Hannah Cowley's "The Belle's Stratagem": 'Tis One Universal Masquerade

"...a picture of modern manners, with its colours derived from the present fashion, painted with the gaiety and sprightliness of the modern stile."
~Review of The Belle's Stratagem in The European Magazine, 1782

Reading Hannah Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem (1780), what fascinated me most about the play was its modernity. Yes, there are lots of familiar Restoration stock types and situations--names like "Touchwood" and "Courtall," masks and disguises, a plot to snare a man of the world, a plot to seduce an innocent married woman--but there are also so many moments where I felt like the conversations of the characters could have come from a nineteenth century novel. Take the talk at the beginning about how the unwed women are so eager to marry because so many young men are away fighting the Americans in the Revolutionary War. Or Doricourt's observations about the Frenchification of English fashion (1.3.36). Or the reference to ladies painting watercolours and sketching silhouettes in 3.1. It's delightfully modern--as in the Modern World rather than the Early Modern World.

In 2.1 for instance,

Miss Ogle: Sir George, I see, languishes for the charming society of a century and a half ago, when a grave squire and a still graver dame, surrounded by a sober family, formed a stiff group in a mouldy old house in the corner of a park.
Mrs. Racket: Delightful serenity! Undisturbed by any noise but the cawing of rooks and the quarterly rumbling of a friendly call from the parish apothecary or the curate's wife.

I find it so interesting the way these plays are gradually transitioning towards the nineteenth century world (hence my paper). I really like what Wallace says about the play as a "a gesture toward an early modern cosmopolitanism" (Wallace 416), and I've also been thinking more about Smallwood's "Women in the Theatre" from last week.

Smallwood talks about the "conservative nervousness about social imitation" in the second half of the 18^th century, when the middle classes consciously cultivated the social activities of the upper classes. Conservatively minded men, says Smallwood, expressed concern at the lack of social distinctions between women of different ranks which results from their united pursuit of fashion. Sir George definitely fits into this, with his outbursts "Formerly there were distinctions of character amongst ye" (2.I.206-207) and "A mere chaos, in which all distinction of rank is lost in ridiculous affectation of ease" (2.I.241-243). Indeed, the auction scene and the masquerade scene show women of different classes mixing, potentially indistinguishably, epitomizing what Smallwood calls "the rage for consumption."

R. Crompton Rhodes sums up my impression of the play really well: "Most of the situations are the 'dramatic commonplaces' of earlier authors, but the characters are of their own period" (Rhodes 131). He also gives some nice historical details about the setting: “the fashionable amusement of the era, a masquerade at the Pantheon. This splendid building in Oxford Street was lavishly decorated, [transformed into] a romantic paisage [...] with cascades, bowers, rocks, and cataracts… every niche filled with orange and myrtle” (134). Sounds a bit like Pope's grotto!

I'll end by touching on an important idea raised by Finberg about Letitia Hardy's ability to change herself. Since Letitia can fit seamlessly into any social role, "Cowley seems to be asking a very modern question: 'Is there true identity?'" (Finberg xlvii). I'm sure this kettle of fish will be discussed in class. Looking forward to it!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The photos are from (the editor of our anthology) Melinda C. Finberg's revival of The Belle's Stratagem at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2005.