SOURCE: McDonald, Margaret Lamb. “The Witty Heroine in Restoration Comedy: 1660-1690.” In The Independent Woman in the Restoration Comedy of Manners, pp. 46-97. Salzburg, Austria: Institut für Englische Sprache und Literatur, Universität Salzburg, 1976.

In the following essay, McDonald studies the development of the intelligent heroine in the comedy of manners and examines how she uses mimicry and mockery to deflate the pretentious.

What happens to the learned lady in Restoration comedy? After 1660 the affected woman of earlier seventeenth century comedy underwent still more modifications before she finally emerged as the truly witty heroine. True it is that the aging female philosopher introduced in Jonson's immortal Lady Pol, as well as the affected young lady or pseudo-scholar represented by Fletcher's Rosalura and Lillia Bianca, remain favorites during the Restoration in the works of Dryden, Shadwell, Mrs. Aphra Behn and a number of other playwrights. But among the...