William+Congreve

**William Congreve**

 * William Congreve** (24 January 1670 – 19 January 1729) was an English playwright and poet.

Early life
Congreve was born in Bardsey, West Yorkshire, England (near Leeds ). His parents were William Congreve (1637–1708) and his wife, Mary (//née// Browning; 1636?–1715); a sister was buried in London in 1672. He spent his childhood in Ireland, where his father, a Cavalier, had settled during the reign of Charles II. Congreve was educated at Trinity College in Dublin ; there he met Jonathan Swift, who would be his friend for the remainder of his life. Upon graduation, he matriculated in the Middle Temple in London to study law, but felt himself pulled toward literature, drama, and the fashionable life. Artistically, he became a disciple of John Dryden.

Literary career
William Congreve wrote some of the most popular English plays of the Restoration period of the late 17th century. By the age of thirty, he had written four comedies, including //Love for Love // (premiered 30 April 1695) and //The Way of the World // (premiered 1700 ), and one tragedy, //The Mourning Bride// (<span class="wiki_link_ext">1697 ) Unfortunately, his career ended almost as soon as it began. After writing five plays from his first in 1693 until 1700, he produced no more as public tastes turned against the sort of high-brow sexual <span class="wiki_link_ext">comedy of manners in which he specialized. He reportedly was particularly stung by a critique written by <span class="wiki_link_ext">Jeremy Collier (//A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage//), to the point that he wrote a long reply, "Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations." A member of the <span class="wiki_link_ext">Whig Kit-Kat Club, Congreve's career shifted to the political sector, where he held various minor political positions despite his stance as a Whig among Tories.

Famous lines
Two of Congreve's turns of phrase from //The Mourning Bride// (1697) have become famous, albeit frequently in misquotation: Congreve coined another famous phrase in //Love for Love// (1695).
 * "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast," which is the first line of the play, spoken by Almeria in Act I, Scene 1. (The word "breast" is often misquoted as "beast", and 'has' sometimes appears as 'hath'.)
 * "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned," spoken by Zara in Act III, Scene VIII[|[][|1][|]]. his is usually paraphrased as "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned")
 * "O fie, miss, you must not kiss and tell.