No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Governmental Attempts to Regulate the Stage after the Jeremy Collier Controversy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Although Jeremy Collier's attack on the drama of his time and the subsequent “reform” of the stage in the direction of propriety and dullness have been regarded ever since as commonplaces of literary history, the relation between them has never been adequately investigated, and about this the greatest difference of opinion still exists. Ward declares: “In truth the position in which he [Collier] stood … had been proved impregnable. From this time forward a marked change became visible in the attitude of the Court, the Government, and a section at least of the ruling classes, towards the stage, and its own consciousness of the purposes and restrictions proper to the exercise of its art.” On the other hand, Mr. Whibley asserts: “The poets bowed their knee not an inch in obedience to Collier. They replied to him, they abused him, and they went their way… . The pages of Genest … make evidence the complete failure of Collier's attack.”
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1923
References
1 A. W. Ward, History of English Dramatic Poetry, III, 514.
2 The Cambridge History of English Literature, VIII, 191.
3 Proposal for a National Reformation of Manners, etc. London, 1674. Collier's A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage was not published until 1698.
4 Congreve, English Men of Letters, p. 118.
5 A Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage, etc. (1704).
6 Preserved in the Public Records Office, London.
7 Public Records Office, King's Bench 21-26.
8 In this case a recognisance is an agreement to appear in court at a certain time. The estreat of a recognisance is a process by which a recognisance, forfeited by a failute to appear, is made the basis of a plea for judgment by default. The stopping of an estreat of a recognisance is a blocking of this attempt to gain a judgment by default.
9 Public Records Office. L. C., 7-3.
10 Public Records Office. King's Bench 10-11.
11 Public Records Office, Coram Rege Roll. 2-147.
12 Lambeth MSS. 933, Art. 57. This is from the miscellaneous collection belonging to Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, to whom it was perhaps sent, but in the opinion of the Reverend Claude Jenkins, Librarian at Lambeth Palace, the endorsement is in the handwriting of Archbishop Tenison. There is another manuscript in the Lambeth Palace (MSS. 953, Art. 131) which is a sort of memorandum or petition, addressed apparently to the Archbishop, and setting forth the evils of the stage.
13 Guldersleeve, Government Regulation of the Elizabethan Drama.
14 Joseph Quincy Adams, The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert. These extend to 1673 only.
15 Chambers, Apology for Believers in the Shakespeare Papers.
16 Public Records Office. L. C. 7-1.
17 Warrant Books of Lord Chamberlain. Public Records Office. L. C. 5-152.
18 Lord Chamberlains Warrant Books. Public Records Office. L. C. 5-152.
19 Warrants of Several Sorts. Public Records Office. L. C. 5-152
20 Jersey. Public Records Office. L. C. 5-153.
21 An Apology for His Life. Chapter VIII.
22 Warrant Books. Public Records Office. L.C. 5-154. Congreve resigned his share in the management of the Company the same year. See Gosse Congreve, in the Great Writers series.
23 By Dr. Garth.
24 Evil and Danger of Stage Plays (1706).
25 Public Records Office. L. C. 5-156. I do not print this and the remaining documents referred to as they have already been published in Aitken's Life of Richard Steele.
26 Public Records Office. L. C. 5-157.
27 See Watson Nicholson. The Struggle for a Free Stage in London. Also Cross's The History of Henry Fielding.
28 Cobbett. The Parliamentary History of England.