Shakespeare's Victorian Stage

Shakespeare's Victorian Stage
Author: Richard W. Schoch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 1998-08-20
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780521622813

This book explores the revivals of Shakespeare's history plays during the Victorian period, as staged by the famous actor-manager Charles Kean. Between 1852 and 1859, Kean produced celebrated productions of Henry V, Henry VIII, King John, Macbeth and Richard II, renowned for their unprecendented attention to antiquarian detail in sets, costumes, and properties (many of which are shown in the book's illustrations). These productions provided audiences with an unparalleled opportunity to participate in the Victorian obsession with history, especially of the medieval period. Using valuable primary sources, including promptbooks, scenic designs, costume sketches and contemporary reviews, Richard Schoch places mid-Victorian attitudes towards the theatre in the context of major intellectual and political movements of the age. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of theatre history, Shakespeare studies and Victorian culture.

Shakespeare and Victorian Women

Shakespeare and Victorian Women
Author: Gail Marshall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2009-03-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0521515238

The first full-length study of Shakespeare's influence on Victorian women writers, actresses and readers.

The Victorian Cult of Shakespeare

The Victorian Cult of Shakespeare
Author: Charles LaPorte
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2020-11-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1108853463

In the Victorian era, William Shakespeare's work was often celebrated as a sacred text: a sort of secular English Bible. Even today, Shakespeare remains a uniquely important literary figure. Yet Victorian criticism took on religious dimensions that now seem outlandish in retrospect. Ministers wrote sermons based upon Shakespearean texts and delivered them from pulpits in Christian churches. Some scholars crafted devotional volumes to compare his texts directly with the Bible's. Still others created Shakespearean societies in the faith that his inspiration was not like that of other playwrights. Charles LaPorte uses such examples from the Victorian cult of Shakespeare to illustrate the complex relationship between religion, literature and secularization. His work helps to illuminate a curious but crucial chapter in the history of modern literary studies in the West, as well as its connections with Biblical scholarship and textual criticism.

Shakespeare and the Victorian Stage

Shakespeare and the Victorian Stage
Author: Richard Foulkes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008-11-06
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780521089531

The contributions to this book constitute a concerted account of the place of Shakespeare in the Victorian theatre and the cultural life of the country in the nineteenth century. They explore the changing styles of acting and staging used for Shakespeare's plays by Macready, Charles Kean, the Irvings, Ellen Terry and Beerbohm Tree, and examine Shakespeare's influence on Victorian dramatists (Sheridan Knowles, Albery and W.S. Gilbert) and the relationship between the stage and the allied arts of painting (David Scott, the Pre-Raphaelites and Alma-Tadema) and music (Sullivan). During Queen Victoria's reign Shakespeare's plays attracted new audiences from the court at Windsor to such rapidly expanding conurbations as Leicester and Sheffield. In France, Germany, Italy and the New World, Shakespeare effectively became an ambassador of Britain's growing power and influence. The book develops a fascinating and well-illustrated account of these changes.

Shakespeare And The Victorians

Shakespeare And The Victorians
Author: Adrian Poole
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2014-03-20
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1408143720

Adrian Poole examines the Victorian's obsession with Shakespeare, his impact upon the era's consciousness, and the expression of this in their drama, novels and poetry. The book features detailed discussion of the interpretations and applications of Shakespeare by major figures such as Dickens and Hardy, Tennyson and Browning, as well as those less well-known.

Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts

Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts
Author: Mark Thornton Burnett
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 588
Release: 2011-10-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0748635246

Explores the place of Shakespeare in relation to artistic practices and activities, past and presentThis substantial reference work explores the place of Shakespeare in relation to cultural processes that take in publishing, exhibiting, performing, reconstructing and disseminating.The 30 newly commissioned chapters are divided into 6 sections: * Shakespeare and the Book* Shakespeare and Music* Shakespeare on Stage and in Performance* Shakespeare and Youth Culture* Shakespeare, Visual and Material Culture* Shakespeare, Media and Culture. Each chapter provides both a synthesis and a discussion of a topic, informed by current thinking and theoretical reflection.

Shakespeare and the Victorians

Shakespeare and the Victorians
Author: Stuart Sillars
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2013-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199668078

Shakespeare and the Victorians explores the place of Shakespeare in Victorian culture, and shows how the plays and the man became central to all levels of Victorian life and thought.

Shakespeare in the Victorian Periodicals

Shakespeare in the Victorian Periodicals
Author: Kathryn Prince
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2011-02-11
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1135896585

Based on extensive archival research, Shakespeare in the Victorian Periodicals offers an entirely new perspective on popular Shakespeare reception by focusing on articles published in Victorian periodicals. Shakespeare had already reached the apex of British culture in the previous century, becoming the national poet of the middle and upper classes, but during the Victorian era he was embraced by more marginal groups. If Shakespeare was sometimes employed as an instrument of enculturation, imposed on these groups, he was also used by them to resist this cultural hegemony.

Actresses on the Victorian Stage

Actresses on the Victorian Stage
Author: Gail Marshall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1998-05-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780521620161

Gail Marshall argues that the professional and personal history of the Victorian actress was largely defined by her negotiation with the sculptural metaphor, and that this was authorized and determined by the Ovidian myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. Drawing on evidence of theatrical fictions, visual representations and popular culture's assimilation of the sculptural image, as well as theatrical productions, she examines some of the manifestations of the sculptural metaphor on the legitimate English stage, and its implications for the actress in the later nineteenth century. Within the legitimate theatre, the 'Galatea-aesthetic' positioned actresses as predominantly visual and sexual commodities whose opportunities for interpretative engagement with their plays were minimal. This dominant aesthetic was effectively challenged only at the end of the century, with the advent of the 'New' drama, and the emergence of a body of autobiographical writings by actresses.

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage
Author: Stanley Wells
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2002-05-30
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780521797115

This 2002 Companion is designed for readers interested in past and present productions of Shakespeare's plays, both in and beyond Britain. The first six chapters describe aspects of the British performing tradition in chronological sequence, from the early staging of Shakespeare's own time, through to the present day. Each relates Shakespearean developments to broader cultural concerns and adopts an individual approach and focus, on textual adaptation, acting, stages, scenery or theatre management. These are followed by three explorations of acting: tragic and comic actors and women performers of Shakespeare roles. A section on international performance includes chapters on interculturalism, on touring companies and on political theatre, with separate accounts of the performing traditions of North America, Asia and Africa. Over forty pictures illustrate peformers and productions of Shakespeare from around the world. An amalgamated list of items for further reading completes the book.