Bevil's Eyes: Or, How Crying at The Conscious Lovers Could Save Britain

This article examines how Richard Steele's The Conscious Lovers (1722), the quintessential "sentimental comedy," solicits emotional response for not only moral but political ends. Steele suggests that a drama that draws sympathetic tears makes its viewers better British patriots: because of how his play works affectively, Steele posits The Conscious Lovers as a countervailing force to the "disaffection" stirred up by malcontents and incendiaries. By gazing benevolently and by shedding tears—that is, by virtue of his eyes—the play's protagonist Bevil Junior becomes Steele's model political subject, catalyzing mutual affection, social cohesion, and Hanoverian allegiance onstage, in the audience, and in the nation at large.