Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Spectacular passions: eighteenth-century oratory and the reform of eloquence
- 2 Bodies on the borders of politeness: ‘Orator Henley’, Methodist enthusiasm, and polite literature
- 3 Thomas Sheridan: forging the British body
- 4 The art of acting: mid-century stagecraft and the broadcast of feeling
- 5 Polite reading: sentimental fiction and the performance of response
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Spectacular passions: eighteenth-century oratory and the reform of eloquence
- 2 Bodies on the borders of politeness: ‘Orator Henley’, Methodist enthusiasm, and polite literature
- 3 Thomas Sheridan: forging the British body
- 4 The art of acting: mid-century stagecraft and the broadcast of feeling
- 5 Polite reading: sentimental fiction and the performance of response
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
MOVING BODIES AND CULTURAL HISTORY
On 29 October 1746, the printer and novelist Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) wrote a long letter to his friend Aaron Hill (1685–1750), a man of broad interests spanning commerce, trees, English wine, literature, and, of particular relevance here, the theatre and acting techniques. Richardson was in the midst of the composition of Clarissa (1747–8), the first volumes of which would be published the next year, and he responded to Hill's comments on a draft of part of the novel and discussed matters relating to Clarissa's characters. Towards the end of the letter he described his reactions to reading a work by Hill, a didactic verse essay entitled The Art of Acting, which he had agreed to print:
Last Sunday I attempted to read it not as a Printer; and was not aware, that I should be so mechanically, as I may truly say, affected by it: I endeavoured to follow you in your wonderful Description of the Force of Acting, in the Passion of Joy, Sorrow, Fear, Anger, &c. And my whole Frame, so nervously affected before, was shaken by it: I found, in short, such Tremors, such Startings, that I was unable to go thro' it; and must reserve the Attempting it again, till your Oak Tincture (but just enter'd upon) has fortify'd the too relaxed, unmuscled Muscles, and braced those unbraced Nerves, which I have so long complained of, and so shall hope to find a Cure, and the Proof of it, from the same beneficent Hand.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
- 1
- Cited by