Description
Book SynopsisExamines the dynamism and vibrancy of stage spectacle and its impact in an era of momentous social upheaval and aesthetic change. Situating theatrical production as key to understanding visuality ca. 1780-1830, this book reenvisions traditional approaches to artistic and social production.
Trade Review“The volume’s thesis, that a substantive investigation of spectacle and the visual elements of Romantic theatre force us to reconsider the primarily textual theses that govern the idea of Romanticism, is both timely and needed. Its transdisciplinary approach, rooted jointly in performance studies and theatre history, promises to reassess the oft-denigrated 6th category of Aristotelian dramatic analysis and unpack spectacle’s aesthetic, political, and cultural significance, both on and off the stage. These are
the most important voices in later-eighteenth-century and Romantic theatre studies, and to have them assembled promises readers that this will not just be a collection but a field-defining conversation.” —Misty G. Anderson, James R. Cox Professor of English, University of Tennessee
“A field-shaping collection of essays that unveil the lost delights of Romantic-era theatre culture: playbill typography, costume trimming, souvenir fans, toy theatres, stage makeup, mimodrama, and scene maquettes. Through their wide-ranging analyses, the contributors reanimate the stage productions that thrilled Romantic theatre-goers.” —Judith Pascoe, George Mills Harper Professor of English, Florida State University
Table of Contents
- Introduction: Romanticism, Visuality, and the Theater
- Diane Piccitto and Terry F. Robinson
- I. Imagined Scenes
- 1. The 1794 Macbeth and Its Conjuring Effects: Rethinking Romantic-Era Spectatorship
- Terry F. Robinson
- 2. “Mind-forg’d Manacles”: The Scenography of the Romantic Prison
- Joseph Roach
- 3. Some Versions of Spectacle: Worldmaking and the Regency Toy Theater
- Daniel O’Quinn
- 4. Conjuring the Space and the Right to Appear in Obi; or Three-Fingered Jack (1800)
- Dana Van Kooy
- II. Spectacular Bodies
- 5. “I saw Othello’s visage in his mind”: Visualizing Othello in Nineteenth-Century British Theater
- Atsede Makonnen
- 6. Playing “Alive”: Performing Sculpture on the Romantic Stage
- Sophie Thomas
- 7. “Dresses in Hand”: Mary Rein’s Costume Workshop and the Spectacle of Romantic Theater
- Susan E. Brown
- 8. The Singing Cat: British Audiences, Angelica Catalani, and the Threat of Opera
- Uri Erman
- III. Performances in Print
- 9. The Stage in a Page: A Visual Life of Romantic Playbills
- Michael Gamer
- 10. Between Media: Harlequinade’s and Melodrama’s Visuality in Print
- Deven M. Parker
- 11. Robert Blemmell Schnebbelie, Londina Illustrata, and the Visual Life of Regency Theater
- Gillian Russell
- 12. Staging Satire: Gillray and “Caricatura-Sublime”
- Heather Mcpherson
- 13. Theatrical Spectatorship in Byron’s Cain and Blake’s The Ghost of Abel: From Oblivion to Redemption
- Diane Piccitto
- Afterword: Romanticism is Seeing Ghosts
- Jonathan Mulrooney
- Contributors
