shamefully, interrupts
an evening with the woman he professedly loves for a sordid
liaison, and sneers at his friend Bellair behind that "tolerable"
young man's back (I.i.395). At the same time, he is witty,
charming, and magnetic, and clearly deserves the love of the m
fascinating woman of his world, Harriet.
Evading the need to address this contradiction, Harriett Hawkins
argues, "The primary purpose of this comedy seems to be neither
immoral nor moral, but rather spectacular-to exhibit, rather than
to censure."2 She suggests that the discomfort Dorimant provokes
should not disturb us, because Etherege did not intend us to judge
his hero, but merely to appreciate him. Jocelyn Powell, too,
contends that "we are seeing [Etherege's libertines] in human, not
in moral terms."3 More persuasively, Laura Brown argues that our
uncertain response to Dorimant derives from Etherege's deliberate
Lisa Berglund, a graduate student at the University of Virginia, is writing a
dissertation on Samuel Johnson's Rambler.
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370
TH E M A N OF M O D E
attempt simultaneously to support and to condemn his hero's
rakish values. She writes, "[T]he ambivalence toward the social
status quo-or the disjunction between represented social reality
and the implicit moral judgment upon the 'rightness' of that
reality-represents an aesthetic expression of the ambiguous aristoratic attitude toward the subversive content of the libertine
ideology."4 Etherege and his peers, according to Brown, advocated
freedom from a morality that had become identified with the
monied middle class, but at the same time recognized that such
subversiveness could destroy the society on whose stability, in the
end, all depended. The Man of Mode and other "dramatic social
satires," as she calls them, is "fundamentally conservative in its
allegiance to traditional values and to the status quo, but daringly
radical in its exposure of the hypocrisy, the immorality and the
materialism of the society it must finally accept" (p. 42).
Despite her reasonable argument that Etherege's attitude toward
his society is not amoral, but rather satirical, Brown fails to
recognize that his impulse, like that of any responsible satirist, is
to correct as well as to expose. She claims that "The Man of Mode
is filled with actual and serious conflict so serious that it does not
submit to resolution" (p. 46). However, the evidence that she offers
as Etherege's irresolute criticism of Dorimant is flawed, for it
issues from characters who are outside Dorimant's society and who
therefore neither adequately comprehend their target nor merit
enough respect from either Dorimant or Etherege's audience to be
credible witnesses. For example, Brown uses Mrs. Loveit's attack
on Dorimant in V.i to conclude that "the force of her eloquence,
joined with the force of moral judgment communicated more
indirectly in the rest of the action, permits her to carry the day"
(p. 45). But Mrs. Loveit does not carry the day, because her own
moral failure (the publicly recognized affair with Dorimant)
ultimately excludes her from society. Etherege cannot and does not
present her as a successful critic of Dorimant's vices. When, at the
end of the play, Harriet and the rest of the company at Lady
Townley's laugh her from the room, Mrs. Loveit exits with none of
the power of persecuted virtue or despised sense.
If we are to look to Etherege for an attack on Dorimant's
libertine values, and I agree that we ought, then unlike Brown I
believe that such criticism will come from within the society it
condemns, from characters who, like Etherege himself, can both
correctly appreciate the impulse to immorality and offer a solution
tempting enough to convert the guilty. Brown wrongly concludes
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LISA BERGLUND 3
371
that Mrs. Loveit voices Etherege's censure of Dorimant, and
identifies the Orange Woman and the Shoemaker as lesser
moralists, because she neither allows for the extreme separation of
Etherege's characters into two independent groups, nor recognizes
on what principle this division exists. Dorimant, Medley, Young
Bellair, Harriet, Emilia, and Lady Townley form an exclusive,
witty society from which all other characters, whatever their social
or financial lot, from Old Bellair to Molly the whore, are excluded.
These six witty characters clearly differ from the rest of the
dramatis personae because they alone use and understand extended
metaphors, a speech pattern that I will call the "libertine
language." Any character who attempts to influence, attack, or
join the society of the wits, but does not speak its language, cannot
possibly succeed because his inarticulateness betrays his ignorance
of the code of libertinism, and exposes him to contempt. On the
other hand, a critic who couches his censure in the metaphorical
language of the wits is heard and approved because his targets
recognize that his membership in their society gives him the
authority to demand reform. In The Man of Mode two characters
speak for true love and marriage, but maintain their aristocratic
freedom: Young Bellair and Harriet. They counter rakish antagonism to constancy, affection, and honor by demonstrating that
conventional morality may be, like Harriet herself, "wild, witty,
lovesome, beautiful" (III.iii.327-28).
Brown rightly points out that "libertinism is . . . viewed as a
threat. . . even by the libertine himself" (p. 42). To reconcile with
his moral sense his enjoyment of dangerous antisocial behavior,
Etherege's libertine speaks a highly metaphorical language that
conceals the true nature of his sexual activities. His use of analogy
to discuss the institutions in which restrictive and conventional
morality is most overwhelmingly embodied-love and marriagedisguises his rebellion against those institutions, and displaces
both confession and criticism into an understood sub-text. (It is
Etherege's removal of explicit moral debate from the play that
provokes "spectacular" interpretations like that of Hawkins.) In
other words, Dorimant and his peers avoid confession or judgment
by perpetually speaking of other things.5 They most usually cloak
their licentiousness in allusions to health or to games of chance;
their disdain for honest love is voiced as disdain for the church and
"devotions." For example, Emilia, Medley, and Dorimant discuss
the risks of illicit love, and Mrs. Loveits tiresomeness, in terms of
gambling:
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372
3 THE M A N OF M O D E
EMILIA. There are afflictions in love, Mr. Dorimant.
DORIMANT. You women make 'em, who are commonly
as unreasonable in that as you are at play: without the
advantage be on your side, a man can never quietly give
over when he's weary.
MEDLEY. If you would play without being obliged to
complaisance, Dorimant, you should play in public
places.
DORIMANT. Ordinaries were a very good thing for that,
but gentlemen do not of late frequent 'em. The deep play
is now in private houses.
(III.ii.95-103)
Notice how much ground the conversation covers within the terms
of the analogy of "play." Dorimant admits that he is tired of Mrs.
Loveit; Medley recommends that he confine himself to prostitutes,
who will not require him to be agreeable; and Dorimant rejects
this suggestion because, as a rake, he finds it more stimulating to
seduce women of quality. After Dorimant establishes the initial
comparison, neither he nor Medley mentions the tenor of the
simile, keeping the conversation strictly within the terms of the
vehicle. The libertine language thus creates a polite fiction (that
women are bad-mannered gamblers) which conceals the actual
result of the libertine ethic (the destruction of Mrs. Loveit's
honor).6
The wits also turn to metaphor when Bellair and Medley greet
Dorimant after his tryst with Bellinda. They are perfectly aware of
his activities, if not of the lady's identity, but wouldn't dream of
being explicit:
YOUNG BELLAIR. Not abed yet?
MEDLEY. You have had an irregular fit, Dorimant.
DORIMANT. I have.
YOUNG BELLAIR. And is it off already?
DORIMANT. Nature has done her part, gentlemen. When
she falls kindly to work, great cures are effected in little
time, you know.
(IV.ii.66-71)
Medley, by recalling the phrase "irregular fit," with which
Dorimant himself had described his amorous dalliances (in his
conversation with Harriet [IV.i. 146]), inserts an entire scene
between vehicle (illness) and tenor (sexual intercourse). This polite
inquiry into Dorimant's health, in which Medley confirms that
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373
LISA BERGLUND
Dorimant has been entertaining a lady, and Bellair that she has
departed, therefore even more successfully practices the art of
displacement than the first example I quoted. It also illustrates
how the discourse of the six wits separates them from the other
characters. Speaking the libertine language confirms their mutual
recognition that although libertinism is destructive, to give over
their freedom for conventional morality would violate their
aristocratic identities. The ends of their linguistic strategy become
particularly clear as IV.ii continues, because Dorimant's activities
are exposed through the obtuseness of Sir Fopling, who does not
recognize that the practice of immorality requires the protection of
a metaphor. Sir Fopling's gauche persistence forces Dorimant,
against his will, to explain the nature of his "fit":
SIR FOPLING. We thought there was a wench in the case,
by the chair that waited. Prithee, make us a confidence.
DORIMANT. Excuse me.
SIR FOPLING. Le sage Dorimant. Was she pretty?
DORIMANT. So pretty she may come to keep her coach
and pay parish duties, if the good humor of the age
continue.
(IV.ii. 72-77)
Dorimant's embarrassment and vexation in this scene, however,
do not undercut the fact that those who speak the libertine
language are the most powerful characters in the play-powerful
because they use wit to disguise and transform their weaknesses
and thus render themselves invulnerable to external criticism or
pressure. Thus the key to Mrs. Loveit's unfitness for the society of
the wits is her inability to mask her passion and challenge
Dorimant in his own terms. The explicitness that convinces Brown
of her critical "force" in fact undermines Mrs. Loveit's case,
because it exposes her own moral blemish.
MRS. LOVEIT. Now you begin to show yourself.
DORIMANT. Love gilds us over and makes us show fine
things to one another for a time; but soon the gold wears
off, and then again the native brass appears.
MRS. LOVEIT. Think on your oaths, your vows, and
protestations, perjured man!
(I.ii. 194-99)
The "belle passion" (V.ii.356) that prevents Mrs. Loveit from
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374
7 HTHE MAN OF MODE
pursuing Dorimant's gilding metaphor, a response that would be
proof of wit and self-control, is also the root of Dorimant's disgust
for her, and, presumably, the flaw that made her susceptible to
seduction. In other words, Mrs. Loveit's inability to speak the
libertine language is a symptom of the ungoverned temperament
that drives her to ostracism.
Like Mrs. Loveit, Old Bellair and Sir Fopling cannot speak the
libertine language. Although, unlike her, they do not try to force
the wits into plain dealing, the linguistic strategy they severally
adopt nevertheless exposes them as incompetent imitators. Old
Bellair and Sir Fopling set up rival languages whose shallowness
betrays the dullness of the speakers; and their inferiority is
emphasized by the glee with which the witty characters mockingly
mimic them. Old Bellair's fancy that his constant snubs of Emilia
conceal his senile passion for her suggests an impotent approximation of the displacement effected by the libertine language. The
repetitive pattern of the insults-"You are ugly, you are ugly!"
(IV.i.82)-carries over into the rest of his conversation, which he
also interlards with ejaculations of "Out a pize!" and "A dod!"
The latter, for example, appears four times in his first three
speeches, and his first scene ends with the following flourish:
Out, a pize o' their breeches, there are keeping fools
enough for such flaunting baggages, and they are e'en too
good for 'em. (To Emilia.) Remember night. (Aloud.) Go,
y'are a rogue, y'are a rogue. Fare you well, fare you well.
(To Young Bellair.) Come, come, come along, sir.
(II.i.70-74)
This monotonous speech pattern identifies Old Bellair as an old
fool, just as Mrs. Loveit's passionate outbursts illustrate her
inability to control her desires.
Sir Fopling's conversation, too, is distinctive, in his case because
he embellishes his remarks with French phrases, an affectation
that Emilia parodies the moment they are introduced:
SIR FOPLING.... The eclat of so much beauty, I confess,
ought to have charmed me sooner.
EMILIA. The brillant of so much good language, sir, has
much more power than the little beauty I can boast.
(III.ii. 163-66)
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LISA BERGLUND
375
Emilia's pointed reference to the power of language should not be
overlooked. Her sarcasm alerts the audience to the awareness of the
libertines that language is the tool of those who would control
their world. Characters who try but fail to create their own
languages, on the other hand, betray their corresponding lack of a
motive for metaphor; they reveal that they are sexually powerless.
Old Bellair is a conventional senex figure, his son's unsuccessful
rival, while Sir Fopling is husbanding his "vigor" in order to
"make [his] court to the whole sex in a ballet" (V.ii.340-41). The
two cannot understand the seriousness of the strategy of displacement because they do not participate in the antisocial intrigues it
conceals.
Yet we cannot dismiss Sir Fopling as easily as we do Old Bellair,
for the eponymous fop, with his equipage and his wig, his clothes
and his capers, has a magnetism and joie de vivre as captivating as
that of the witty lovers.7 Like Harriet, as we shall see, Sir Fopling
penetrates the metaphors of Dorimant and Medley and discloses
their polite secrets; he does so, however, because he is sublimely
unaware that anything has been concealed. For example, he sees
through the reticence of the "half a dozen beauties" whom he
meets in Whitehall:
DORIMANT. Did you know 'em?
SIR FOPLING. Not one of 'em, by heavens, not I! But they
were all your friends.
DORIMANT. How are you sure of that?
SIR FOPLING. Why, we laughed at all the town-spared
nobody but yourself.
(IV.i.244-49)
Sir Fopling's subsequent indiscretion at Dorimant's apartments
already has been discussed; in both these cases, he ignores the
super-texts of metaphor and, in the case of the "beauties," of
discreet silence, because for him sex itself is part of the garniture.
The energy that a Dorimant expends on intrigues, the fop
channels into surface; where the rake hides behind metaphors and
false names, the fop in disguise is instantly recognizable:
Enter Sir Fopling and others in masks.
YOUNG BELLAIR. This must be Sir Fopling.
MEDLEY. That extraordinary habit show it.
(IV.i. 168-75)
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376
THE MAN OF MODE
Sir Fopling has no patience with concealment. When a cloaking
metaphor is too obscure, he protests (and exposes the libertine
strategy to the audience):
SIR FOPLING. Let her be what she will, I know how to
take my measures. In Paris the mode is to flatter the
prude, laugh at the faux-prude, make serious love to the
demi-prude, and only rally with the coquette. Medley,
what think you?
MEDLEY. That for all this smattering of the mathematics,
you may be out in your judgment at tennis.
SIR FOPLING. What a coq-a-l'ane is this? I talk of
women, and thou answer'st tennis.
MEDLEY. Mistakes will be, for want of apprehension.
(IV.i.203- 11)
Sir Fopling's vitality, therefore, derives from being purely extrinsic;
he incorporates into his surface everything that the rakes wish to
conceal. Dorimant may disdain mirrors because in them a man sees
"[t]he shadow of himself" (IV.ii.88), but Sir Fopling is a very
tolerable reflection of the libertine hero. He forces the rakes to look
at themselves and, as Dryden notes in his epilogue, "Sir Fopling is
a fool so nicely writ, / The ladies would mistake him for a wit"
(lines 7-8). Although an object of derision, Sir Fopling in every
gesture and remark belittles the character of Mr. Courtage-the
polite surface-that Dorimant assumes, and implicitly diminishes
the power of Dorimant's sexuality to a "ballet."
While Sir Fopling unconsciously undercuts Dorimant, Etherege
locates in the wit of Young Bellair and Harriet informed criticism
of the libertine code. It is no accident that, at the beginning of the
play, Harriet and Young Bellair are all but betrothed; they are
coupled to highlight the fact that their views of the world and
morality are identical. That Etherege gave them similar Christian
names-Harriet and Harry-also contributes to my sense of them
as female and male versions of the same character: a character who
accepts the institutions that the libertines reject. In the antecontract scene, the two articulate their belief in true love:
HARRIET. There are some [ladies], it may be, have an eye
like Bart'lomew, big enough for the whole fair; but I am
not of the number, and you may keep your gingerbread.
'Twill be more acceptable to the lady whose dear image
it wears.
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377
LISAB ERG LUND
YOUNG BELLAIR. I must confess, madam, you came a
day after the fair.
HARRIET. You own then you are in love?
YOUNG BELLAIR. I do.
HARRIET. The confidence is generous, and in return I
could almost find in my heart to let you know my
inclinations.
(III.i.87-95)
Note that, although this conversation begins in the metaphorical
manner of the witty set, Harriet then asks a direct question, and
receives a direct answer. Neither she nor Bellair needs to speak in
metaphor, because, unlike Dorimant or Emilia, they have embraced the institutions of love and marriage. They are both,
however, sharp-eyed (as the love scene they stage for their parents
confirms) and sensitive to the reasons for the concealment practiced
by their peers; both therefore when conversing with the other wits
speak the libertine language. They use it, however, to articulate
their disagreement with the ideology of the rakes.
When Young Bellair first enters, Medley challenges his wish to
marry. Their debate employs the metaphor of the church, and
while Young Bellair contradicts Medley, he does so in Medley's
terms:
MEDLEY.... may the beautiful cause of our misfortune
give you all the joys happy lovers have shared ever since
the world began.
YOUNG BELLAIR. You wish me in heaven, but you
believe me on my journey to hell.
MEDLEY. You have a good strong faith, and that may
contribute much towards your salvation. I confess I am
but of an untoward constitution, apt to have doubts and
scruples; and in love they are no less distracting than in
religion. Were I so near marriage, I should cry out by fits
as I ride in my coach, "Cuckold, cuckold!" with no less
fury than the mad fanatic does "Glory!" in Bethlem.
YOUNG BELLAIR. Because religion makes some run
mad, must I live an atheist?
(I.i.303- 16)
Bellair's retort is powerful because in itself it demonstrates that a
man may be both a wit and a lover. Similarly, when Emilia, who at
the beginning of the play, like Dorimant and Medley, puts no trust
in emotions, substitutes the metaphor of health for matters of the
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378
THE
MAN
OF
MODE
heart, Bellair answers within the limits of her analogy, and his
words only confirm his faith in true love:
YOUNG BELLAIR. My constancy! I vow-
EMILIA. Do not vow. Our love is frail as is our life, and
full as little in our power; and are you sure you shall
outlive this day?
YOUNG BELLAIR. I am not, but when we are in perfect
health, 'twere an idle thing to fright ourselves with the
thoughts of sudden death.
(II.i.26-30)
Young Bellair's fluency in the libertine language locates a voice of
morality within, rather than without, society. The play ends with
a celebration of his marriage in order to show that one may accept
moral institutions without forfeiting wit and gaiety. When Old
Bellair, who has been reconciled to his son's disobedience, tells the
pit, "And if these honest gentlemen rejoice, / Adod, the boy had
made a happy choice," Etherege asks approval not just for The
Man of Mode, but in particular for the decision of one of his
libertines to forsake profligacy for marriage (V.ii.399-400).
Within the restrictions of metaphor, Young Bellair warns
Dorimant that Harriet will not abandon her principles- You had
best not think of Mrs. Harriet too much. Without church security,
there's no taking up there" (IV.iii.179-80)-and Dorimant confesses that he "may fall into the snare, too" (line 181). Harriet
fascinates him because she speaks the libertine language as
effortlessly as he, and he therefore treats her as an equal, a fellow
wit. Witness their first conversation, using the gaming analogy, in
which they establish the limits of their courtship:
DORIMANT. You were talking of play, madam. Pray,
what may be your stint?
HARRIET. A little harmless discourse in public walks or
at most an appointment in a box, barefaced, at the
playhouse. You are for masks and private meetings,
where women engage for all they are worth, I hear.
DORIMANT. I have been used to deep play, but I can
make one at small game when I like my gamester well.
HARRIET. And be so unconcerned you'll ha' no pleasure
in't.
(III.iii.62-70)
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379
LISA BERGLUND
Because she has fallen in love, Ha
better than does Young Bellair. Her last remark in the dialogue
quoted above confirms what Dorimant himself only hints (at
I.i.189ff.): that he does not enjoy harmless flirtation ("small
game"), but rather, as Mrs. Loveit later charges, takes "more
pleasure in the ruin of a woman's reputation than in the
endearments of her love" (V.i.183-84). But whereas Mrs. Loveit's
direct accusation will provoke Dorimant to label her coquetry with
Sir Fopling "an infamy below the sin of prostitution with another
man" (V.i.188-89), Harriet's metaphorical criticism piques Dorimant's interest because it attacks his rakish career without
threatening to violate the libertine code of indirection; and so he
answers in kind with a compliment, albeit a lascivious one:
"Where there is a considerable sum to be won, the hope of drawin
people in makes every trifle considerable" (III.iii.71-72).
Harriet also recognizes that Dorimant is so much the rake, he
calculates every word and movement, and she therefore confronts
him with the charge of affectation with which she had earlier
surprised Young Bellair (III.iii.23-29):
DORIMANT. That demure curtsy is not amiss in jest, but
do not think in earnest it becomes you.
HARRIET. Affectation is catching, I find. From your
grave bow I got it.
(IV.i. 100-103)
Harriet's retort tells Dorimant that she finds his pose-that of the
libertine-no more attractive than he finds her assumed prudery.
She also reminds him of their first meeting, when she imitated his
pleasure in "the ladies' good liking" (III.iii.95-96) and showed him
that she knew he was vain.8 In each conversation with him,
although she confesses her love in asides, Harriet treats Dorimant
the way he treats Mrs. Loveit: she demonstrates that she thoroughly
understands his character, forces him to confess his love, and
leaves him:
HARRIET. To men who have fared in this town like you,
'twould be a great mortification to live on hope. Could
you keep Lent for a mistress?
DORIMANT. In expectation of a happy Easter; and though
time be very precious, think forty days well lost to gain
your favor.
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380
T HE M AN OF M O D E
HARRIET. Mr. Bellair! Let us walk, 'tis time to leave him.
Men grow dull when they begin to be particular.
(III.iii.78-84)
By turning the libertine language to her own ends, and making it a
vehicle for honest avowals rather than a cloak for profligacy (see
also her religious metaphors in V.ii), Harriet forces Dorimant to
confront the libertine ideology to which he subscribes, and to
recognize that she, like Young Bellair, unites wit with love, desire
with constancy.9 The Restoration heroine, as John Harrington
Smith points out, must marry, but at the same time neither she nor
the man she loves can "surrender... individuality" to matrimony.l0
Etherege makes Harriet woo Dorimant in the libertine language to
prove to him that he will not forfeit his independence if he falls in
love with her."l
In Harriet's use of the libertine language to criticize as well as to
fascinate Dorimant, Etherege matures the flirtation of his earlier
heroes and heroines into a moral, as well as a sexual, confrontation.
His first play, The Comical Revenge: Or, Love in a Tub, set the
stakes low. Within the limited space they occupy in this plot-heavy
play, neither the roistering Sir Frederick Frollick nor the independent Widow Rich appears to regard their eventual union as
demanding more than a token sacrifice. (Sir Frederick disposes of
his mistress Lucy with daunting insouciance.) Only one brief
exchange suggests the extended banter Etherege would write for
The Man of Mode. Repulsing her suitor's advances, the Widow
adopts a military analogy:
WIDOW. You cannot blame me for standing on my guard
so near an enemy.
SIR FREDERICK. If you are so good at that, widow, let's
see, what guard would you choose to be at should the
trumpet sound a charge to this dreadful foe?
WIDOW. It is an idle question amongst experienced
soldiers; but if we ever have a war, we'll never trouble
the trumpet; the bells shall proclaim our quarrel.
SIR FREDERICK. It will be most proper; they shall be
rung backwards.
WIDOW. Why so, sir?
SIR FREDERICK. I'll have all the helps that may be to
allay a dangerous fire; widows must needs have furious
flames; the bellows have been at work, and blown 'em
up.
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381
LISA BERGLUND
WIDOW. You grow too rude, sir.
(II.i.85-101)12
This conversation demonstrates that the Widow and Sir Frederick
deserve one another-they speak the same language. Yet they
employ extended metaphors not, like Dorimant, to disguise the
nature of their sexual activities, but simply for the fun of it (I read
the Widow's "Why so, sir?" as a rueful admission that she can't
quite follow his analogy).
Similarly, Ariana and Gatty in She Would if She Could secure
the love of Freeman and Courtall through metaphorical repartee,
even before removing their black velvet masks. (As Freeman
exclaims, "I perceive, by your fooling here, that wit and good
humour may make a man in love with a blackamoor" [II.i.161-
63]). Fluent use of metaphor, however, merely ranks with the
young ladies' other accomplishments, as Sir Joslin Jolly makes
clear:
so, boys, and how do you like the flesh and blood of the
Jollies-heuk, Sly-girl-and Mad-cap, hey-come, come,
you have heard them exercise their tongues a while; now
you shall see them ply their feet a little: this is a cleanlimbed wench, and has neither spavin, splinter, nor wind-
gall; tune her a jig and play't roundly, you shall see her
bounce it away like a nimble frigate before a fresh galehey, methinks I see her under sail already.
Gatty dances a jig.
(II.ii.235-43+s.d.)
In his last and most sophisticated comedy, however, Etherege
transforms metaphor from the "garniture" of carefree flirtation
into the defensive language of a society aware of its willful moral
degradation. 13
Throughout The Man of Mode, Etherege uses the image of the
mask to illustrate the metaphorical technique of the libertines.
Since Restoration masks are shaped like faces, a masker not only
conceals his or her identity, but substitutes another face for his
own, just as the language of the libertines exchanges a dangerous
subject for an innocuous one. When Harriet prevents Dorimant
from declaring his love by pointing out that both amorous words
and looks are suspect, she makes the analogy of countenance and
language explicit:
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382
THE M AN OF M O D E
HARRIET. Do not speak it if you would have me believe
it. Your tongue is so famed for falsehood, 'twill do the
truth an injury. (Turns away her head)
DORIMANT. Turn not away, then, but look on me and
guess it.
HARRIET. Did you not tell me there was no credit to be
given to faces-that women nowadays have their passions
as much at will as they have their complexions, and put
on joy and sadness, scorn and kindness, with the same
ease they do their paint and patches? Are they the only
counterfeits?
(V.ii. 118-26)
In a conversation I quoted earlier, Harriet compares her desire for
sincerity to appearing "barefaced in the playhouse," while noting
that Dorimant prefers "masks." When a masked Sir Fopling
crashes the party at Lady Townley's, the lovers' responses to his
disguise apply pertinently to their own situation:
DORIMANT. What's here-masquerades?
HARRIET. I thought that foppery had been left off, and
people might have been in private with a fiddle.
DORIMANT. 'Tis endeavored to be kept on foot still by
some who find themselves the more acceptable, the less
they are known.
(IV.i. 169-73)
Harriet's contempt for "that foppery" recalls her mimicry of
Dorimant's affectation, while the fact that Dorimant has appeared
at the party pretending to be Mr. Courtage gives his explanation of
masquerades double significance: he, like Sir Fopling, is attempting to appear "the more acceptable." Yet despite her criticism
of masks here and in her conversation with Busy in III.i, Harriet
bewitches Dorimant by playing his game better than he does
himself; she never unmasks, or allows her language to grow too
"particular," and their courtship ends by reversing the play's
established relationship between Dorimant and women:
DORIMANT. Is this all? Will you not promise me-
HARRIET. I hate to promise. What we do then is expected
from us and wants much of the welcome it finds when it
surprises.
(V.ii.149-51)
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383
LISA BERGLUND
Compare Harriet's refusal to commit herself to Bellinda's capitulation:
DORIMANT. Be sure you come.
BELLINDA. I sha' not.
DORIMANT. Swear you will.
BELLINDA. I dare not.
DORIMANT. Swear, I say!
BELLINDA. By my life, by all the happiness I hope forDORIMANT. You will.
BELLINDA. I will.
(III.ii.69-76)
The most important mask in the play, of course, is the "vizard"
with whom Dorimant has been seen at the theater. At different
moments in the play she is identified as a prostitute, as Mrs.
Loveit, as Bellinda, and as Harriet. This collection demonstrates
that the mask, like the language of the libertines, really covers
Dorimant's sexual appetite, and, ultimately, his willingness to
reform, while the various interpretations offered by the characters
spring from their own response to libertinism. Mrs. Loveit, who
has been ruined by Dorimant, believes the "vizard" to be what she
herself has become: an "unknown, inconsiderable slut" (V.i.159).
Bellinda mendaciously asserts that she had taken the woman for
Mrs. Loveit, a deliberate substitution that marks her plunge into
illicit sexuality, and confirms to us that she has replaced Mrs.
Loveit as Dorimant's mistress (II.ii.75-85). Medley, who bears too
much allegiance to the libertine code to peek beneath the mask, is
content to speak of "a vizard" (I.i. 184), while Young Bellair
recognizes Bellinda, and his accuracy disconcerts Dorimant into an
insult (I.i.380ff.). Finally, when Dorimant himself claims to
unmask the lady, a disclosure comparable to "growing particular,"
he names Harriet, and declares his wish to marry her (V.ii.261-66).
Etherege understood the attractions of the libertine ideology,
and recognized that to conclude The Man of Mode with absolute
capitulation from Dorimant would be as awkward as the reversal
Colley Cibber did not resist at the end of Love's Last Shift. Instead,
Dorimant's marriage to Harriet is left conditional, and it is up to
the imagination of the pit to decide whether the "devil" or the
"angel . . . undefaced" will prevail in the hero's heart. (By ending
the play with a test ordered by the heroine to judge the hero,
Etherege recalls Shakespeare's strategy in Love's Labors Lost,
where the constancy of the gentlemen goes on trial as the curtain
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384
THE MAN OF MODE
falls.) Nevertheless, that Dorimant accepts Lady Woodvill's invitation to Hartly, a surrender set amid the nuptial rejoicings of the
other lovers, shows that the corrective impulse embodied in Harriet
and in Harry Bellair is more powerful than the drive to libertinism,
and can reform the community of the wits without destroying it.
Because Harriet, unlike Mrs. Loveit, speaks the language of the
libertines, she demands no unreasonable metamorphosis or confession. Instead, she cuts short Dorimant's extravagant vows of
temperance, saying, "Hold! Though I wish you devout, I would
not have you turn fanatic" (V.ii.137-38). Her words recall Medley's
comparison of a man bent on marriage to a "mad fanatic ... in
Bethlem" and therefore suggest that Bellair's response to the
analogy may now apply to Dorimant as well; he, too, need no
longer live an atheist. By bringing Dorimant to confess the pangs of
the passion to which he has always been an enemy, without ever
herself violating his standards, she resolves the libertine dilemma.
Harriet offers honesty in indirection, and virtue beneath a vizard.
NOTES
'All references to The Man of Mode are from The Man of Mode, ed.
Carnochan, Regents Restoration Drama Series (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska
Press, 1966).
2Harriett Hawkins, Likenesses of Truth in Elizabethan and Restoration
Drama (Oxford Univ. Press, 1976), p. 94.
3Jocelyn Powell, "George Etherege and the Form of a Comedy," Restoration
Theatre, ed. John Russell Brown (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965), p. 60.
See also Thomas H. Fujimura, The Restoration Comedy of Wit (Princeton:
Princeton Univ. Press, 1952); Norman Holland, The First Modern Comedies:
The Significance of Etherege, Wycherley and Congreve (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1959); John G. Hayman, "Dorimant and the
Comedy of a Man of Mode," MLQ 30 (1969):183-97; and Dale Underwood,
Etherege and the Seventeenth-Century Comedy of Manners (Hamden: Archon
Books, 1969).
4Laura Brown, English Dramatic Form, 1660-1760: An Essay in Generic
History (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1981), p. 41.
5In his essay "Language and Action in The Way of the World, Love's Last
Shift and The Relapse," ELH 40, 1 (1973):44-69, Alan Roper makes a similar
argument about metaphor in Vanbrugh's play. He writes, "Berinthia's 'Virtue
is its own Reward' is also strictly ironic in its use of a cliche of moral
congratulation as a means of self-deprecation. As such, it is defensive. The
metaphor enables Berinthia to talk about the fact without, as it were, referring
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LISA BERGLUND
385
to it. The metaphor places a shield of language between her and the actuality
of her deeds and motives" (p. 56). Unlike Berinthia's defensive strategy,
however, Etherege's extended metaphors are spoken and shared by a community of wits, not all of whom require a "shield of language." And whereas
Vanbrugh locates a moral voice in the plain-speaking Amanda (as Roper
notes, "Amanda insists in reading off the literal sense" [p. 59]), thus clearly
separating wit from wisdom, Etherege harmoniously confuses the two
qualities in Harriet and Harry Bellair.
6John G. Hayman argues that the wits strive to preserve "the semblance of
I'honnetete" (p. 187), and he describes "the tempting strategy that offered
itself to a wit such as Dorimant: he might conform to the superficies of
courtesy and use them to cloak an essentially antisocial nature" (p. 186). The
libertine language offers the cover Dorimant requires.
7W.B. Carnochan points out that a 1965 revival of The Man of Mode "was
announced as the first since 1793" (p. xi); when confined to the printed page,
as it was for 170 years of readers, Sir Fopling's exuberance is muted.
'For other interpretations of the roles of dissembling, mimicry, and playacting in The Man of Mode, see two articles in Restoration: Studies in English
Literary Culture, 1660-1700 6 (1982): James Thompson, "Lying and Dissembling in the Restoration," pp. 11-19; and Katherine Zapantis Keller, "Rereading and Re-playing: An Approach to Restoration Comedy," pp. 64-71.
9J. Douglas Canfield, in "Religious Language and Religious Meaning in
Restoration Comedy," SEL 20 (1980):385-406, writes that "the religious
language associated with Harriet and Dorimant's love . . . suggests the
possibility of transcendence" (p. 388). Canfield rightly addresses the play's
copious allusions to Christian ceremonies and to scripture; but by failing to
note that the libertine language relies as well on metaphors of health,
gambling, and masquerades (among others), Canfield's reading disproportionately emphasizes religious language as the key to Dorimant's potential
reformation. It is Harriet's witty use of all these metaphors that attracts and
disarms the rake. I do agree with Canfield's argument that the prevalence of
religious ejaculations and allusions "also serves in part to portray this world
as one in which such language has become merely a manner of speaking"
(p. 389). Since the libertines employ metaphors to disguise antisocial
behavior, images drawn from a religion reduced to a mere "manner of
speaking" are particularly useful, for they lack any power beyond that which
the libertines choose to bestow.
'0John Harrington Smith, The Gay Couple in Restoration Comedy
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1948), p. 49.
" Similarly, Derek Hughes remarks that "when Dorimant tries to convince
Harriet of his earnest feelings he can find no reliable words . . . since he has
playfully misused them all in the past.... Harriet's task, therefore, is not only
to reconcile love and play but to reconcile love and language," ("Play and
Passion in The Man of Mode," CompD 15 [1981]:231-257; 237). I differ from
Hughes in finding serious motives for Dorimant's linguistic strategy. Sheer
"playfulness," on the other hand, does characterize the metaphorical
exchanges of Etherege's two earlier dramas.
'2All references to The Comical Revenge and She Would if She Could are
from The Plays of Sir George Etherege, ed. Michael Cordner (Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982).
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386
THE
MAN
OF
MODE
'30ther Restoration comedies usually employ extended metaphors simply
to separate the wits from the gulls, as in this exchange from Wycherley's The
Country Wife:
DORILANT. Ay, ay, a gamester will be a gamester whilst his money
lasts, and a whoremaster whilst his vigor.
HARCOURT. Nay, I have known 'em when they are broke and can
lose no more, keep a-fumbling with the box in their hands to fool
with only, and hinder other gamesters.
DORILANT. That had wherewithal to make lusty stakes.
PINCHWIFE. Well, gentlemen, you may laugh at me, but you shall
never lie with my wife; I know the town.
(The Country Wife, ed. Thomas H. Fujimura, Regents Restoration Drama
Series [Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1965], I.i.421-28).
By insisting on the tenor, rather than the vehicle, of the conversation,
Pinchwife excludes himself from witty society; but Dorilant and Harcourt,
unlike Dorimant and Medley, do not require indirection. They spin out the
metaphor for its own sake and for the pleasure of needling Pinchwife.
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