comedy of manners

Dramatic genre that is generally a satire upon social attitudes, most often attacking superficiality and materialism.

The genre has its roots in Restoration comedy, although there have been changes within the comedy of manners as a genre. The more romantic 18th- and early 19th-century works present the triumph of truth and virtue over vice and hypocrisy, while the darker perspectives of the early Restoration and of the late 19th century (such as those of Oscar Wilde) suggest that true virtue is either dead, or is confined to the lower classes. The most renowned 20th-century exponent is probably Noël Coward, who portrays self-seeking and self-gratifying personalities caught up in emotional and circumstantial entanglements.

Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) is an outstanding example of a comedy of manners. The central character's inability to marry the girl of his dreams unless he is called Ernest typifies the genre's satire upon superficiality. Jane Austen similarly used her novels to expose the way in which superficial judgments, often based upon social prejudice and preconceptions, can ruin lives.