Women in British Romantic Theatre: Drama, Performance, and Society, 1790-1840

by Catherine Burroughs (Editor)

Overview

This is the first collection of essays to examine the extraordinary contribution of women playwrights, actors, translators, critics and managers who worked in British theater during the romantic period. Focusing on women well known during their day but neglected for some 150 years, the volume provides a crucial new perspective that revises historical narratives and reflects the rapidly changing terrain of scholarship in the complex field of romantic theater and drama. Eleven specially-commissioned essays by leading scholars explore the role of Elizabeth Inchbald, Joanna Baillie, Sarah Siddons and numerous others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521662246
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/16/2000
Pages:	364
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.83(d)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Notes on contributors; Acknowledgments; Introduction: uncloseting women in British Romantic theatre Catherine Burroughs; Part I. Historical Contexts: Revolution and Entrenchment: 1. Baillie, Siddons, Larpent: gender, power and politics in the theatre of Romanticism Jeffrey N. Cox; 2. Reviewing women in British Romantic theatre Greg Kucich; Part II. Nations, Households, Dramaturgy: 3. Women and history on the Romantic stage: More, Yearsley, Burney and Mitford Katherine Newey; 4. English national identity in Mariana Starke's The Sword of Peace: India, abolition and the rights of women Jeanne Moskal; 5. Women's sovereignty on trial: Joanna Baillie's comedy The Tryal as metatheatrics Marjean D. Purinton; Part III. Performance and Closet Drama: 6. Outing Joanna Baillie Susan Bennett; 7. The management of laughter: Jane Scott's Camilla the Amazon in 1998 Jacky Bratton and Gilli Bush-Bailey; Part IV. Criticism and Theory: 8. Elizabeth Inchbald: a woman critic in her theatrical culture Marvin Carlson; 9. Authorial performances in the criticism and theory of Romantic women playwrights Thomas C. Crochunis; Part V. Translation, Adaptation, Revision: 10. Suicide and translation in the dramaturgy of Elizabeth Inchbald and Anne Plumptre Jane Moody; 11. Remaking love: remorse in the theatre of Baillie and Inchbald Julie Carlson; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...a rich compendium of essays that expand the conventional parameters of theatrical studies and elaborate the nature of women's conflicted relationship to the art and business of theatre." Canadian Woman Studies

"Burroughs's anthology of essays ... stands as a substantial contribution to a burgeoning field of study." Nineteenth-Century Literature

"Women in British Romantic Theatre offers a consistently high quality of contributions and a clear focus on the questions of performance, genre, and gender. By maintaining the importance of women writers as a category that is politically heterogeneous and historically textured, Burroughs and her contributors shed valuable light on the gender of Romanticism's stage/play distinction without veering into essentialism." The Wordsworth Circle

From the Publisher