Richard Brinsley Sheridan

1. Richard Brinsley Sheridan

2. contents

3. 1. Life • Family background • Education • Marriage

4. Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751 ～1816) was the son of Thomas Sheridan, an Irish actor-manager, and Mrs. F. Sheridan. Richard learned early that as a livelihood the theatre was both precarious and ungentlemanly. He was sent to Harrow School, where he was unhappy and regarded as a dunce. In Bath, however, where he joined his family in 1770, he was at once at home. His skit, written for the local paper, on the opening of the New Assembly Rooms, was considered good enough to be published as a separate pamphlet. He fell in love with Eliza Linley, a beautiful and accomplished young singer, with whom he eloped to France and entered into an invalid form of marriage contract. Sheridan's angry father sent him to London to study law, but eventually the fathers withdrew their opposition and in 1773 he was lawfully married to Eliza.

5. 2. Works • The Rivals（1773） • St Patrick‘s Day （1773） • A Trip to Scarborough（1777 ） • The School for Scandal（1777） • The Critic（1779）

7. Very short of money, he decided to try his hand at a play, and in a very few weeks wrote The Rivals. It was highly successful and established Sheridan in the fashionable society he sought. The Rivals was followed in a few months by the farce St Patrick's Day, again a success. In 1776 Sheridan became a manager of Drury Lane Theatre. Early in 1777 appeared A Trip to Scarborough, and this again was a success. In March of that year Sheridan was elected a member of the Club. Meanwhile he was working hard and long on The School for Scandal, which was produced in May. The play was universally acclaimed, and all doors were open to the dramatist. Although The School for Scandal had 73 performances between 1777 and 1789 and made a profit of ￡15 000, Sheridan's financial anxieties, which were to dog him to the end of his life, became even more acute. In 1779 he became the sole proprietor of Drury Lane, and began to live far beyond his means. In 1779 he produced his new play The Critic, and once again he enjoyed a huge success, and the world regarded him as the true heir of Garrick. But it was not what he wanted. He had grown up with a positive dislike of the theatre, and he declared he never saw a play if he could help it. He wished to shine only in politics, but he had neither the correct family connections nor the financial stability.

8. 3. Social life • For the next 33 years he held various government offices such as secretary of the Treasury and Treasurer of the Navy. In 1812, he dropped out of the Parliament because he had no money for re-election. Thus his political career came to an end. In the same year he was arrested for debt. Friends rallied, but he and his wife became ill. He died in July 1816 and was given a fine funeral, with four lords as pall-bearers. He wished to be remembered as a man of politics and to be buried next to Fox, but he was laid near Garrick instead. He is remembered chiefly as the author of two superb comedies, but his speeches and letters have also been published.

9. 4. Achievements • Sheridan was the only important English dramatist of the eighteenth century. His plays, especially The Rivals and The School for Scandal, are generally regarded as important links between the masterpieces of Shakespeare and those of Bernard Shaw, and as true classics in English comedy.