Love for Love
Love for Love, by the well-known Restoration dramatist William Congreve, is a racy, broad, farcical comedy, which relies on mistaken impressions, disguises, and deception for much of its humor. Yet it is not the kind of silly drawing-room drama of wit many people imagine Restoration comedies to be. Underlying its complicated plot and clever dialogue is a serious exploration of such themes as good government, sexual ethics, gender roles, the complications of sophisticated society, and the difference between being and seeming.
Love for Love is one of Congreve’s two bestknown plays, the other being The Way of the World (1700). In each play, Congreve uses sexual gamesmanship to explore and satirize the complexities and duplicities of his society. The play is also ‘‘metatheatre,’’ or theatre that is a comment on theatre itself. Many of the characters are playacting parts to each other, and the dialogue negotiates the arena of sexual conquest, gender relations, and the exchanges inherent when marriage is part of a play. Moreover, Congreve’s play enters into a conversation with the theatre of its time; Love for Love is a response to an earlier popular play, Love for Money. Arriving as a writer late in the Restoration period, Congreve uses the stage to comment upon an increasingly complex society and class structure that often seemed frivolous.
Love for Love Summary
Act I
The play opens in the chamber of Valentine, a young libertine who is lounging and
attempting to avoid his creditors who besiege him with requests for the money he
owes them. Valentine and Jeremy, Valentine’s servant, banter briefly about the value
of reading philosophy, introducing by the vocabulary they use the theme of economics
and exchange that will recur throughout the play. Jeremy complains that the life
of the wit and idler has ruined Valentine, but Valentine suggests that he might
use his verbal talents in order to write. Scandal, Valentine’s best friend, enters
and tells him ironically that using his talents and wit would have him end up more
penniless than he is already.
As the scene in Valentine’s chambers continues, Jeremy is called to the door by a series of knocks. When he returns, he informs Valentine that he has turned away creditors, including the nurse of one of Valentine’s illegitimate children. One of the creditors, however, enters. Trapland is a scrivener (a professional writer or scribe) to whom Valentine owes 1,500 pounds, and he is quite eager to be paid. Valentine attempts to distract him by drinking with him. When he insists on pursuing the debt, Scandal threatens him for insulting Valentine’s hospitality. When Trapland leaves, Valentine informs Scandal that he has a solution for his debts: his father has promised him money immediately if he will sign over all of his future inheritance to his brother, Benjamin, a sailor.
Valentine’s acquaintance Tattle arrives, and Scandal and Valentine make fun of his luck with women, eventually lying to him that they know he has had some experience with Mrs. Frail, who is about to arrive. Tattle, to their surprise, admits this, then insists on being sneaked out of the chamber before Mrs. Frail arrives. Scandal agrees, but only on the condition that Tattle tell him the names of six other women with whom he has been involved. When Mrs. Frail arrives, she informs the men that Valentine’s brother Benjamin has arrived and that Miss Prue, her niece and Foresight’s daughter, is coming up from the country, for she has been promised to Ben. The act ends with Scandal escorting Mrs. Frail while shopping. He promises to tell Angelica, Valentine’s love interest, that Valentine is considering giving up his inheritance for her sake.
Act II
The second act opens in Foresight’s house, where Foresight (Angelica’s uncle) asks
his servant where the women of the house might be. Angelica arrives in the room,
asking to borrow Foresight’s coach, and Foresight tells his servant to inform Sir
Sampson (Valentine’s father) that he will soon call on him. Irritated at Angelica’s
desire to ride around town in the carriage, he tells her that her habit of ‘‘gadding
about’’ will result in a bad reputation. She responds by intimating that he is practicing
witchcraft with the nurse. Angered, he tells her that, although he cannot take her
money away, he will ensure that Valentine, her beloved, will be made a pauper. She
continues to make fun of him and he responds with his astrological predictions,
eventually talking himself into a corner before Angelica leaves.
Sir Sampson enters holding the ‘‘deed of conveyance’’ (the papers that would take away Valentine’s... » Love for Love Summary
