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Colley Cibber

From British Culture

Actor, playwright, theatre manager and poet laureate under King George II. He was famous for creating the roles of fops. His conflict with Alexander Pope, who portrayed him as a sycophantic dunce in The Dunciad, is well known.

Life

Cibber was born in 1671 in London. At the age of 19 he became an actor at Drury Lane, under Christopher Rich, who only three years later, in 1693, merged the two companies (the Duke's company and King's company) to form the United Company. In 1693 Cibber married Katherine Shore. Disappointed by a lack of roles that were to his taste, in 1696 he wrote Love's Last Shift, a comedy in which he played a fop with the telling name Sir Novelty Fashion. The play became a big hit and made his name both as a playwright and as an actor. In 1699 he adapted Shakespeare's Richard III, which again was performed to much acclaim. But perhaps his greatest success was The Careless Husband of 1704, which tells the story of an unfaithful husband and his tolerant wife.

In 1710, Cibber, together with fellow actors Thomas Dogget and Robert Wilks, bought the shares of the United Company, and from thereon served as manager. This position enabled him to cast himself into just the roles he liked. In 1730 Cibber was appointed Poet Laureate, even though even he himself didn't think his verse was good enough. Most people agreed. But then the post was not rewarded for literary merits, but for the authors political usefulness. And with his comedy The Nonjuror, Cibber had written a play against Tories.


Conflict with Pope

Alexander Pope thought very lowly of Colley Cibber and was outraged when he was appointed Poet Laureate. In 1728 he wrote The Dunciad, a mock-epic about the plans of Dullness, the goddess of stupidity, to expand her powers by way of the Dunces. One of the Dunces was Colley Cibber, even so mentioned by name. Pope continued to mock him, and in 1742 Cibber wrote A Letter from Mr. Cibber, to Mr. Pope, inquiring into the motives that might induce him in his Satyrical Works, to be so frequently fond of Mr. Cibber's name. Pope answered by writing a new version of the Dunciad, which painted Cibber in an even worse light.

Plays

  1. Love's Last Shift
  2. Woman's Wit
  3. Xerxes
  4. Richard III
  5. Love Makes a Man
  6. The School Boy
  7. She Would and She Would Not
  8. The Careless Husband
  9. Perolla and Izadora
  10. The Comical Lovers
  11. The Double Gallant
  12. The Lady's Last Stake
  13. The Rival Fools
  14. The Rival Queans
  15. Ximena
  16. Venus and Adonis
  17. Bulls and Bears
  18. The Nonjuror
  19. The Refusal
  20. Cæsar in Egypt
  21. The Provoked Husband
  22. Love in a Riddle
  23. Damon and Phillida
  24. Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John

Autobiography

In 1740, Cibber wrote An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, his autobiography. It pioneered a new type of autobiography, moving away from a distant description to a more involved author. His work is particularly interesting for its descriptions of theatre life in the late Restoration and early Georgian periods.

References and Further Reading

  • Barker, R. H. Mr Cibber of Drury Lane. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939.
  • Coward, Barry, ed. A Companion to Stuart Britain. Malden: Blackwell, 2003.
  • Lowe, Robert (ed). An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber.. New York: AMS Press, 1966.
  • MacLean, Gerald (ed). Culture and society in the Stuart Restoration - literature, drama, history. Cambridge: CUP, 1995.
  • Owen, Susan. Perspectives on Restoration drama. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.

Links

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