Empire on the English stage, 1660-1714

Description

"Contesting the current consensus that Restoration and early eighteenth-century drama referred almost exclusively to domestic social and political issues, Empire on the English Stage, 1660-1714 shows that the theatre was a crucial location for debates over England's contemporaneous colonial expansion. The book provides a comprehensive account of colonialism, national identity and the representation of race and ethnicity on stage. Joining current historical discussions of the development of British imperial ideology, Bridget Orr argues that dramatic texts and production provide a rich and unexamined archive in which the issues attendant on the emergence of the First Empire figure largely. Her account not only sheds new light on plays by Dryden, Orrery, Behn, Wycherley and Southerne but redirects attention to popular but now marginal texts by Settle, Sedley, Dennis and Charles Shadwell. Attention to the imperial themes of these dramatists decisively redraws the map of Restoration and early eighteenth-century drama."--Jacket.

First Sentence

On October 18, 1666, John Evelyn approvingly recorded the adoption of a new fashion at the Carolean court: 18 to Lond: Star-Chamber: thence to Court, it being the first time of his Majesties putting himselfe solemnly into the Eastern fashion of Vest, changing doublet, stiff Collar, bands and Cloake etc: into a comely Vest, after the Persian mode with girdle or shash, and Shoe strings and Garters, into bouckles, of which some were set with precious stones, resolving never to alter it, and to leave the French mode, which had hitherto obtained to our greate expense and reproch: upon which divers Courtiers and Gent: gave his Ma[jesty] gold, by way of Wager, that he would not persist in this resolution: I had some time before indeede presented an Invectique against that unconstancy, and our so much affecting the french fashion, to his Majestie in which [I] tooke occasion to describe the Comelinesse and usefullnesse of the Persian clothing in the very same manner, his Majestie clad himselfe; This

Subjects

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Other Editions

• Empire on the English stage, 1660-1714Cambridge University Press2001-01-01
• Empire on the English Stage 16601714PaperbackCambridge University Press2007-03-26