‘Can you say I am an old man?’: Sentiment and the Mask of Ageing in Thomas Holcroft's Duplicity (1781)

Abstract

This article examines how in its representation of old age Thomas Holcroft's play Duplicity (1781) registers the impact of concerns over the welfare of his own ageing father as well as the influence of French sentimental comedy. Via a comparison with the rough comedy directed at the character of Solomon Flint in Samuel Foote's The Maid of Bath (1778), the article shows Holcroft's more sympathetic comic treatment of his elderly character Vandervelt. The play represents a progressive shift, associated with the influence of sentimentalism, in the representation of the old man, and anticipates some of the ways in which Romantic writers paid greater attention to questions of interior experience in relation to ageing. The article notes, however, a residual use of the old man as a personification when it comes to national identity, but one orientated towards a pacific resolution of Anglo-Dutch rivalry.