SOURCE: Davies, Paul C. “The State of Nature and the State of War: A Reconsideration of The Man of Mode.” University of Toronto Quarterly 39, no. 1 (October 1969): 53-62.

In the following essay, Davies argues that a “true understanding” of the relationship between Dorimant and Harriet is essential for understanding The Man of Mode as a whole.

In The First Modern Comedies Norman Holland spoke of the traditional dispraise of Restoration comedy under the general heading “The Critical Failure.”¹ His book, together with Thomas H. Fujimura's, is a notable recent example of what we might call “The Critical Success” with regard to these dramatists.² By relating the play to the current literature of ideas they, along with Dale Underwood,³ have done much to refute L. C. Knights' view that Restoration comedy “has no significant relation with the best thought of the time.”⁴

There seems, however, to be some difference of...