John Vanbrugh’s 1696 play The Relapse is an example of what might be termed “response literature.” Or perhaps even—though less precise in this particular case—“revenge literature.” Such a genre reached unparalleled heights of popularity during the British historical period which includes the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution. Among the multitude of examples available, the most famous might arguably be John Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe. This poem written in mock-heroic style is explicitly an attack upon a fellow writer of the time, Thomas Shadwell, author of the play Bury Fair among others. Dryden and Shadwell had been engaging in a war of words of increasing intensity for some time stimulated in part by a disagreement over the relative merits of the work of Ben Jonson.
Yes, despite what may seem to be the case, this is actually all true and not being made up here on the spot. The origin of Mac Flecknoe may seem the stuff of satire, but open disagreements between writers of this era often exploded into works of literary merit. While there is admittedly an immature element at play, one must admit that at least these flame wars actually produced something of lasting value as opposed to what takes place everyday in social media which produces writing with barely enough imagination to last through the day.
The Relapse is not exactly of the same sort of “response literature” as Mac Flecknoe. Vanbrugh produced an entire play not in response to insults hurled his way by another writer or increasingly fiery tempers stoked by a personal disagreement, but rather in opposition to a broad-based literary style. The Relapse is a response—a sequel of sorts—to a previous stage drama written by Colley Cibber titled Love’s Last Shift. This sentimental romance winds its way through various difficulties involving falling in love on its inexorable path toward the melodramatically over sentimentalized redemption of its previously rakish protagonist into a blubbering submissive to his beloved. Vanbrugh was not the only writer to take exception to its literary failures. William Congreve famously dismissed Cibber’s work as being something that seems to have a great deal of wit but which upon closer inspection is revealed to have absolutely no wit. Congreve in this particular case would be the example of today’s social media flame war artiste.
Vanbrugh wished to push further and becomes an exemplar of the period’s fascination with responding to literature one dislikes by publishing literature oneself. One certainly can wish relative to these merits of much of that response literature that things were more like the past today. The Relapse becomes yet another case which points out the connection between the rise of the instant response on social media and the dumbing down of humanity. All it takes to respond to writing which one dislikes today is a few seconds of typing and the clicking of a mouse button. Imagine if Vanbrugh were writing today and Cibber had created something that struck his critical sense so intently. Would The Relapse ever have been written or would a modern Vanbrugh be content with a tweet or post or meme or whatever will come about tomorrow?
The irony here runs deeper than the mere disconnect between Restoration response and social media response. It would be one thing if Vanbrugh had been so negative inspired by the literary faults of Cibber’s play that he set down to write an entire play himself. That would be impressive enough. What is even more impressive, however, is that it has been the response—the sequel—which has gone on to be regularly performed even for modern audiences whereas the work that started it all, Cibber’s Love’s Last Shift, has been all forgotten except as it relates to The Relapse.
