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The Shape of Eighteenth-Century English Drama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

Stephen Hannaford
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Extract

Several traditional views have dominated the attitude of literary and theatre historians towards eighteenth century English drama. The most influential perspective has been that of Allardyce Nicoll, who lists plays, discovers coherent schools of playwriting, and traces chronology as if it were causality. A second approach looks at the century as a gallery of worthy dramatists, one hanging beside the other: Farquhar, Addison, Steele, Gay, Lillo, Goldsmith, and Sheridan. This approach is exemplified in F.S. Boas's Introduction to Eighteenth Century Drama, an appreciation of the tall peaks which tends to ignore the broad valleys.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , November 1980 , pp. 93 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1980

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References

NOTES

1 A History of Early Eighteenth Century Drama: 1700–1750 (Cambridge, 1925), and A History of Late Eighteenth Century Drama: 1750–1800 (Cambridge, 1927).

2 (Oxford, 1953).

3 See any general history of drama or of English literature. For example, David Daiches (A Critical History of English Literature (N.Y., 1960), 1095) notes “a real drop in the intelligence of theatre audiences in the eighteenth century,” and neglects the drama of the period, for the most part.

4 5 pts., 11 vols (Carbondale, Ill., 1960–68).

5 Bernbaum, Ernest, The Drama of Sensibility (Gloucester, Mass., 1958)Google Scholar; Krutch, Joseph Wood, Comedy and Conscience after the Restoration (N.Y., 1924)Google Scholar; and Gagey, E.M., Ballad Opera (N.Y., 1937).Google Scholar Not to disparage these authors; Bernbaum, especially, is sensitive to the problematic disappearance of his subgenres.

6 Robert Hume makes a similar point about differences between decades in The Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1976), p. 16.

7 Though I disagree with the dangerous term “Augustan” which he uses to classify the decades.

8 Moore's play was altered as The Counterfeits in 1763, an unsuccessful afterpiece. Otherwise it perished after this season. Alfred was presumably changed after this season into a pure oratorio, and was presented on the nights for musical performance at the theatres, rather than on the drama nights. It had a short and uneventful career in the next few seasons.

9 Arthur Scouten, Introduction to The London Stage: 1729–1747[part 3], cl, cli.