Shakespeare and the Eighteenth CenturyPeter Sabor, Paul Yachnin In 1700, Shakespeare was viewed as one of the leading Renaissance playwrights, but not as supreme. By 1800, he was not only widely performed and read but celebrated as a universal genius and a national literary hero. What happened during the intervening years is the subject of this fascinating volume, which brings together Renaissance and eighteenth-century scholars who examine how Shakespeare gradually penetrated, and came to dominate, the culture and intellectual life of people in the English-speaking world. The contributors approach Shakespeare from a wide range of perspectives, to illuminate the way contemporary philosophy, science and medicine, textual practice, theatre studies, and literature both informed and were influenced by eighteenth-century interpretations of his works. Among the topics are Falstaff and eighteenth-century ideas of the sublime, David Garrick's 1756 adaptation of The Winter's Tale and its relationship to medical theories of femininity, the textual practices of George Steevens, Shakespeare's importance in furthering the careers of actors on the eighteenth-century stage, and the influence of Shakespeare on writers as diverse as Edmund Burke, Horace Walpole, and Ann Radcliff. Together, the essays paint a vivid picture of the relationship between eighteenth-century Shakespeare and ideas about shared nationhood, knowledge, morality, history, and the self. |
Contents
Shakespeare and Sympathy | |
Shakespeare and the Nature | |
The Influence of the Female Audience on the Shakespeare | |
A Hermeneutics | |
Literary Allusion | |
Fairy Time from Shakespeare to Scott | |
Looking for Richard II | |
The Sublime Sir John | |
David Garrick | |
Index | |
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action adaptation Adeline Adeline’s aesthetic allusion Angelo annotations argues audience behavior Bullingbrook Burke Burke’s Cambridge century Cited Clarendon Press contemporary cultural David Dobson drama Drury Lane edition editors eighteenth eighteenthcentury emotional England English essay explain fairies father fictional Florizel Garrick genius George Steevens Hamlet Henry human nature idea imagination King Lear King’s literary London Macbeth Malone Measure for Measure melancholy middle class Midsummer Night’s Dream mind Morgann Mysteries of Udolpho notes novel Oxford passions Perdita performance Philosophical play’s poem poet poetry political Polonius principles Radcliffe Radcliffe’s readers reading Richard romance Samuel Johnson scene sense Shakespeare Ladies Shakespeare Ladies Club Shakespeare’s characters Shakespeare’s plays Shakespearean history Sir John Falstaff Smith social spectators speech stage Steevens Steevens’s sublime suggest sympathetic sympathy taste Tate theater theatrical Theobald Theory of Moral Timon tragedy University Press variorum Vickers virtue vols Warburton William Shakespeare Winter’s Tale words Writings Yachnin York