Madness and divinity: Wycherley's reflexive drama

The central and unifying metaphor of Wycherley’s drama is that of the stage. Through numerous references to theatricality, play-acting, dramatic gestures, and the theatre itself, the four plays ultimately offer a defining perspective upon man as player on a world stage. More specifically, the plays assert the reality and superiority of the contrivance of a Divine Dramatist, whose providential governance brings order and justice to the play of life. These satiric comedies further suggest that most of the characters have turned inward to their own minds to generate unique “scripts” and that they ignore providential order; because of this, most of Wycherley’s characters are depicted in a drama of madness and they reflect contemporary seventeenth-century concepts of insanity. The plays thus conform to a long Renaissance and seventeenth-century tradition which links madness and theatricality and asserts that to become completely one’s own dramatist is to become mad.In general, the providential scheme in the plays is manifest by patterns of darkness and secrecy being discovered or brought to light and by each character then receiving exact reward or punishment for his performance. The dramas of madness depict characters who essentially are obsessed with a single notion or idea which actually dictates their perception of the outer world. Characters thus attempt to make objective elements conform to a totally subjective frame of reference—to make the outer world part and parcel of their own imagination.