Elaine M. McGirr – författare

This book explores the multiple portrayals of the actor and theatre manager Colley Cibber, king of the dunces, professional fop, defacer of Shakespeare and the cruel and unforgiving father of Charlotte Charke. But these portraits of Cibber are doubly partial, exposing even as they paper over gaps and biases in the archive while reflecting back modern desires and methodologies. The Colley Cibber ‘everybody knows’ has been variously constructed through the rise of English literature as both a cultural enterprise and an academic discipline, a process which made Shakespeare the ‘nation’s poet’ and canonised Cibber’s enemies Pope and Fielding; theatre history’s narrative of the birth of naturalism; and the reclamation and celebration of Charlotte Charke by women’s literary history. Each of these stories requires a Colley Cibber to be its butt, antithesis, and/or bête noir. This monograph challenges these partial histories and returns the theatre manager, playwright, poet laureate and bon viveur to the centre of eighteenth-century culture and cultural studies.

Eighteenth-Century Characters offers a concise introduction to the eighteenth century, using characters as its starting point. Elaine M. McGirr presents contextualized readings of stock characters from canonical and popular literature, such as:- The rake and the fop- The country gentleman- The good woman- The coquette and the prude - The country maid and the town lady- The Catholic, the Protestant and the British Other.Each chapter explores how a character''s significance and role changes over the century, illustrating and explaining radical shifts in taste, ideology and style. Also featuring illustrations, a Chronology and a helpful Bibliography and Further Reading section, this essential guide will provide students with the necessary background to understand the period''s literature and to embark on further study.

This book explores the multiple portrayals of the actor and theatre manager Colley Cibber, king of the dunces, professional fop, defacer of Shakespeare and the cruel and unforgiving father of Charlotte Charke. But these portraits of Cibber are doubly partial, exposing even as they paper over gaps and biases in the archive while reflecting back modern desires and methodologies. The Colley Cibber ‘everybody knows’ has been variously constructed through the rise of English literature as both a cultural enterprise and an academic discipline, a process which made Shakespeare the ‘nation’s poet’ and canonised Cibber’s enemies Pope and Fielding; theatre history’s narrative of the birth of naturalism; and the reclamation and celebration of Charlotte Charke by women’s literary history. Each of these stories requires a Colley Cibber to be its butt, antithesis, and/or bête noir. This monograph challenges these partial histories and returns the theatre manager, playwright, poet laureate and bon viveur to the centre of eighteenth-century culture and cultural studies.

Eighteenth-Century Characters offers a concise introduction to the eighteenth century, using characters as its starting point. Elaine M. McGirr presents contextualized readings of stock characters from canonical and popular literature, such as:- The rake and the fop- The country gentleman- The good woman- The coquette and the prude - The country maid and the town lady- The Catholic, the Protestant and the British Other.Each chapter explores how a character''s significance and role changes over the century, illustrating and explaining radical shifts in taste, ideology and style. Also featuring illustrations, a Chronology and a helpful Bibliography and Further Reading section, this essential guide will provide students with the necessary background to understand the period''s literature and to embark on further study.

Eighteenth-Century Characters offers a concise introduction to the eighteenth century, using characters as its starting point. Elaine M. McGirr presents contextualized readings of stock characters from canonical and popular literature, such as:- The rake and the fop- The country gentleman- The good woman- The coquette and the prude - The country maid and the town lady- The Catholic, the Protestant and the British Other.Each chapter explores how a character's significance and role changes over the century, illustrating and explaining radical shifts in taste, ideology and style. Also featuring illustrations, a Chronology and a helpful Bibliography and Further Reading section, this essential guide will provide students with the necessary background to understand the period's literature and to embark on further study.

Eighteenth-Century Characters offers a concise introduction to the eighteenth century, using characters as its starting point. Elaine M. McGirr presents contextualized readings of stock characters from canonical and popular literature, such as:- The rake and the fop- The country gentleman- The good woman- The coquette and the prude - The country maid and the town lady- The Catholic, the Protestant and the British Other.Each chapter explores how a character's significance and role changes over the century, illustrating and explaining radical shifts in taste, ideology and style. Also featuring illustrations, a Chronology and a helpful Bibliography and Further Reading section, this essential guide will provide students with the necessary background to understand the period's literature and to embark on further study.

Stage Mothers explores the connections between motherhood and the theater both on and off stage throughout the long eighteenth century. Although the realities of eighteenth-century motherhood and representations of maternity have recently been investigated in relation to the novel, social history, and political economy, the idea of motherhood and its connection to the theatre as a professional, material, literary, and cultural site has received little critical attention. The essays in this volume, spanning the period from the Restoration to Regency, address these forgotten maternal narratives, focusing on: the representation of motherhood as the defining female role; the interplay between an actress’s celebrity persona and her chosen roles; the performative balance between the cults of maternity and that of the “passionate” actress; and tensions between sex and maternity and/or maternity and public authority. In examining the overlaps and disconnections between representations and realities of maternity in the long eighteenth century, and by looking at written, received, visual, and performed records of motherhood, Stage Mothers makes an important contribution to debates central to eighteenth-century cultural history.