How is She Stoops to Conquer a Comedy of Manners?

Though it is only explicitly referred to in the prologue, an understanding of Goldsmith's play in context shows his desire to reintroduce his audience to the “laughing comedy” that derived from a long history of comedy that mocks human vice. This type of comedy stands in contrast to the then-popular “sentimental comedy” that praised virtues and reinforced bourgeois mentality. Understanding Goldsmith's love of the former helps to clarify several elements of the play: the low scene in the Three Pigeons; the mockery of baseness in even the most high-bred characters; and the celebration of absurdity as a fact of human life.

She Stoops to Conquer is set in the eighteenth century in an English country mansion called Hardcastle, about sixty miles away from London. The action takes place over a time span of one single night and includes many funny and lighthearted scenes of misunderstanding and miscommunication. The play can be seen a comedy of manners in which, in a polite society setting, the comedy arises from the gap between the characters' attempts to preserve standards of polite behaviour and their true behaviour.