Thomas Keymer
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- December 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198744498
- eISBN:
- 9780191816314
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198744498.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, 18th-century Literature
Eighteenth-century cases from Nathaniel Mist and Edmund Curll to John Shebbeare and a printer of Wilkes’s North Briton gave rise to a new satirical trope, frequently found in the 1730–80 period, in ...
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Eighteenth-century cases from Nathaniel Mist and Edmund Curll to John Shebbeare and a printer of Wilkes’s North Briton gave rise to a new satirical trope, frequently found in the 1730–80 period, in which the pillory becomes a tool of self-promotion. The marketability of seditious libel is further illustrated by the aftermath of the Stage Licensing Act (1737), which muted opposition drama but in so doing also boosted opposition print. The Champion, Henry Fielding’s first political journal, is a peculiarly powerful instance of this phenomenon, and highlights the ingenuity of Fielding’s play with codes, disguises, and interpretative cues throughout his literary career. Samuel Johnson, another writer who cut his teeth in the satirical campaign against Walpole after the Stage Licensing Act, was still reflecting, as late as the Lives of the Poets (1779–81), on questions arising from that campaign about censorship, authorship, and the book trade.Less
Eighteenth-century cases from Nathaniel Mist and Edmund Curll to John Shebbeare and a printer of Wilkes’s North Briton gave rise to a new satirical trope, frequently found in the 1730–80 period, in which the pillory becomes a tool of self-promotion. The marketability of seditious libel is further illustrated by the aftermath of the Stage Licensing Act (1737), which muted opposition drama but in so doing also boosted opposition print. The Champion, Henry Fielding’s first political journal, is a peculiarly powerful instance of this phenomenon, and highlights the ingenuity of Fielding’s play with codes, disguises, and interpretative cues throughout his literary career. Samuel Johnson, another writer who cut his teeth in the satirical campaign against Walpole after the Stage Licensing Act, was still reflecting, as late as the Lives of the Poets (1779–81), on questions arising from that campaign about censorship, authorship, and the book trade.
Helen Slaney
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198736769
- eISBN:
- 9780191800412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198736769.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The English theatrical repertoire in the eighteenth century was dominated by plays that appealed to the audience’s sympathies, showing characters experiencing everyday dilemmas rather than debating ...
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The English theatrical repertoire in the eighteenth century was dominated by plays that appealed to the audience’s sympathies, showing characters experiencing everyday dilemmas rather than debating the fate of mythical kingdoms. Seneca was therefore a less popular choice for translators, and those playwrights who did make use of his works transformed them into sentimental dramas. The increasing prevalence of stage naturalism in combination with the philhellenic movement ultimately led A. W. Schlegel to denounce Seneca as untheatrical: ‘frigid and bombastic’, his characters ‘colossal, misshapen marionettes’. For Schlegel’s contemporary Heinrich von Kleist, however, the marionette represented artistic perfection. Kleist’s hyper-tragedy Penthesilea challenged prevailing views of both classical antiquity and dramaturgical propriety.Less
The English theatrical repertoire in the eighteenth century was dominated by plays that appealed to the audience’s sympathies, showing characters experiencing everyday dilemmas rather than debating the fate of mythical kingdoms. Seneca was therefore a less popular choice for translators, and those playwrights who did make use of his works transformed them into sentimental dramas. The increasing prevalence of stage naturalism in combination with the philhellenic movement ultimately led A. W. Schlegel to denounce Seneca as untheatrical: ‘frigid and bombastic’, his characters ‘colossal, misshapen marionettes’. For Schlegel’s contemporary Heinrich von Kleist, however, the marionette represented artistic perfection. Kleist’s hyper-tragedy Penthesilea challenged prevailing views of both classical antiquity and dramaturgical propriety.
