Love for Love

More successful in its day than The Way of the World, which is now
accounted Congreve’s best play, Love for Love (1695) is a comical farce
manifesting the verbal polish and the theatrical wit that audiences so
enjoy in Congreve. Valentine, Sir Sampson’s dissolute eldest son, finds
himself at a standstill; the only way out of his financial difficulties
is to give in to his father’s pressure to renounce his right of
inheritance. While this suggestion immediately increases the chances of
his bluff younger brother Ben on the marriage mart, Valentine’s own
chances with his beloved Angelica would proportionally decrease. To
avoid having to sign the renunciation Valentine puts on an ‘antic
disposition’ and pretends to be mad. Angelica, seeing through him,
provokes him back into sanity by pretending to agree to marry his
father. Valentine recovers, the lovers reunite, and Ben, too, has
meanwhile found the girl of his heart