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Re‐viewing Romantic Drama
Author(s) -
Cox Jeffrey N.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
literature compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.158
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 1741-4113
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2004.00096.x
Subject(s) - romance , drama , period (music) , literature , comedy , poetry , scholarship , art , romanticism , psychology , aesthetics , law , political science
We are in the midst of a revival of interest in the drama and theater of the Romantic period that has brought about new editions, exciting scholarship, and a surprisingly large number of stage productions of Romantic plays. The Romantic period offers us a wide range of interesting dramatic texts including poetic tragedies by canonical authors, innovative plays by women writers, and successful theatrical pieces by long‐forgotten playwrights such as the Dibdins. We will best understand these works when we move beyond the notion that the period saw an irrevocable divorce between the stage and the page to see how different kinds of texts offer different kinds of performances. We need to read poetic tragedies alongside harlequinades, patent house comedy of manners alongside the plays offered at the Royal Circus.