Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines selected eighteenth-century works in a variety of genres organized by cultural movements, critical issues, or theoretical approaches. May include works in a variety of media and from diverse geopolitical regions.

COURSE DETAILS:

Stage and Page: Actor, Author, and Printer in the Long Eighteenth Century

The reemergence of public theatre in Restoration England spawned a brisk trade in dramatic publication. Broadsides of prologues and epilogues advertised performances; play quartos were published shortly after premieres; manuscripts, lithographs, and printed satires addressed specific performers; audiences kept theatre records and diaries; and publishers issued anthologies of plays and paratexts. At the same time, those within and without the theatrical public sphere used printed media to curtail public performance and influence private reading practices. How did various media respond and contribute to the English public stage? Drawing on performance and print culture theory, Restoration and eighteenth-century theatre history, and methods of descriptive bibliography, we will examine the ways that print media informs us about Restoration-era theatre, and how in turn our study of theatre schools us in oral and print cultures of the era.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: