Biography Essay

Richard Brinsley Sheridan wrote and produced three plays that have been performed more frequently than the works of any other playwright between William Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw. The Rivals, The School for Scandal, and The Critic entered the performing repertoire immediately upon their first appearance in the 1770s, and one or more of them is still performed every year. They are both timely and timeless pieces of art: timely because they reflect not only the concerns and mores but also the literary and theatrical style of late-eighteenth-century England; timeless because they speak to the human condition and to the nature of artistic creation in the theater. As the basis for a major artistic reputation, three plays seem thin, particularly in comparison to the creations of Dr. Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Laurence Sterne, and even Tobias Smollett. Yet, because Sheridan exploited a late neoclassical style, tempered exuberant...