36 pages • 1 hour read
William CongreveLove for Love
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1695A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act IChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act I Summary
The play opens with Valentine, the eldest son of Sir Samson Legend, sitting in a room reading books of ancient philosophy. He begins to speak with his servant, Jeremy, about the work by Epictetus that he is reading, and he shares the stern philosophy Epictetus advocates: “learn to live / upon instruction; feast your mind, and mortify your flesh” (1.9-10). Valentine is reading such works because he is hiding away from his creditors, with the harsh asceticism of the ancient philosophers contrasting sharply with the spendthrift lifestyle that has led him into his present troubles.
Jeremy mocks Valentine’s books, asking him if any of the philosophers could possibly “teach you how to pay your debts without / money?” (1.23-24) and reminding Valentine of how he warned Valentine against his extravagant lifestyle. He blames Valentine’s spending habits on Valentine’s desire to impress a rich young woman named Angelica, claiming that Angelica never returned Valentine’s affection even when Valentine was wealthy. Valentine, however, is not discouraged by Jeremy’s words: He instead vows to pursue Angelica with more determination than ever, claiming that his poverty might inspire love in her in a way that his wealth never did. Jeremy scoffs at Valentine’s optimism and lack of practical sense and reminds him that he could shortly be ruined entirely if his younger brother, Ben, returns home from sea, because Ben might soon win Sir Sampson Legend’s favor entirely for himself.
Scandal, one of Valentine’s friends, joins them. Scandal tells Valentine that the reaction of their social circle to Valentine’s confinement is mixed: some pity him, but others do not. A nursemaid visits Valentine, asking for expenses for one of his illegitimate children, and Trapland, one of his creditors, who is anxious for payment. Scandal and Valentine try to distract Trapland with drinks and praise for his mistress, but Trapland remains firm. Sir Sampson’s steward arrives with a proposal for Valentine to clear his debts, and Valentine agrees to accept the terms to satisfy Trapland and his other creditors: Sir Sampson will pay off Valentine’s debts in return for Valentine renouncing his inheritance in favor of his younger brother, Ben. Valentine admits that he is driven to accept these harsh terms because he longs to be free from confinement and to see Angelica again. Scandal, like Jeremy, is skeptical of Valentine’s chances of winning Angelica over, reminding Valentine that she has never shown any sign of returning his love, and that she—unlike Valentine—is a woman of independent wealth, and therefore not dependent upon anyone’s favor.
Tattle, another friend of Valentine’s, arrives. Although Tattle likes to insist that he can keep secrets, he is actually—as his name suggests—someone who loves to gossip. He begins to brag to the other men about his many romantic conquests with women of high social standing. Tattle jokes about his connections with Mrs. Foresight, the wife of Angelica’s Uncle, and Mrs. Frail, Mrs. Foresight’s sister. Tattle is soon embarrassed to hear that Mrs. Frail has arrived to visit Valentine and that his bragging may be exposed, but the men insist that he stay for her visit, and Scandal agrees not to reveal what Tattle has said only if Tattle agrees to reveal more of his affairs. Mrs. Frail enters and shares important news: Ben has arrived back from sea, and he is intended as the husband of Foresight’s daughter, Miss Prue. Mrs. Frail and the men tease one another until Sir Sampson’s steward arrives again, asking to see Valentine, and the company disbands.
Act I Analysis
The first Act of the play introduces the reader to several key themes in the text and sets up the central conflict of the play. Valentine’s reading of ancient philosophy at the play’s opening, and his musings upon the contrast between poverty and fortune, speak to a tension at the very heart of the play. Jeremy represents a pragmatic “voice of reason,” urging Valentine to think sensibly of his situation and to reflect upon the shallow attitudes his social circle has towards money. He warns Valentine that Angelica never cared for him even when he was wealthy, and speaks of false friends, “wits that / cared for nothing but your prosperity; and now when you / are poor, hate you as much as they do one another” (1.41-43). Valentine, however, represents an alternative viewpoint, believing that his poverty might actually be to his advantage in winning Angelica’s sympathy and revealing the genuineness of his feelings for her: “I’ll pursue Angelica with more love / than ever, and appear more notoriously her admirer in this / restraint, than when I openly rivalled the rich fops that / made court to her” (1.45-48).
This conversation with Jeremy—and the tension between Jeremy’s pragmatism and Valentine’s romanticism—speak to two key conflicts that will run throughout the play. First, Jeremy’s dependence upon his father for his fortune is the cause of his current dilemma, and it will soon raise the issue of agency within parent-child relationships, and what duties (if any) parents and children owe one another. This emphasis on parent/child relationships is a theme that will become more explicit and prominent in the play’s later acts. Second, Valentine’s optimism that his poverty could win over Angelica in a way his wealth never did hints at the idea contained in the play’s title: the idea that real love is “love for love”—in other words, that love should be based purely on mutual affection and respect, and not material or social gain.
Conflicting attitudes towards love also appear in the contrast between Valentine’s romantic faith and the more cynical, worldly attitudes of his friends, Scandal and Tattle. The names of both characters are significant, as they reveal something about the personalities of both men: Scandal is a cynic who relishes scandalous misbehavior and games of seduction, while Tattle is a gossip who cannot keep his own romantic exploits secret. While Valentine claims devotion only to Angelica, and is determined to marry her, Scandal and Tattle both share a love of pursuing various women and treat love like a game. The brief reference to Valentine’s illegitimate child (1.185-91) implies that Valentine’s behavior may have more closely mirrored that of Scandal and Tattle in the past, but within the timeline of the play, at least, Valentine’s devotion to Angelica does not waver.
This Act is also significant in that it introduces us to Angelica through the perspectives of the main male characters. While Valentine believes he can win Angelica over, both Jeremy and his friends do not. Scandal’s remarks about Angelica reveal to us two important facets of her character. Scandal calls Angelica’s temperament “airy,” claiming that such women “seldom think before / they act; so they rarely give us any light to guess at what / they mean” (1.306-08). Although Scandal’s attitude is cynical and dismissive, it alerts us to the possibility that Angelica’s emotions may actually be hard to discern not because she is “airy,” as he believes, but shrewd and restrained. Second, we learn that Angelica is a wealthy woman of independent means—“Angelica has a great fortune of her own” (1.311). Angelica, unlike Valentine, is not dependent upon a parental figure, and as such, she will be free to choose her husband according to her own whims, whether romantic or materialistic in nature.
