Richard Steele and the Genealogy of Sentimental Drama: A Reading of The Conscious Lovers

If The Conscious Lovers may be understood as an innovative piece, it is not surprising to find that the risks of striking out into uncharted territory weighed on Steele's mind. His concern is given away at times by relatively minor details, such as his touchiness about unspecified critics' disapproval of his debts to Terence, but there are also major subjects of unease. Primary among these is a fear of what we would now call feminization.4 In the Preface, for example, Steele expresses dismay over the possibility that sentimental drama might sap the nation's military strength. In an anecdote about how a general was apparently caught weeping over Indiana's sad fate, Steele approvingly quotes a Mr. Wilks to the effect that "he'll fight ne'er the worse for that" (Plays 300). This example crystallizes a deep-rooted anxiety about martial manliness, which in fact characterizes a great deal of Steele's social criticism. The general of the story must show how it is possible to combine soldierly ardor with a feeling heart; more generally, Steele struggled to find the right mixture of principled non-violence and masculine self-assertion in the course of his long-standing polemic against dueling.5 The centerpiece of this campaign may well be the scene in Act Four of The Conscious Lovers where Bevil Jr. comes close to accepting a challenge from his rash friend Myrtle. At first Bevil stands on principle, refusing to give in to his friend's taunts; but when Myrtle insults Indiana the hero, taxed "beyond the Patience of a Man" (4.1.152), reaches for his sword. The slight delay occasioned by calling for a coach gives Bevil a moment to reflect, and he pacifies Myrtle by fully explaining the motive of his correspondence with Lucinda and so removing his friend's jealousy. The movement of this scene is most significant. It was not enough for Steele simply to assert his hero's rejection of dueling, for a straightforward refusal to fight could always be attributed to cowardice. The "patience of a man" must, on the contrary, be a manly patience, a principled calm backed up by a fully masculine power of action. In this sense it was essential for Steele to show Bevil's vacillations in the face of Myrtle's challenge. To be a virtuous man he must be peaceable, but not tame; not violent, but firm.

The example of threatened masculinity shows very well the sorts of socio-psychological issues that preoccupy Steele the innovator. In abandoning the manly laughter of Restoration comedy and embracing a feminized sentiment, he risks the mockery of critics on a most sensitive aspect of both his literary and his social self-esteem; yet he also remains true to his own project of dramatic reform and, as the record shows, attracts the suffrage of a large and enthusiastic public.

But more interesting even than Steele's personal ambivalence about the new form is the way The Conscious Lovers self-consciously thematizes its differences from the dramatic past. The pressures of innovation may be read in both the most overt features of plot, character, and theme as well as in more outof-the-way symbolic or symptomatic corners. What follows is an exploration of two areas where such tensions are particularly acute: first, the relationships Steele arranges between the main plot and the subplots of his play, and second, in some depth, the idea of genealogy.