A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage

Jeremy Collier‘s A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698) is a vigorous polemical indictment of Restoration drama, especially its sexual license, irreverence, and ridicule of clergy. Written in a sharp, forensic prose that combines moral theology, classical precedent, and close quotation, the work belongs to the late seventeenth-century debate over manners, public virtue, and the social authority of the theatre. Its force lies not merely in denunciation but in its sustained claim that comedy shapes conduct. Collier, a nonjuring Anglican clergyman and controversialist, wrote from a position of religious conviction and political marginality after the Revolution of 1688. His clerical training, patristic learning, and suspicion of fashionable libertinism inform every page. The book also reflects his broader concern that England‘s cultural institutions had abandoned moral discipline, allowing wit and popularity to excuse profanity, obscenity, and contempt for sacred office. This book is essential for readers interested in Restoration literature, theatre history, censorship, and the moral politics of art. It remains a landmark because it provoked major dramatists, influenced stage reform, and asks a still-pressing question: what responsibilities do public entertainments bear toward the society that applauds them?