SOURCE: Cordner, Michael. “Etherege's She Would If She Could: Comedy, Complaisance and Anti-Climax.” In English Comedy, edited by Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and John Kerrigan, pp. 158-79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

In the following essay, Cordner maintains that Etherege deliberately utilized the device of anti-climax in the courtship and marital discord plotlines in She Would If She Could to allow his rake-heroes the ability to maneuver successfully through the courtship process.

The première of George Etherege's second comedy was an unhappy occasion. The triumphant success of its predecessor and the subsequent delay of four years before the unveiling of this sequel heightened expectations in advance of the first performance of She Would If She Could on 6 February 1668 at the Duke's Playhouse in Lincoln's Inn Fields. But, in the event, the new play pleased almost no one. Samuel Pepys, who was present at the première, reported how...