British Romanticism and the Subject of Theater, 1798-1830

FAIN: FT-51333-03

Jonathan Mulrooney
University of Vermont and State Agricultural College (Burlington, VT 05405-0160)

This project examines the historical development and cultural significance of British Theater criticism during 1798-1830, and considers its influence on Romantic writers and poets. I begin by examining a rapid increase during the early nineteenth century in the number of British periodicals devoted solely to theater. This expansion represents a crucial intersection of print and theatrical culture, as growing numbers of writers and readers re-imagined their relationships to each other, to theater, and to the public world that theater represented. I then argue that the aesthetic sensibilities of Romanticism’s "second generation" were shaped by popular experiences of theater to a far greater extent than has been previously thought.