The Way of the World Lesson Plan

How does Congreve use poetry in Act IV to demonstrate the nature of various relationships between characters?

Poetry is also used to demonstrate the synchronized nature of some relationships in the play: Ms. Millamant and Mirabell and, later, Waitwell and Foible. In the former example, Ms. Millamant recites a line from "The Story of Phoebus and Daphne, Applied" about Phoebus and Mirabell counters with the second line of a rhymed couplet, a line about the beauty of Daphne. Their foolish love parallels that of the characters in the poem and his completion of the couplet, especially with a rhyme, is a poetic display of true connection with one another.

In the case of...