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Excerpt

Excerpt from She Stoops to Conquer; Or, The Mistakes of a Night: A Comedy, by Oliver Goldsmith

 Excuse me, sirs, I pray--I can’t yet speak--<br />
 I’m crying now--and have been all the week.<br />
 “’Tis not alone this mourning suit,” good masters:<br />
 “I’ve that within”--for which there are no plasters!<br />
 Pray, would you know the reason why I’m crying?<br />
 The Comic Muse, long sick, is now a-dying!<br />
 And if she goes, my tears will never stop;<br />
 For as a player, I can’t squeeze out one drop:<br />
 I am undone, that’s all--shall lose my bread--<br />
 I’d rather, but that’s nothing--lose my head.<br />
 When the sweet maid is laid upon the bier,<br />
 Shuter and I shall be chief mourners here.<br />
 To her a mawkish drab of spurious breed,<br />
 Who deals in sentimentals, will succeed!<br />
 Poor Ned and I are dead to all intents;<br />
 We can as soon speak Greek as sentiments!<br />
 Both nervous grown, to keep our spirits up.<br />
 We now and then take down a hearty cup.<br />
 What shall we do?  If Comedy forsake us,<br />
 They’ll turn us out, and no one else will take us.<br />
 But why can’t I be moral?--Let me try--<br />
 My heart thus pressing--fixed my face and eye--<br />
 With a sententious look, that nothing means,<br />
 (Faces are blocks in sentimental scenes)<br />
 Thus I begin: “All is not gold that glitters,<br />
 “Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters.<br />
 “When Ignorance enters, Folly is at hand:<br />
 “Learning is better far than house and land.<br />
 “Let not your virtue trip; who trips may stumble,<br />
 “And virtue is not virtue, if she tumble.”

 I give it up--morals won’t do for me;<br />
 To make you laugh, I must play tragedy.<br />
 One hope remains--hearing the maid was ill,<br />
 A Doctor comes this night to show his skill.<br />
 To cheer her heart, and give your muscles motion,<br />
 He, in Five Draughts prepar’d, presents a potion:<br />
 A kind of magic charm--for be assur’d,<br />
 If you will swallow it, the maid is cur’d:<br />
 But desperate the Doctor, and her case is,<br />
 If you reject the dose, and make wry faces!<br />
 This truth he boasts, will boast it while he lives,<br />
 No poisonous drugs are mixed in what he gives.<br />
 Should he succeed, you’ll give him his degree;<br />
 If not, within he will receive no fee!<br />
 The College YOU, must his pretensions back,<br />
 Pronounce him Regular, or dub him Quack.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

Explanation

**Detailed Explanation of the Excerpt from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith**

This passage is the Prologue to She Stoops to Conquer; Or, The Mistakes of a Night (1773), a classic comedy of manners by Oliver Goldsmith. The play is a satirical and farcical work that pokes fun at the affectations of 18th-century English society, particularly the sentimental comedy (a melodramatic, overly moralistic style of theater) that was popular at the time. The Prologue is delivered by an actor (traditionally played by Edward Shuter, a famous comic actor of the period) who laments the decline of true comedy and warns the audience about the dangers of sentimentalism in theater.

Context & Background

The State of 18th-Century Theater
- By the 1770s, sentimental comedy (exemplified by playwrights like Richard Steele and Hugh Kelly) had largely replaced the bawdy, witty Restoration comedy (e.g., Congreve, Wycherley).
- Sentimental comedies were moralistic, tearful, and didactic, often featuring virtuous heroes, repentant rakes, and emotional speeches—lacking the sharp humor of earlier works.
- Goldsmith, a neoclassical writer, despised this trend and sought to revive laughter and satire in theater.
Goldsmith’s Intentions
- She Stoops to Conquer was written as a corrective to sentimental drama, embracing farce, mistaken identities, and physical comedy.
- The Prologue directly mocks the sentimental style while defending traditional comedy.
The Speaker’s Identity
- The Prologue is spoken by a comic actor (likely Shuter himself), who fears losing his livelihood if comedy dies.
- His mock-lament is both self-deprecating and defiant, setting the tone for the play’s anti-sentimental stance.

Themes in the Excerpt

The Death of Comedy
- The speaker personifies Comedy as a dying maiden, mourning her decline:
  "The Comic Muse, long sick, is now a-dying!"
- He suggests that if comedy disappears, actors like him will be out of work ("I shall lose my bread").
- The sentimental drama is dismissed as a "mawkish drab of spurious breed"—fake, emotional, and inferior.
Satire of Sentimental Drama
- The actor attempts (and fails) to deliver a sentimental moral, parodying the style:
  "All is not gold that glitters, / Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters."
- His overwrought, clichéd moralizing is deliberately ridiculous, exposing how hollow and forced sentimental plays could be.
- He admits: "Morals won’t do for me; / To make you laugh, I must play tragedy." —meaning that true comedy is being replaced by fake pathos.
The "Doctor" as a Metaphor for the Playwright (Goldsmith Himself)
- The Doctor represents Goldsmith, who is prescribing a cure for the sick Comic Muse.
- The "Five Draughts" (acts of the play) are his remedy—if the audience accepts his comedy, the Muse will live; if they reject it, she dies.
- The line "No poisonous drugs are mixed in what he gives" suggests that his comedy is pure, honest entertainment, unlike the fake sentimentality of other plays.
The Audience’s Role as Judges
- The Prologue challenges the audience to decide whether Goldsmith’s play is legitimate comedy or quackery:
  "The College YOU, must his pretensions back, / Pronounce him Regular, or dub him Quack."
- This breaks the fourth wall, making the audience complicit in the success or failure of the play.

Literary Devices & Stylistic Features

Personification
- Comedy is a dying woman ("the sweet maid is laid upon the bier"), making her decline emotionally vivid.
- Sentimental drama is a "mawkish drab" (a vulgar, fake woman), emphasizing its inauthenticity.
Irony & Parody
- The actor pretends to be sentimental but fails miserably, exposing the hollowness of the style:
  "Faces are blocks in sentimental scenes" (i.e., actors just make blank expressions).
- His mock-moral speech is deliberately bad, highlighting how forced sentimental lessons were.
Metaphor & Extended Analogy
- The Doctor and his potion represent Goldsmith’s play as a cure for bad theater.
- The "Five Draughts" (acts) are medicine—the audience must swallow (accept) them for the cure to work.
Direct Address & Audience Engagement
- The speaker talks to the audience, making them active participants:
  "Pray, would you know the reason why I’m crying?"
- The final lines turn the audience into a jury, forcing them to judge the play’s worth.
Bawdy & Colloquial Humor
- "I’d rather… lose my head" has a double meaning (literal beheading vs. losing his mind).
- "We now and then take down a hearty cup" suggests drinking to cope with the decline of comedy.
Self-Deprecation & Pathos
- The actor pretends to weep for comedy, but his real fear is unemployment:
  "If Comedy forsake us, / They’ll turn us out, and no one else will take us."
- This makes his plea for laughter more urgent and personal.

Significance of the Prologue

A Manifesto for Comedy
- Goldsmith defends laughter as essential to theater, rejecting the tearful moralizing of sentimental plays.
- The Prologue sets up the play’s tone: farce, mistaken identities, and satire will dominate.
A Meta-Theatrical Statement
- By mocking bad acting and writing, Goldsmith positions his play as the antidote.
- The Doctor metaphor suggests that true comedy is a cure for the disease of sentimentalism.
Historical Context: The Battle Over Theater
- Goldsmith was part of a larger debate about the purpose of comedy.
- His rival, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, also wrote anti-sentimental comedies (e.g., The School for Scandal).
- The Prologue challenges the audience to reject fake emotion and embrace genuine humor.
Legacy & Influence
- She Stoops to Conquer helped revive farce and wit in English theater.
- The Prologue remains a classic example of meta-theater, where the play comments on itself.

Line-by-Line Breakdown (Key Sections)

"I’m crying now--and have been all the week."
- The actor exaggerates his grief, setting a comic tone despite the "serious" subject.
"I’ve that within”--for which there are no plasters!"
- A parody of Hamlet’s "I have that within which passeth show" (Act 1, Scene 2).
- Instead of tragic depth, he’s comically despairing over his job.
"The Comic Muse, long sick, is now a-dying!"
- Personifies comedy as a dying woman, making her decline dramatic and urgent.
"A mawkish drab of spurious breed, / Who deals in sentimentals, will succeed!"
- Sentimental drama is a fake, vulgar woman—Goldsmith’s contempt is clear.
"We can as soon speak Greek as sentiments!"
- Comic actors can’t do sentimental roles—they’re unnatural to them.
"All is not gold that glitters..."
- A clichéd moral, delivered badly, to mock sentimental plays.
"To make you laugh, I must play tragedy."
- Irony: The only way to make people laugh now is to pretend to be serious.
"A Doctor comes this night to show his skill..."
- Goldsmith as the Doctor, offering his play as the cure.
"The College YOU, must his pretensions back..."
- The audience must decide if the play is good medicine or quackery.

Conclusion: Why This Prologue Matters

Goldsmith’s Prologue is not just an introduction—it’s a battle cry for real comedy in an age of fake sentiment. By mocking the very style he opposes, he prepares the audience for a play that rejects moralizing in favor of laughter, wit, and farce. The meta-theatrical elements (the actor breaking character, the audience as judges) make it engaging and provocative, ensuring that the audience pays attention to the theatrical revolution Goldsmith is about to unleash.

In essence, the Prologue does what the play itself will do: trick the audience into enjoying themselves while making them think about the nature of comedy itself.

Questions

Question 1

The speaker’s failed attempt to deliver a sententious moral ("All is not gold that glitters...") primarily serves to:

A. expose the intellectual shallowness of Restoration comedy’s witty repartee.
B. demonstrate the actor’s genuine but misguided commitment to moral instruction.
C. parody the hollow didacticism of sentimental comedy through deliberate overstatement.
D. illustrate the inherent incompatibility between comedy and moral seriousness.
E. critique the audience’s preference for superficial aphorisms over substantive drama.

Question 2

The "Doctor" metaphor functions most significantly as an extended conceit for:

A. the audience’s role as passive recipients of theatrical experimentation.
B. the playwright’s desperation to revive a dying art form through untested methods.
C. the play itself as a curative intervention against the "disease" of sentimental drama.
D. the actor’s belief that comedy requires professional diagnosis to be effective.
E. the 18th-century medical establishment’s parallel decline alongside theater.

Question 3

Which of the following best captures the tonal shift in the lines "I give it up--morals won’t do for me; / To make you laugh, I must play tragedy"?

A. Resigned irony, acknowledging that authentic comedy now requires subverting its own conventions.
B. Defiant sarcasm, rejecting the audience’s demand for moralizing in favor of pure farce.
C. Melancholic surrender, conceding that the actor’s skills are obsolete in modern theater.
D. Self-deprecating humor, undermining the speaker’s earlier pretensions to gravitas.
E. Cynical realism, implying that tragedy is the only marketable genre left.

Question 4

The speaker’s claim that "Faces are blocks in sentimental scenes" is most effectively interpreted as a critique of:

A. actors’ inability to emote convincingly in morally complex roles.
B. the physical stagnation of sentimental plays, which lack dynamic staging.
C. the audience’s preference for static, pictorial tableaus over verbal wit.
D. the genre’s reliance on empty facial expressions to signify depth of feeling.
E. the playwright’s failure to provide nuanced character development.

Question 5

The Prologue’s closing couplet ("The College YOU, must his pretensions back, / Pronounce him Regular, or dub him Quack") primarily functions to:

A. transform the audience into complicit arbiters of the play’s artistic legitimacy.
B. undermine the authority of theatrical critics by appealing to popular opinion.
C. suggest that the play’s success hinges on the audience’s medical expertise.
D. reinforce the metaphor of theater as a profession requiring formal certification.
E. imply that the playwright’s reputation is already irreparably damaged.

Solutions and Explanations

1) Correct answer: C

Why C is most correct: The speaker’s abrupt shift into clichéd moralizing ("All is not gold that glitters...") is a deliberate parody of sentimental comedy’s hollow didacticism. The overstated, generic aphorisms ("Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters") mirror the trite, forced moral lessons of the genre Goldsmith despises. The actor’s immediate abandonment of this tone ("I give it up--morals won’t do for me") underscores the artificiality of such sentiments in true comedy. This aligns with Goldsmith’s broader satirical attack on sentimental drama’s superficial moralizing.