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Introduction

Jean I. Marsden
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
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Summary

The book opens by discussing the importance of emotion in eighteenth-century theatre in Britain; plays endorsed it, actors performed it, and audiences came to the theatre prepared to experience it. It argues that because audiences judged a play and theatre in general in terms of the emotion it excited, the drama of this period should not be considered as a genre but rather as a mode. Formalist approaches are inadequate and have resulted in a false denigration of later eighteenth-century theatre at a time when moralists and critics praised it as a source of virtue because it enhanced fellow-feeling. Raymond Williams’s concept of‘structures of feeling ‘ provides a means of approaching the theatre of the later eighteenth century as affect rather than form because it focuses on experience, just as eighteenth-century theatregoers focused on their experience of feeling. The introduction concludes with a definition of common eighteenth-century terms such as‘sentiment ‘ and‘sensibility ‘ and their application to theatrical performance.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Introduction
  • Jean I. Marsden, University of Connecticut
  • Book: Theatres of Feeling
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108694629.001
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  • Introduction
  • Jean I. Marsden, University of Connecticut
  • Book: Theatres of Feeling
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108694629.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Jean I. Marsden, University of Connecticut
  • Book: Theatres of Feeling
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108694629.001
Available formats
×