Cultural Readings of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century English Theater

Cultural Readings of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century English Theater PDF Author: Deborah Payne Fisk
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820337897
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Ranging in approach from feminist to historicist, the eleven essays in this collection share the culturalist premise that the drama of late Stuart and early Georgian England helped to constitute the dominant ideology of the period. The contributors' varied approaches allow for the reconsideration of libertinism, the politics of sexual desire, and other classic issues, as well as such newer concerns as the social construction of the first English actresses, empiricism as an emergent epistemological discourse, cultural anxiety about novelty and repetition, and shifting tropes of inherent worth. By reading well-known works in unexpected ways and focusing on less frequently studied dramatists, from Sedley, Motteux, Pix, and Behn to Manley, Trotter, and Shadwell, the contributors also test the limits of the canon. In addition, they suggest that earlier critical perceptions, perhaps even more than the “innate worth” of the plays, determined the shape of the canon. These essays present a different image of Restoration and eighteenth-century theater, one that reveals how the drama was a site as important for the negotiation of cultural meaning as were novels and verse satires.

Cultural Readings of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century English Theater

Cultural Readings of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century English Theater PDF Author: Deborah Payne Fisk
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820337897
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Ranging in approach from feminist to historicist, the eleven essays in this collection share the culturalist premise that the drama of late Stuart and early Georgian England helped to constitute the dominant ideology of the period. The contributors' varied approaches allow for the reconsideration of libertinism, the politics of sexual desire, and other classic issues, as well as such newer concerns as the social construction of the first English actresses, empiricism as an emergent epistemological discourse, cultural anxiety about novelty and repetition, and shifting tropes of inherent worth. By reading well-known works in unexpected ways and focusing on less frequently studied dramatists, from Sedley, Motteux, Pix, and Behn to Manley, Trotter, and Shadwell, the contributors also test the limits of the canon. In addition, they suggest that earlier critical perceptions, perhaps even more than the “innate worth” of the plays, determined the shape of the canon. These essays present a different image of Restoration and eighteenth-century theater, one that reveals how the drama was a site as important for the negotiation of cultural meaning as were novels and verse satires.

The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre

The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre PDF Author: Deborah Payne Fisk
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521588126
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Fourteen specially commissioned essays provide essential information about staging, playwrights, themes and genres in the drama of the Restoration.

English Drama

English Drama PDF Author: Richard W. Bevis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317870921
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
What were the causes of Restoration drama's licentiousness? How did the elegantly-turned comedy of Congreve become the pointed satire of Fielding? And how did Sheridan and Goldsmith reshape the materials they inherited? In the first account of the entire period for more than a decade, Richard Bevis argues that none of these questions can be answered without an understanding of Augustan and Georgian history. The years between 1660 and 1789 saw considerable political and social upheaval, which is reflected in the eclectic array of dramatic forms that is Georgian theatre's essential characteristic.

Revisiting Shakespeare’s Lost Play

Revisiting Shakespeare’s Lost Play PDF Author: Deborah C. Payne
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319465147
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
This collection of essays centres on Double Falsehood, Lewis Theobald’s 1727 adaptation of the “lost” play of Cardenio, possibly co-authored by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. In a departure from most scholarship to date, the contributors fold Double Falsehood back into the milieu for which it was created rather than searching for traces of Shakespeare in the text. Robert D. Hume’s knowledge of theatre history permits a fresh take on the forgery question as well as the Shakespeare authorship controversy. Diana Solomon’s understanding of eighteenth-century rape culture and Jean I. Marsden’s command of contemporary adaptation practices both emphasise the play’s immediate social and theatrical contexts. And, finally, Deborah C. Payne’s familiarity with the eighteenth-century stage allows for a reconsideration of Double Falsehood as integral to a debate between Theobald, Alexander Pope, and John Gay over the future of the English drama.

Tricksters and Estates

Tricksters and Estates PDF Author: J. Douglas Canfield
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813189659
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
If the Renaissance was the Golden Age of English comedy, the Restoration was the Silver. These comedies are full of tricksters attempting to gain estates, the emblem and the reality of power in late feudal England. The tricksters appear in a number of guises, such as heroines landing their men, younger brothers seeking estates, or Cavaliers threatened with dispossession. The hybrid nature of these plays has long posed problems for critics, and few studies have attempted to deal with their diversity in a comprehensive way. Now one of the leading scholars of Restoration drama offers a cultural history of the period's comedy that puts the plays in perspective and reveals the ideological function they performed in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century. To explain this function, J. Douglas Canfield groups the plays into three categories: social comedy, which underwrites Stuart ideology; subversive comedy, which undercuts it; and comical satire, which challenges it as fundamentally immoral or amoral. Through play-by-play analysis, he demonstrates how most of the comedies support the ideology of the Stuart monarchs and the aristocracy, upholding what they regarded as their natural right to rule because of an innate superiority over all other classes. A significant minority of comedies, however, reveal cracks in class solidarity, portray witty heroines who inhabit the margins of society, or give voice to folk tricksters who embody a democratic force nearly capable of overwhelming class hierarchy. A smaller yet but still significant minority end in no resolution, no restoration, but, at their most radical, playfully portray Stuart ideology as empty rhetoric. Tricksters and Estates is a truly comprehensive work, offering serious critical readings of many plays that have never before received close attention and fresh insights into more familiar works. By juxtaposing the comedies of such lesser-known playwrights as Orrery, Lacy, and Rawlins with those of more familiar figures like Behn, Wycherley, and Dryden, the author invites a greater appreciation than has previously been possible of the meaning and function of Restoration comedy. This intelligent and wide-ranging study promises is a standard work in its field.

The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama

The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama PDF Author: Kristina Straub
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317426525
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 1547

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Book Description
The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama brings together the work of key playwrights from 1660 to 1800, divided into three main sections: Restoring the Theatre: 1660–1700 Managing Entertainment: 1700–1760 Entertainment in an Age of Revolutions: 1760–1800 Each of the 20 plays featured is accompanied by an extraordinary wealth of print and online supplementary materials, including primary critical sources, commentaries, illustrations, and reviews of productions. Taking in the spectrum of this period’s dramatic landscape—from Restoration tragedy and comedies of manners to ballad opera and gothic spectacle—The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama is an essential resource for students and teachers alike.

The Broadview Anthology of Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century Drama: Concise Edition

The Broadview Anthology of Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century Drama: Concise Edition PDF Author: J. Douglas Canfield
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1770483004
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 1055

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Book Description
The Broadview Anthology of Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century Drama, Concise Edition, with twenty-one plays, is half the length of the full anthology without compromising its breadth. Concentrating on plays from the heyday of 1660-1737, it focuses on Restoration drama proper and Revolution drama, with a selection from the early Georgian period and the later Georgian period's "laughing comedy." Seven of the nine sub-genres (personal tragedy, tragicomic romance, social comedy, subversive comedy, corrective satire, menippean satire, and laughing comedy) of the full anthology are represented, with the preponderance of exposure given to the jewel of this theatre, its comedy. Each play is fully annotated and prefaced with an historical introduction. Also included are a general introduction, a statement of procedures, and a glossary.

Prologues and Epilogues of Restoration Theater

Prologues and Epilogues of Restoration Theater PDF Author: Diana Solomon
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1644530775
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Often perceived as merely formulaic or historical documents, dramatic prologues and epilogues – players’ comic, poetic bids for the audience’s good opinion – became essential parts of Restoration theater, appearing in over 90 percent of performed and printed plays between 1660 and 1714. Their popularity coincided with the rise of the English actress, and Prologues and Epilogues of Restoration Theater unites these elements in the first book-length study on the subject. It finds that these paratexts provided the first sanctioned space for actresses in Britain to voice ideas in public, communicate directly with other women, and perform comedy – arguably the most powerful type of speech, and one that enabled interrogation of misogynist social practices. This book provides a taxonomy of prologues and epilogues with a corresponding appendix, and demonstrates through case studies of Anne Bracegirdle and Anne Oldfield how the study of prologues and epilogues enriches Restoration theater scholarship. Published by University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

The Business of English Restoration Theatre, 1660–1700

The Business of English Restoration Theatre, 1660–1700 PDF Author: Deborah C. Payne
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009398210
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Deborah C. Payne explores how the duopoly of 1660 impacted company practices, stagecraft, the box office, and actors and writers.

The Broadview Anthology of Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century Drama: Concise Edition

The Broadview Anthology of Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century Drama: Concise Edition PDF Author: J. Douglas Canfield
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1551115816
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 1055

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Book Description
The Broadview Anthology of Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century Drama, Concise Edition, with twenty-one plays, is half the length of the full anthology without compromising its breadth. Concentrating on plays from the heyday of 1660-1737, it focuses on Restoration drama proper and Revolution drama, with a selection from the early Georgian period and the later Georgian period’s “laughing comedy.” Seven of the nine sub-genres (personal tragedy, tragicomic romance, social comedy, subversive comedy, corrective satire, menippean satire, and laughing comedy) of the full anthology are represented, with the preponderance of exposure given to the jewel of this theatre, its comedy. Each play is fully annotated and prefaced with an historical introduction. Also included are a general introduction, a statement of procedures, and a glossary.