Dominic McHugh
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199827305
- eISBN:
- 9780199950225
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827305.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, American
This book provides a comprehensive discussion of the genesis and performance history of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady. Using more than 500 previously unpublished letters from the papers of the ...
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This book provides a comprehensive discussion of the genesis and performance history of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady. Using more than 500 previously unpublished letters from the papers of the producer Herman Levin, it traces the background of the show, from Shaw’s play Pygmalion to the opening night of the musical on Broadway in 1956. It also uses more than 3,000 archival manuscripts and a rehearsal script to propose a reappraisal of the ambiguous relationship between Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) and Eliza Doolittle (Julie Andrews). Finally, the book explores conflicting aspects of the reception of the show, both in critical writings and in performance.Less
This book provides a comprehensive discussion of the genesis and performance history of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady. Using more than 500 previously unpublished letters from the papers of the producer Herman Levin, it traces the background of the show, from Shaw’s play Pygmalion to the opening night of the musical on Broadway in 1956. It also uses more than 3,000 archival manuscripts and a rehearsal script to propose a reappraisal of the ambiguous relationship between Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) and Eliza Doolittle (Julie Andrews). Finally, the book explores conflicting aspects of the reception of the show, both in critical writings and in performance.
William Kostlevy
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195377842
- eISBN:
- 9780199777204
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377842.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
In March of 1901, Duke Farson skillfully using the daily press attracted Chicago residence and visitors to MCA revival services that ran for three months. Preacher actors including converted railroad ...
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In March of 1901, Duke Farson skillfully using the daily press attracted Chicago residence and visitors to MCA revival services that ran for three months. Preacher actors including converted railroad engineer E. A. Ferguson, ex-prize fighter Andrew J. Dolbow and holiness movement folk hero Bud Robinson entertained listeners with colorful preaching and attacks on Chicago’s leading ministers. The theme song of the revival “The Pearly White City” captures the Holiness Movement’s critique of early twentieth century America. MCA leaders managed to co-opt a schedule moderate holiness convention and even attracted several key attendees to the radical cause including Colorado evangelist Alma White and W. E. Shepard. The General Holiness Assembly ended endorsing the imminent return of Jesus and faith healing.Less
In March of 1901, Duke Farson skillfully using the daily press attracted Chicago residence and visitors to MCA revival services that ran for three months. Preacher actors including converted railroad engineer E. A. Ferguson, ex-prize fighter Andrew J. Dolbow and holiness movement folk hero Bud Robinson entertained listeners with colorful preaching and attacks on Chicago’s leading ministers. The theme song of the revival “The Pearly White City” captures the Holiness Movement’s critique of early twentieth century America. MCA leaders managed to co-opt a schedule moderate holiness convention and even attracted several key attendees to the radical cause including Colorado evangelist Alma White and W. E. Shepard. The General Holiness Assembly ended endorsing the imminent return of Jesus and faith healing.
David Manning
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195182392
- eISBN:
- 9780199851485
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195182392.003.0061
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Martin Shaw has devoted himself to the cause of church music from the time he met Percy Dearmer, and they worked together to rescue English church music from the slough of despond into which the ...
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Martin Shaw has devoted himself to the cause of church music from the time he met Percy Dearmer, and they worked together to rescue English church music from the slough of despond into which the Victorian fondness for sacharine insincerity had led it. Shaw shows the way, not only by precept but by practice. His anthems and services are models of what such things should be; particularly, this chapter likes to give tribute of praise to his beautiful Passion Cantata, The Redeemer, which ought to be sung every year in every church by a competent choir, and thus replace the sentimentalities by composers with ridiculous names that at present mar their Lenten services. He is best known by his hymn tunes. The chapter also pays tribute to Joan Shaw, who stood by him for better or for worse through a long and arduous life.Less
Martin Shaw has devoted himself to the cause of church music from the time he met Percy Dearmer, and they worked together to rescue English church music from the slough of despond into which the Victorian fondness for sacharine insincerity had led it. Shaw shows the way, not only by precept but by practice. His anthems and services are models of what such things should be; particularly, this chapter likes to give tribute of praise to his beautiful Passion Cantata, The Redeemer, which ought to be sung every year in every church by a competent choir, and thus replace the sentimentalities by composers with ridiculous names that at present mar their Lenten services. He is best known by his hymn tunes. The chapter also pays tribute to Joan Shaw, who stood by him for better or for worse through a long and arduous life.
Stanley Weintraub
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037264
- eISBN:
- 9780813041544
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037264.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
People known to Bernard Shaw had every reason to fear becoming recognizable characters in his plays. Whether from history, literature, or his own crowded career, Shaw's relationships to real or ...
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People known to Bernard Shaw had every reason to fear becoming recognizable characters in his plays. Whether from history, literature, or his own crowded career, Shaw's relationships to real or imagined personalities reveal a complexity beyond easy formulation. He put himself into a Jesus, a Caesar, a Cetewayo, a Napoleon, and even into an Edward VIII. Shaw rehabilitated the shocking Lady Colin Campbell and reinvented Virginia Woolf. What he was not, or could not be, himself, became indirectly and imaginatively parts of other personalities, past and present. The lives in this book are a sampling, extraordinary only in being dimensions of Bernard Shaw.Less
People known to Bernard Shaw had every reason to fear becoming recognizable characters in his plays. Whether from history, literature, or his own crowded career, Shaw's relationships to real or imagined personalities reveal a complexity beyond easy formulation. He put himself into a Jesus, a Caesar, a Cetewayo, a Napoleon, and even into an Edward VIII. Shaw rehabilitated the shocking Lady Colin Campbell and reinvented Virginia Woolf. What he was not, or could not be, himself, became indirectly and imaginatively parts of other personalities, past and present. The lives in this book are a sampling, extraordinary only in being dimensions of Bernard Shaw.
Philip Lambert
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195390070
- eISBN:
- 9780199863570
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390070.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, Popular
This chapter presents an overview and critical interpretation of the last show that Bock and Harnick brought to Broadway, The Rothschilds, based on a book by Frederic Morton and adapted by Sherman ...
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This chapter presents an overview and critical interpretation of the last show that Bock and Harnick brought to Broadway, The Rothschilds, based on a book by Frederic Morton and adapted by Sherman Yellen. Despite a difficult development process plagued by tension within the creative team, the musical played for more than a year on Broadway after it opened in 1970. It was in part a revisiting of issues of Jewish culture and identity that the team had previously addressed in Fiddler on the Roof (1964), although the contrasts between the world of a family of wealthy bankers and that of a poor dairyman and his wife and daughters could not be more pronounced. This chapter also considers other projects Bock and Harnick collaborated on in the late 1960s, including an ill-fated attempt to create a musical with playwright John Arden based on the life of Lord Nelson, and a minor contribution to a musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra.Less
This chapter presents an overview and critical interpretation of the last show that Bock and Harnick brought to Broadway, The Rothschilds, based on a book by Frederic Morton and adapted by Sherman Yellen. Despite a difficult development process plagued by tension within the creative team, the musical played for more than a year on Broadway after it opened in 1970. It was in part a revisiting of issues of Jewish culture and identity that the team had previously addressed in Fiddler on the Roof (1964), although the contrasts between the world of a family of wealthy bankers and that of a poor dairyman and his wife and daughters could not be more pronounced. This chapter also considers other projects Bock and Harnick collaborated on in the late 1960s, including an ill-fated attempt to create a musical with playwright John Arden based on the life of Lord Nelson, and a minor contribution to a musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra.
Mark Bevir
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691150833
- eISBN:
- 9781400840281
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691150833.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
This chapter discusses George Bernard Shaw's and Sidney Webb's respective political strategies and their roles in inspiring Fabian policy. The Fabians did not share a commitment to permeating other ...
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This chapter discusses George Bernard Shaw's and Sidney Webb's respective political strategies and their roles in inspiring Fabian policy. The Fabians did not share a commitment to permeating other parties in order to promote incremental measures of socialism. For a start, Shaw would have liked an independent socialist party, but for much of the 1880s and 1890s he did not think that such a party was possible. Moreover, insofar as the leading Fabians came to agree on “permeation,” they defined it differently. Shaw thought of permeation in terms of luring Radicals away from the Liberal Party in order to form an independent party to represent workers against capitalists. In contrast, Webb defined permeation in terms of giving expert advice to the political elite. The response of the Fabian Society to the formation of the Independent Labor Party reflected the interplay of these different strategies.Less
This chapter discusses George Bernard Shaw's and Sidney Webb's respective political strategies and their roles in inspiring Fabian policy. The Fabians did not share a commitment to permeating other parties in order to promote incremental measures of socialism. For a start, Shaw would have liked an independent socialist party, but for much of the 1880s and 1890s he did not think that such a party was possible. Moreover, insofar as the leading Fabians came to agree on “permeation,” they defined it differently. Shaw thought of permeation in terms of luring Radicals away from the Liberal Party in order to form an independent party to represent workers against capitalists. In contrast, Webb defined permeation in terms of giving expert advice to the political elite. The response of the Fabian Society to the formation of the Independent Labor Party reflected the interplay of these different strategies.
David Manning
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195182392
- eISBN:
- 9780199851485
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195182392.003.0026
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
A new edition of The English Hymnal was brought out in 1933. It had the invaluable advice and help of Martin Shaw, and was able to introduce some of his fine tunes that were not extant in 1906. In ...
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A new edition of The English Hymnal was brought out in 1933. It had the invaluable advice and help of Martin Shaw, and was able to introduce some of his fine tunes that were not extant in 1906. In many hymnals the first idea of the musical editors seems to have been to include as many new tunes by the editor himself and his friends as possible. The new book was also to contain a large proportion of plainsong. This task was undertaken by one of the committee, Mr W. J. Birkbeck. His accompaniments were remade to more modern and more sensible ideas by Dr J. H. Arnold. The preparation of the book employed the help of various friends, especially Nicholas Gatty and Gustav Holst, in finding neglected tunes and the true versions of others that had been “disfigured” into dullness in modern hymnals and indebted to Robert Bridges's “Yattendon Hymnal” and George Woodward's “Songs of Syon.”Less
A new edition of The English Hymnal was brought out in 1933. It had the invaluable advice and help of Martin Shaw, and was able to introduce some of his fine tunes that were not extant in 1906. In many hymnals the first idea of the musical editors seems to have been to include as many new tunes by the editor himself and his friends as possible. The new book was also to contain a large proportion of plainsong. This task was undertaken by one of the committee, Mr W. J. Birkbeck. His accompaniments were remade to more modern and more sensible ideas by Dr J. H. Arnold. The preparation of the book employed the help of various friends, especially Nicholas Gatty and Gustav Holst, in finding neglected tunes and the true versions of others that had been “disfigured” into dullness in modern hymnals and indebted to Robert Bridges's “Yattendon Hymnal” and George Woodward's “Songs of Syon.”
Charles A. Carpenter
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813034058
- eISBN:
- 9780813038254
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813034058.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This book offers a new perspective on one of the most puzzling questions faced by Shaw scholars—how to reconcile the artist's individualist leanings with his socialist Fabian ideals. The book does ...
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This book offers a new perspective on one of the most puzzling questions faced by Shaw scholars—how to reconcile the artist's individualist leanings with his socialist Fabian ideals. The book does this by viewing Shaw as a maverick whose approach was impossible to duplicate and grew out of his unique artistic temperament, his outlook, and his vocation. Shaw's activities in promoting the Fabians' goals of advancing social democracy were highly distinctive. He effectively used calculated irritation as an attention-getting tactic; he relied on devices that he had formulated as a creative rhetorician, rather than on the academic principles that were second nature to most of his fellow Fabians; and he devised and championed the use of indirect means to “persuade the world to take our ideas into account in reforming itself.”Less
This book offers a new perspective on one of the most puzzling questions faced by Shaw scholars—how to reconcile the artist's individualist leanings with his socialist Fabian ideals. The book does this by viewing Shaw as a maverick whose approach was impossible to duplicate and grew out of his unique artistic temperament, his outlook, and his vocation. Shaw's activities in promoting the Fabians' goals of advancing social democracy were highly distinctive. He effectively used calculated irritation as an attention-getting tactic; he relied on devices that he had formulated as a creative rhetorician, rather than on the academic principles that were second nature to most of his fellow Fabians; and he devised and championed the use of indirect means to “persuade the world to take our ideas into account in reforming itself.”
J. R. Watson (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198269731
- eISBN:
- 9780191600791
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198269730.003.0012
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
A relatively short section, containing 11 hymns from the period of two great hymn books, the English Hymnal and Songs of Praise. It was the period of the Christian Social Union, and of the First ...
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A relatively short section, containing 11 hymns from the period of two great hymn books, the English Hymnal and Songs of Praise. It was the period of the Christian Social Union, and of the First World War. The hymns often reflect the problems of the structure of society, and of industry. They were also important for the education of the time. The English Hymnal was also notable for the musical input of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw.Less
A relatively short section, containing 11 hymns from the period of two great hymn books, the English Hymnal and Songs of Praise. It was the period of the Christian Social Union, and of the First World War. The hymns often reflect the problems of the structure of society, and of industry. They were also important for the education of the time. The English Hymnal was also notable for the musical input of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw.
Fiona Macintosh
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199208791
- eISBN:
- 9780191709029
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208791.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter reviews Murray's involvement with the theatre. It situates his translations in the performance traditions of early 20th-century England and also in a wider context, including that of the ...
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This chapter reviews Murray's involvement with the theatre. It situates his translations in the performance traditions of early 20th-century England and also in a wider context, including that of the Salvation Army and the influence of Nietzsche. The chapter ends by exploring the influence of Murray's translations on the reworking of Greek tragic plots by the Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka.Less
This chapter reviews Murray's involvement with the theatre. It situates his translations in the performance traditions of early 20th-century England and also in a wider context, including that of the Salvation Army and the influence of Nietzsche. The chapter ends by exploring the influence of Murray's translations on the reworking of Greek tragic plots by the Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka.
Elizabeth Outka
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195372694
- eISBN:
- 9780199871704
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195372694.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter explores the revolutions in town planning and community design that were inspired by the creation of model factory towns at the turn of the century, as well as by the rapid development ...
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This chapter explores the revolutions in town planning and community design that were inspired by the creation of model factory towns at the turn of the century, as well as by the rapid development of the Garden City Movement. While novel in many respects, model towns such as Bournville and Port Sunlight, and Garden Cities such as Letchworth, presented the illusion of an older economic and cultural time, showing a commitment to past designs that were meant to correct some of the excesses of the industrial age. What set these places apart from earlier efforts was their deliberate reliance on the modern factory system to support the nostalgic country vision, and the emerging ways this vision was marketed as a way to sell products from chocolate to soap. Such efforts received enormous publicity and captured the imagination of many, including Bernard Shaw. In his plays John Bull’s Other Island and Major Barbara, Shaw became the most incisive critic of the new town planning schemes, but also, in ways the chapter examines, their surprising champion. Through analysis of both the literary and the literal model towns, the chapter investigates how long-static visions of the country and the city were united into appealing new hybrids, and industry itself, rather than being the villain, was recast as the provider of new pleasures.Less
This chapter explores the revolutions in town planning and community design that were inspired by the creation of model factory towns at the turn of the century, as well as by the rapid development of the Garden City Movement. While novel in many respects, model towns such as Bournville and Port Sunlight, and Garden Cities such as Letchworth, presented the illusion of an older economic and cultural time, showing a commitment to past designs that were meant to correct some of the excesses of the industrial age. What set these places apart from earlier efforts was their deliberate reliance on the modern factory system to support the nostalgic country vision, and the emerging ways this vision was marketed as a way to sell products from chocolate to soap. Such efforts received enormous publicity and captured the imagination of many, including Bernard Shaw. In his plays John Bull’s Other Island and Major Barbara, Shaw became the most incisive critic of the new town planning schemes, but also, in ways the chapter examines, their surprising champion. Through analysis of both the literary and the literal model towns, the chapter investigates how long-static visions of the country and the city were united into appealing new hybrids, and industry itself, rather than being the villain, was recast as the provider of new pleasures.
Ruth Livesey
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263983
- eISBN:
- 9780191734731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263983.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Schreiner's good friend Edward Carpenter was her chief source of news about the socialist movement during her self-imposed exiles on the continent throughout the later 1880s. Carpenter sought to ...
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Schreiner's good friend Edward Carpenter was her chief source of news about the socialist movement during her self-imposed exiles on the continent throughout the later 1880s. Carpenter sought to reshape masculinity and civilization through sexual desire itself. This chapter examines how the fads of vegetarianism, Jaegerism, and sandal wearing came to be associated with socialism in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It argues that for Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw, these ascetic regimes provided a means of investigating and reforming conventional ideals of masculinity. Both writers represent such fads as bodily labour and discipline, thus overcoming the opposition between the man of letters and the manly labourer. While Carpenter's theory of Lamarckian biological idealism concluded that such practices would result in species change and a socialist utopia of liberated sexual bodies, Shaw's regime aimed to supplement the necessary redistribution of capital.Less
Schreiner's good friend Edward Carpenter was her chief source of news about the socialist movement during her self-imposed exiles on the continent throughout the later 1880s. Carpenter sought to reshape masculinity and civilization through sexual desire itself. This chapter examines how the fads of vegetarianism, Jaegerism, and sandal wearing came to be associated with socialism in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It argues that for Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw, these ascetic regimes provided a means of investigating and reforming conventional ideals of masculinity. Both writers represent such fads as bodily labour and discipline, thus overcoming the opposition between the man of letters and the manly labourer. While Carpenter's theory of Lamarckian biological idealism concluded that such practices would result in species change and a socialist utopia of liberated sexual bodies, Shaw's regime aimed to supplement the necessary redistribution of capital.
Mark Bevir
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691150833
- eISBN:
- 9781400840281
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691150833.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
This chapter concerns the famous playwright George Bernard Shaw. Shaw's biographers consistently discuss his debt to Marx, but intellectual historians have found little sign of this debt. It shows ...
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This chapter concerns the famous playwright George Bernard Shaw. Shaw's biographers consistently discuss his debt to Marx, but intellectual historians have found little sign of this debt. It shows how Shaw's Marxism becomes visible if we look for the kind of Marxism found among his contemporaries, as opposed to the kinds of Marxism that became prominent later in the twentieth century. In the mid-1880s, Shaw shared many of the Marxist ideas of the Social Democratic Federation. Even later, after he rejected Marxist economics for marginalism, he continued to defend several Marxist themes in ways that distanced him from the other leading Fabians, most importantly Sidney Webb.Less
This chapter concerns the famous playwright George Bernard Shaw. Shaw's biographers consistently discuss his debt to Marx, but intellectual historians have found little sign of this debt. It shows how Shaw's Marxism becomes visible if we look for the kind of Marxism found among his contemporaries, as opposed to the kinds of Marxism that became prominent later in the twentieth century. In the mid-1880s, Shaw shared many of the Marxist ideas of the Social Democratic Federation. Even later, after he rejected Marxist economics for marginalism, he continued to defend several Marxist themes in ways that distanced him from the other leading Fabians, most importantly Sidney Webb.
Julia Bush
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199248773
- eISBN:
- 9780191714689
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199248773.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Both suffragists and anti-suffragists laid claim to the mantle of empire. This chapter outlines the general imperial contours of the suffrage debate, and examines male definitions of an imperialist ...
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Both suffragists and anti-suffragists laid claim to the mantle of empire. This chapter outlines the general imperial contours of the suffrage debate, and examines male definitions of an imperialist anti-suffrage agenda, before turning to the leading imperialist women. The anti-suffragism of Violet Markham, Gertrude Bell, Margaret Jersey, Ethel Colquhoun, Mary Kingsley, and Flora Shaw was closely related to their views on empire and their relationships with male imperialists. These relationships varied between imperial hero-worship (Markham and Bell), imperial wifehood (Jersey and Colquhoun), and the more independent status of Kingsley and Shaw as imperial celebrities with a high public profile and a circle of male imperialist friends. The chapter concludes with an account of the leading female imperialist associations in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, and their connections to the anti-suffrage cause.Less
Both suffragists and anti-suffragists laid claim to the mantle of empire. This chapter outlines the general imperial contours of the suffrage debate, and examines male definitions of an imperialist anti-suffrage agenda, before turning to the leading imperialist women. The anti-suffragism of Violet Markham, Gertrude Bell, Margaret Jersey, Ethel Colquhoun, Mary Kingsley, and Flora Shaw was closely related to their views on empire and their relationships with male imperialists. These relationships varied between imperial hero-worship (Markham and Bell), imperial wifehood (Jersey and Colquhoun), and the more independent status of Kingsley and Shaw as imperial celebrities with a high public profile and a circle of male imperialist friends. The chapter concludes with an account of the leading female imperialist associations in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, and their connections to the anti-suffrage cause.
K. M. Newton
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748636730
- eISBN:
- 9780748652082
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748636730.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book explores modern literature's responses to the tragic. It examines writers from the latter half of the nineteenth century through to the later twentieth century who responded to ideas about ...
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This book explores modern literature's responses to the tragic. It examines writers from the latter half of the nineteenth century through to the later twentieth century who responded to ideas about tragedy. Although Ibsen has been accused of being responsible for the ‘death of tragedy’, the book argues that Ibsen instead generates an anti-tragic perspective that had a major influence on dramatists such as Shaw and Brecht. By contrast, writers such as Hardy and Conrad, influenced by Schopenhauerean pessimism and Darwinism, attempt to modernise the concept of the tragic. Nietzsche's revisionist interpretation of the tragic influenced writers who either take pessimism or the ‘Dionysian’ commitment to life to an extreme, as in Strindberg and D. H. Lawrence. Different views emerge in the period following World War II with the ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ and postmodern anti-foundationalism. The book offers broad coverage of drama and fiction by British, European and American writers and provides readings of particular texts including Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Ibsen's Ghosts, Strindberg's Miss Julie, Brecht's Mother Courage, Chekhov's Three Sisters, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, Shaw's Saint Joan, Miller's Death of a Salesman, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and D H Lawrence's The Rainbow and Women in Love. Overall, the book combines literary interpretation with philosophical discussion, e.g. of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Derrida, Rorty.Less
This book explores modern literature's responses to the tragic. It examines writers from the latter half of the nineteenth century through to the later twentieth century who responded to ideas about tragedy. Although Ibsen has been accused of being responsible for the ‘death of tragedy’, the book argues that Ibsen instead generates an anti-tragic perspective that had a major influence on dramatists such as Shaw and Brecht. By contrast, writers such as Hardy and Conrad, influenced by Schopenhauerean pessimism and Darwinism, attempt to modernise the concept of the tragic. Nietzsche's revisionist interpretation of the tragic influenced writers who either take pessimism or the ‘Dionysian’ commitment to life to an extreme, as in Strindberg and D. H. Lawrence. Different views emerge in the period following World War II with the ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ and postmodern anti-foundationalism. The book offers broad coverage of drama and fiction by British, European and American writers and provides readings of particular texts including Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Ibsen's Ghosts, Strindberg's Miss Julie, Brecht's Mother Courage, Chekhov's Three Sisters, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, Shaw's Saint Joan, Miller's Death of a Salesman, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and D H Lawrence's The Rainbow and Women in Love. Overall, the book combines literary interpretation with philosophical discussion, e.g. of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Derrida, Rorty.
David Thomas, David Carlton, and Anne Etienne
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199260287
- eISBN:
- 9780191717390
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199260287.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This chapter shows how playwrights at the beginning of the 20th century (notably G. B. Shaw and Harley Granville Barker) led the first serious challenge to the system of statutory theatre censorship. ...
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This chapter shows how playwrights at the beginning of the 20th century (notably G. B. Shaw and Harley Granville Barker) led the first serious challenge to the system of statutory theatre censorship. It also shows how they were supported by Robert Harcourt MP, whose parliamentary interventions persuaded the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, to establish in 1909 a Joint Select Committee to investigate theatre censorship. The chapter then demonstrates how the constitutional battle between Lords and Commons, ignited by David Lloyd George's People's Budget in 1909, had the effect of pushing to the sidelines reform of theatre censorship. Material from the Royal Archives reveals that Edward VII adamantly refused to countenance the abolition of theatre censorship. This was a significant factor in the Asquith Government's decision to ignore the recommendations of the 1909 Joint Select Committee to replace, with a voluntary system, the theatre censorship provisions of the 1843 Theatres Act.Less
This chapter shows how playwrights at the beginning of the 20th century (notably G. B. Shaw and Harley Granville Barker) led the first serious challenge to the system of statutory theatre censorship. It also shows how they were supported by Robert Harcourt MP, whose parliamentary interventions persuaded the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, to establish in 1909 a Joint Select Committee to investigate theatre censorship. The chapter then demonstrates how the constitutional battle between Lords and Commons, ignited by David Lloyd George's People's Budget in 1909, had the effect of pushing to the sidelines reform of theatre censorship. Material from the Royal Archives reveals that Edward VII adamantly refused to countenance the abolition of theatre censorship. This was a significant factor in the Asquith Government's decision to ignore the recommendations of the 1909 Joint Select Committee to replace, with a voluntary system, the theatre censorship provisions of the 1843 Theatres Act.
BEN LEVITAS
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199253432
- eISBN:
- 9780191719196
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199253432.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter examines the early debates over the need for an Irish national theatre. It suggests that the crisis surrounding the Parnellite split of 1890 and death of C. S. Parnell in 1891 was key. ...
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This chapter examines the early debates over the need for an Irish national theatre. It suggests that the crisis surrounding the Parnellite split of 1890 and death of C. S. Parnell in 1891 was key. In the 1880s, melodrama written by Hubert O'Grady and J. W. Whitbread resonated with Nationalist optimism: its continued popularity should be associated with Irish Parliamentary Party momentum. However, the complexity of 1890s divisions saw a Parnellite minority adopt a notionally ‘modern’ wave of literary experiment led by Yeats, and analysed by Shaw. Ibsen was also an important touchstone. Newspapers like United Ireland became forums for cultural political debate also manifest in the emergence of the National Literary Society (1892) and the Gaelic League (1893). Such debates were alert both to the cultural dimension of politics and to the social complexity of an Ireland that had begun to consider issues of class and gender.Less
This chapter examines the early debates over the need for an Irish national theatre. It suggests that the crisis surrounding the Parnellite split of 1890 and death of C. S. Parnell in 1891 was key. In the 1880s, melodrama written by Hubert O'Grady and J. W. Whitbread resonated with Nationalist optimism: its continued popularity should be associated with Irish Parliamentary Party momentum. However, the complexity of 1890s divisions saw a Parnellite minority adopt a notionally ‘modern’ wave of literary experiment led by Yeats, and analysed by Shaw. Ibsen was also an important touchstone. Newspapers like United Ireland became forums for cultural political debate also manifest in the emergence of the National Literary Society (1892) and the Gaelic League (1893). Such debates were alert both to the cultural dimension of politics and to the social complexity of an Ireland that had begun to consider issues of class and gender.
BEN LEVITAS
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199253432
- eISBN:
- 9780191719196
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199253432.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter examines the emergence of a more forceful left-wing critique as an element of Irish cultural nationalism, one hostile to Sinn Féin conservatism. It discusses the emergence of the Irish ...
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This chapter examines the emergence of a more forceful left-wing critique as an element of Irish cultural nationalism, one hostile to Sinn Féin conservatism. It discusses the emergence of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union under Larkin and the Irish Women's Franchise League, as wells as W. P. Ryan's paper the Peasant. The impatience of republican intellectuals such as P. S. O'Hegarty and Terence MacSwiney with Sinn Féin offers a parallel. In this context, a reassessment of Synge's work can be discerned in the work of Lennox Robinson, Norrey's Connell, Thomas MacDonagh, and Seumas O'Kelly, as well in productions by the Ulster Literary Theatre and the Cork Dramatic Society. The success of Shaw's The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet in 1909 is seen as sealing the rejuvenation of the Abbey in a nationalist context.Less
This chapter examines the emergence of a more forceful left-wing critique as an element of Irish cultural nationalism, one hostile to Sinn Féin conservatism. It discusses the emergence of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union under Larkin and the Irish Women's Franchise League, as wells as W. P. Ryan's paper the Peasant. The impatience of republican intellectuals such as P. S. O'Hegarty and Terence MacSwiney with Sinn Féin offers a parallel. In this context, a reassessment of Synge's work can be discerned in the work of Lennox Robinson, Norrey's Connell, Thomas MacDonagh, and Seumas O'Kelly, as well in productions by the Ulster Literary Theatre and the Cork Dramatic Society. The success of Shaw's The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet in 1909 is seen as sealing the rejuvenation of the Abbey in a nationalist context.
Lauren Arrington
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199590575
- eISBN:
- 9780191595523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199590575.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
The introduction situates the Abbey Theatre's origins in the context of European Reform Theatres and examines the theatre's claim to be representative: a claim that has been subject to debate since ...
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The introduction situates the Abbey Theatre's origins in the context of European Reform Theatres and examines the theatre's claim to be representative: a claim that has been subject to debate since the Abbey's foundation. Early productions that were objects of public protest—The Countess Cathleen and The Playboy of the Western World—are discussed in light of the themes of reform and representation in preparation for a further analysis of the riots over The Plough and the Stars. It argues that Shaw's O'Flaherty V.C. and St John Ervine's The Magnanimous Lover are early examples of censorship for financial and political reasons.Less
The introduction situates the Abbey Theatre's origins in the context of European Reform Theatres and examines the theatre's claim to be representative: a claim that has been subject to debate since the Abbey's foundation. Early productions that were objects of public protest—The Countess Cathleen and The Playboy of the Western World—are discussed in light of the themes of reform and representation in preparation for a further analysis of the riots over The Plough and the Stars. It argues that Shaw's O'Flaherty V.C. and St John Ervine's The Magnanimous Lover are early examples of censorship for financial and political reasons.
Marion Elizabeth Rodgers
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195072389
- eISBN:
- 9780199787982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195072389.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Mencken finds reprieve by becoming a drama critic. An older critic gives him valuable advice that becomes the mainstay of Mencken's style: in order to get a crowd, you must give them a show. Mencken ...
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Mencken finds reprieve by becoming a drama critic. An older critic gives him valuable advice that becomes the mainstay of Mencken's style: in order to get a crowd, you must give them a show. Mencken finds his true métier, and promotes the controversial and liberating plays of George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen. Professionally, he publishes a book of poetry (Ventures Into Verse) and becomes City Editor of the Herald. In his personal life, he begins to date actresses and starts a new musical group called, The Saturday Night Club.Less
Mencken finds reprieve by becoming a drama critic. An older critic gives him valuable advice that becomes the mainstay of Mencken's style: in order to get a crowd, you must give them a show. Mencken finds his true métier, and promotes the controversial and liberating plays of George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen. Professionally, he publishes a book of poetry (Ventures Into Verse) and becomes City Editor of the Herald. In his personal life, he begins to date actresses and starts a new musical group called, The Saturday Night Club.
