Women, Nationalism, and the Romantic Stage: Theatre and Politics in Britain, 1780–1800

by Betsy Bolton

• ISBN13: 9780521771160
• ISBN10: 0521771161
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-04-23
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In the 1780s and 90s, theatre critics described the stage as a state in political tumult, while politicians invoked theatre as a model for politics both good and bad. In this study, Betsy Bolton examines the ways Romantic women performers and playwrights used theatrical conventions to intervene in politics. Reading the public performances of Emma Hamilton and Mary Robinson through the conventions of dramatic romance, Bolton suggests that the romance of national identity developed by writers such as Southey and Wordsworth took shape in complex opposition to these unruly women. Setting the conventions of farce against those of sentiment, playwrights such as Hannah Cowley and Elizabeth Inchbald questioned imperial relations while criticizing contemporary gender relations. This well-illustrated study draws on canonical poetry and personal memoirs, popular drama and parliamentary debates, political caricatures and theatrical reviews to extend current understandings of Romantic theatre, the public sphere, and Romantic gender relations.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	x
Acknowledgments	xii
Prologue: the female dramatist and the man of the people	1	(8)
PART I. STAGING THE NATION
The politics of Romantic theatre	9	(36)
PART II. ROMANCING THE STATE: PUBLIC MEN AND PUBLIC WOMEN
Varieties of romance nationalism	45	(28)
Patriotic romance: Emma Hamilton and Horatio Nelson	73	(33)
(Dis)embodied romance: ``Perdita'' Robinson and William Wordsworth	106	(35)
PART III. MIXED DRAMA, IMPERIAL FARCE
Mimicry, politics, and playwrighting	141	(32)
The balance of power: Hannah Cowley's Day in Turkey	173	(29)
The farce of subjection: Elizabeth Inchbald	202	(28)
Epilogue: what is she?	230	(10)
Notes	240	(16)
Select bibliography	256	(9)
Index	265