Emancipation, Liberation, and Freedom. Romantic Drama and Theatre in Britain (1760-1830)

For a long time the consensus among critics and theatre historians was that "Romantic theatre" was something of an oxymoron, since Romantic poetics and aesthetics implied an inward conception of drama that clashed with the prerogatives of public performance. This exclusionary paradigm began to be challenged from the late 1980s by theatre commentators who demonstrated how Romantic drama was caught up in its contemporary ideological discourse. Drawing on these theories, Emancipation, Liberation, and Freedom: Romantic Drama and Theatre in Britain, 1760-1830 aims to show how late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century dramas were not only shaped by the historical contingencies in which they were published or produced, but also had an ideological impact upon contemporary social and political culture. The eight contributions collected here evoke a picture of a vibrant Romantic drama and theatre which mirrors all the major political and ideological conflicts of the day, including those revolving around the notions of "emancipation", "liberation" and "freedom", three discursive formations which reverberate in the thematic structure of the dramatic texts analysed, impact on their formal and generic qualities, and influence their critical reception.