Plot
Wilding is a young law student who gives up his studies in order to seek pleasure. He is a rake who uses people and wishes to marry Bellaria simply for money. Unlike Love in Several Masques, Fielding cares more about revealing hypocrisy than with a discussion of love and lovers, but he portrays the hypocrites in a manner that emphasizes a comedic response instead of censure. Other characters want to have Bellaria, including the virtuous man Veromil and his foil Valentine who is unable to control his desires for Bellaria. Valentine eventually pairs with Clarissa, a character of little substance within the play, Veromil marries Bellaria, and Wilding does not marry.
Read more about this topic: The Temple Beau
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“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
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And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)