Congreve, William 1670-1729
English dramatist and poet

Born in Bardsey near Leeds, he was educated in Ireland at Kilkenny School and Trinity College, Dublin, where he was a fellow student of Jonathan Swift. In London he entered the Middle Temple to study law, but never practised. In 1693 his first comedy, The Old Bachelor, produced under John Dryden's auspices, with the celebrated Mrs Bracegirdle as heroine, achieved brilliant success. His second comedy, The Double Dealer (also 1693), was in every way stronger, but the satire on the heartless sexual morals of the time was aimed too directly at the theatre's best customers, and it failed to please. His best-known play Love for Love (1695), generally regarded as his masterpiece, is more vital than its predecessors, and has a more coherent plot and truer characterization. In 1697 his only tragedy, The Mourning Bride, appeared, best remembered for the quotations 'music hath charms to soothe a savage breast' and 'nor hell a fury like a woman scorned' (often misquoted as 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'). He was next occupied busily in the famous Jeremy Collier controversy, defending the morality of the new stage (1698). His last play, The Way of the World (1700), was not a success and he wrote little more for the stage, apart from the words of a masque of The Judgment of Paris, set to music by the English composer John Eccles (1650-1735) in 1701. He died in a coach accident.

Bibliography: M E Novak, William Congreve (1971); E Goss, The Life of William Congreve (1888)