Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Harlequin
Languages : en
Pages : 50
Book Description
The British Stage, Or The Exploits of Harlequin
Harlequin Britain
Author: John O'BrienPublisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801879104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
In the fall of 1723, two London theaters staged, almost simultaneously, pantomime performances of the Faust story. Unlike traditional five-act plays, pantomime—a bawdy hybrid of dance, music, spectacle, and commedia dell'arte featuring the familiar figure of the harlequin at its center—was a theatrical experience of unprecedented accessibility. The immediate popularity of this new genre drew theater apprentices to the cities to learn the new style, and pantomime became the subject of lively debate within British society. Alexander Pope and Henry Fielding bitterly opposed the intrusion into legitimate literary culture of what they regarded as fairground amusements that appealed to sensation and passion over reason and judgment. In Harlequin Britain, literary scholar John O'Brien examines this new form of entertainment and the effect it had on British culture. Why did pantomime become so popular so quickly? Why was it perceived as culturally threatening and socially destabilizing? O’Brien finds that pantomime’s socially subversive commentary cut through the dampened spirit of debate created by Robert Walpole's one-party rule. At the same time, pantomime appealed to the abstracted taste of the mass audience. Its extraordinary popularity underscores the continuing centrality of live performance in a culture that is most typically seen as having shifted its attention to the written text—in particular, to the novel. Written in a lively style rich with anecdotes, Harlequin Britain establishes the emergence of eighteenth-century English pantomime, with its promiscuous blending of genres and subjects, as a key moment in the development of modern entertainment culture.
A History of Early Eighteenth Century Drama, 1700-1750
Author: Allardyce NicollPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : English drama
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
Catalogue of Printed Books in the Library of the British Museum
Author: British Museum. Department of Printed BooksPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 1072
Book Description
Names of Dramas: A-L
Author: David Erskine BakerPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Actors
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
Biographia Dramatica
Author: David Erskine BakerPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Actors
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
Biographia Dramatica: Names of dramas: A-L
Author: David Erskine BakerPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : English drama
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Book Description
Biographia Dramatica: Names of the dramas: A-L
Author: David Erskine BakerPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dramatists, English
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
The Rhetoric of Diversion in English Literature and Culture, 1690–1760
Author: Darryl P. DomingoPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107146275
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
A study of how literature of the early eighteenth century represented a newly fashionable life of amusement and diversion. Chapters explore a range of diversionary preoccupations and argue that the devices of digressive wit adopt similar forms and fulfil similar functions in literature as do diversions in eighteenth-century culture.
Author: David Erskine Baker