Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Country Wife, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Reputation, Appearance, and Hypocrisy
Love, Marriage, and Misogyny
Theatre, Puritanism, and Forbidden Desire
Town vs. Country
Summary
Analysis
Horner, a wealthy “rake,” addresses the audience. He describes the tenacity of playwrights and “poets” who never tire of writing for an audience, no matter how much the audience might criticize their work. In fact, writers anticipate a negative reaction from their audience and, therefore, they “defy” their critics and get the first word in. They are willing to fight to make themselves heard and their work “shan’t ask” the audience’s “leave to live” but will drown out the audience’s complaints and seek to get one over on them.
Audiences in Restoration theatres did not sit quietly, and watch plays, but were instead noisy and often participated indirectly in the action onstage through their complaints and comments. Therefore, Wycherly implies that a playwright must be daring to submit his work to this scrutiny. He takes a combative stance with the audience and suggests that he will go on writing plays whether they like it or not.
Themes
Literary Devices
Horner, however, acknowledges that he is just an “actor” and that he will always try to give the audience what they want. He will, therefore, act badly if the audience wants to see the writer’s work “murdered.” Actors, he says, ultimately, will give the audience whatever they want to win their approval.
Wycherly differentiates himself from the actor playing Horner. While the first part of the prologue reflects Wycherly’s stance as a playwright, the second shows the actor’s point of view. Actors (Wycherly suggests) do not care so much about the quality of the work they perform, but rather about adulation from the audience. Therefore, if the audience hates a play and loudly makes this known, the actors will change their performance and act badly or make fun of the playwright’s work to win the audience’s applause. This suggests that the playwright’s work is not his own to control, but is affected by the actor’s interpretation of the work and the audience’s reaction to it.
Themes
