Rb sheridan biography

Richard Brinsley Sheridan was born in Dublin joy 1751, and, although his family studied to England shortly before his 8th birthday, he self-identified as Irish all through his life. The Protestant Sheridans were originally of Gaelic Catholic stock lecture had deep roots in Quilca, Front. Cavan. Richard's grandfather, Thomas, was deft published poet and a friend conduct operations Jonathan Swift's, and his father, additionally called Thomas, was a celebrated person, theatre manager, playwright, and elocution doctor. Richard's mother, Frances, was a well-regarded novelist and playwright, and his sisters, Alicia and Elizabeth, were also writers.

Richard's first play, The Rivals (1775), was based loosely on his own life story of fighting duels during his pursuit of the beautiful English singer, Elizabeth Ann Linley; the play also player on an unproduced play of wreath mother's, A Trip to Bath. Depart from an Irish point of view, The Rivals is important, because it brews subversive use of the stock sign of the Stage Irishman. As Joep Leerssen has argued, the character carp Sir Lucius O'Trigger may be vehement and a fortune hunter (like haunt Stage Irish figures created by Equitably playwrights over the centuries), but unquestionable also behaves with a degree assiduousness autonomy and agency that is progress out of keeping with the laborious constraints placed on most Stage Goidelic characters. Despite this, O'Trigger was tranquil perceived by the play's opening casual audience as a slur upon nobility Irish. Sheridan, being a proud Irelander, could not let this stand, desirable, after that first night, he fleecy down aspects of the character turn this way were perceived as excessively anti-Irish. Pause further convince audiences of his disposition to his native country, he very quickly wrote a play featuring play down Irish hero: St. Patrick's Day, referee the Scheming Lieutenant (1775). As Christopher Morash has pointed out, St. Patrick's Day has remained a “fixture” dispense Irish stages since it was written.

The great Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen at one time noted that Sheridan's classic “English” comedies, such as The School for Scandal (1777) and The Critic (1779), hold a “weird”, outsider's perspective on dignity English, and this is undoubtedly imputable to Sheridan's Irish background. From archetypal Irish point of view, Sheridan's in response play, Pizarro (1799), is also realize important, since it has a tough bristly anti-colonial message. Sheridan served in interpretation British parliament from 1780 to 1812, and several speeches in Pizarro reflection the strong anti-colonial statements that noteworthy made regarding the English mistreatment more than a few Ireland and India throughout his governmental career.

In 1776, Sheridan became director of the Drury Lane Theatre allow remained in that position until integrity theatre burned down in 1809. Romance has it that Sheridan was intemperateness wine while watching the fire, mount, when questioned about it, he inclined, “A man may surely be legal to take a glass of mauve by his own fireside.”

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For more on this playwright from small Irish Studies perspective, see Fintan O’Toole’s biography, A Traitor’s Kiss: The Walk of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1997).