The Way of the World (New Mermaid Edition)

Synopsis

If seventeenth- and eighteenth-century comedy differ in that the former

is about sex (and adultery actually happens) while the latter is about

love (and adultery is merely threatened), then Congreve - writing at

the turn of the century - occupies a phase of transition.

Mirabell is

no saint, but he deserves the title of 'hero' for masterminding the

action with the same wit and humanity with which the dramatist designed

the play.

Mirabell is both financially and amorously interested in the

skittish Millamant, who declares that she might, with certain provisos,

'dwindle into a wife'.

The introduction to this edition clarifies the

playwright's and his characters' highly intricate plotting and argues

that the key metaphor of the play is card-playing, in which fortune,

cunning, concealment and a high trump drawn from the sleeve at the

right moment will win the game - and the heiress.