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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
In 1837 William Leggett, one of the foremost American politicans and journalists of the 1830s and 1840s, wrote of Homer and Shakespeare: Walt Whitman, who certainly revered Shakespeare and frequently acknowledged Shakespeare's influence, also regarded his work as “poisonous to the idea of the pride and dignity of the common people, the life-blood of democracy.” Whitman's and Leggett's pronouncements are typical of the simultaneous admiration and disapproval with which many other democrats in an emerging American culture approached Shakespeare in the nineteenth century.
1 Leggett, William, “The Right of Authors,” an editorial from The Plaindealer, February 11, 1837 in Political Writings of William Leggett (New York: Arno Publishers, 1970), II, 207–208.Google Scholar
2 Whitman, Walt, Democratic Vistas, Prose Works 1892, II, ed. Stovall, Floyd (New York: New York University Press, 1964), 388.Google Scholar
3 Attitudes toward Shakespeare in America have been explored in numerous histories of the theatre as well as in histories of literary nationalism. The following works are particularly useful: Dunn, Elizabeth Cloudman, Shakespeare in America (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1939)Google Scholar; Shattuck, Charles H., Shakespeare On The American Stage (Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1976)Google Scholar; Spencer, Benjamin T., The Quest For Nationality (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1957)Google Scholar; Sprague, Arthur Colby, Shakespearean Players and Performances (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Minnegerode, Meade, The Fabulous Forties (New York: G.P. Putnam Sons, 1924)Google Scholar; Hutton, Laurence, Curiosities of The American Stage (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1891)Google Scholar; Wallack, Lester, Memories of Fifty Years (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1889)Google Scholar; Rourke, Constance, Troupers of The Gold Coast (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1928)Google Scholar; MacMinn, George R., The Theatre of The Golden Era in California (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1941)Google Scholar; Gagey, Edmund M., The San Francisco Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950)Google Scholar; Wittke, Carl, Tambo and Bones: A History of The American Minstrel Stage (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1930)Google Scholar; Toll, Robert C., Blacking Up (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Tanger, Jules, “The Minstrel Show as Theatre of Misrule,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 60, pp. 33–38Google Scholar; Rinear, David, “Blackface Comes to New York: William Mitchell's First Season at the Olympic,” Nineteenth Century Theatre Research, 2, pp. 23–24Google Scholar. One useful, standard work on the burlesque in England is Clinton-Baddeley, V.C., The Burlesque Tradition In The English Theatre After 1660 (New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1971)Google Scholar. An argument for the traditional English roots of the American burlesque is made in Kummer's, George “The Americanization of Burlesque,” Popular Literature in America, ed. Austin, James C. and Koch, Donald A. (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green Popular Press, 1972), 146–153.Google Scholar
5 Statements by political nativists in the 1840s make the connection between nationalistic sentiment and class struggle unmistakable. One is a frequently-quoted bill distributed by Ned Buntline just before the Astor Place Riot:
WORKINGMEN SHALL AMERICANS OR ENGLISH RULE IN THIS CITY?
The crew of the English steamer has threatened all Americans who shall dare to express their opinion this night at the English Aristocratic Opera House!
National pride took many varied forms in the 1830s and 40s. In 1834 the Protestant Association was formed; in 1835 the Loco-focos and Native American Democratic Association; in 1844 the Native Sons of America and Order of United America; in 1845 the Native American Party and the Patriotic Order of Sons of America. Most eventually found a common home in the Know-Nothing Party which developed in the 1850s.
6 Northall, William Knight, Before and Behind the Curtain (New York: W.F. Burgess, 1851), p. 72Google Scholar
7 Wallack, 105,106.
8 This and subsequent information about play schedules in New York comes from Volume Five of Odell's, George C.D.Annals of the New York Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931)Google Scholar. Two interpretations of the context of the rivalry can be found in Moody, Richard, The Astor Place Riot (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1958)Google Scholar, and Downer, Alan, The Eminent Tragedian (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), 253–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Shattuck, Charles H., Shakespeare on the American Stage (Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1976), pp. 70–87Google Scholar. Shattuck, who places the early stages of the war between Forrest and Macready against a background of nationalistic fervor, nevertheless reveals that the devastating British reviews of Forrest by John Forster were consistent, professional, and supported with specific evidence.
9 Odell, V, 44.
10 Odell, V, 211.
11 Odell, V, 457.
12 Odell, V, 471.
13 Those in search of the scripts of burlesques can find them in numerous collections, particularly those held by the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress and the university libraries of Yale, Harvard, Illinois, Indiana and Texas. Well, Stanley, Nineteenth-Century Shakespeare Burlesques. 5 vols. (London: Diploma Press Limited, 1977)Google Scholar. A bibliography describes plays found in anthologies as well as separate acting editions of single plays: Jacobs, Henry E. and Johnson, Claudia D., An Annotated Bibliography of Shakespearean Burlesques, Parodies and Travesties (New York: Garland Publishers, 1976)Google Scholar. The discussion of the content of nineteenth-century American burlesques of Shakespeare is based on the few extant scripts in the above collections: Poole, John F., Ye Comedie of Errors (New York: Samuel French, n.d.)Google Scholar; Griffin, George W.H., Hamlet the Dainty (New York: The Happy Hours Company, 1870)Google Scholar, originally performed in the 1866 season; Rice, George Edward, An Old Piny in a New Garb (New York: D. Longworth, 1811)Google Scholar; Soule, Charles Carroll, A Travesty Without a Pun (St. Louis: G.I. Jones, 1879)Google Scholar; Ryman, Addison, Julius Snoozer (New York: Robert M. DeWitt Publisher, 1876)Google Scholar; Northall, William Knight, Macbeth Travestie (New York: William Taylor Company, 1852)Google Scholar, first performed in 1843; Anon, The (Old Clothes) Merchant (New York: De Witt's Acting Editions, 1870)Google Scholar; Brougham, John, Much Ado About a Merchant of Venice (New York: Samuel French, 1868)Google Scholar; Griffin, George W.H., Shylock (New York: The Happy Hours Company, ca. 1874)Google Scholar; DoMar, Alexander, Othello (London: T.L. Marks, 1850)Google Scholar, first performed at Wood's Theatre in New York; Griffin, George W.H., Desdemonum (New York; Happy Hours Company, 1874)Google Scholar: Griffin, George W.H., Othello (Clyde, Ohio: A.D. Ames, ca. 1870)Google Scholar; Baker, George M., Capuietta (Boston: C.H. Spencer, 1868)Google Scholar; Soule, Charles C., A New Travesty on Romeo and Juliet (Chicago: G.I. Jones, 1896)Google Scholar, first performed in 1877; Bangs, John Kendrick, Katherine (New York: Gilliss Brothers and Turnure, 1888)Google Scholar; Larks, The, The Shakespeare Water-Cure (New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, 1897).Google Scholar