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‘Undaunted all he views’: The G ibraltar C harger, A stley's A mphitheatre and Masculine Performance
Author(s) -
MATTFELD MONICA
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/1754-0208.12036
Subject(s) - politeness , masculinity , politics , gender studies , sociology , art , art history , law , political science
Eighteenth‐century managers built their illegitimate theatres around the presence of performing animals, but the animals have rarely been a part of theatre histories. This article places horses, the headlining acts and primary draw for L ondon audiences, back into the ring of A stley's A mphitheatre. It examines how the presence of horses such as the G ibraltar C harger, along with the relationships between non‐humans and human actors, influenced constructions of political masculinity there. For P hilip and J ohn A stley, performances with the C harger in 1788 and 1789 were central to their patriotic constructions and displays of chivalrous, honourable, refined and polite masculinity.