Actions for Theatre and governance in Britain, 1500-1900 : democracy, disorder and the state
Theatre and governance in Britain, 1500-1900 : democracy, disorder and the state / Tony Fisher, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
- Author
- Fisher, Tony, 1964-
- Published
- Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2017.
- Copyright Date
- ©2017
- Physical Description
- ix, 282 pages ; 24 cm
- Contents
- Introduction: the discourses of theatre and governance -- Origins of the discourse on theatre -- The theatre of the multitude -- Revolts of conduct on the Restoration stage -- Theatre and its publics -- Theatrocracy and the public sphere -- The beggar's opera and the criminal picturesque -- The deontic stage in the eighteenth century: George Lillo's The London merchant -- Theatre in the age of reform -- The governmentalisation of the stage -- The theatre dispositif of the late nineteenth century.
- Summary
- This book begins with a simple observation - that just as the theatre resurfaced during the late Renaissance, so too government as we understand it today also began to appear. Their mutually entwining history was to have a profound influence on the development of the modern British stage. This volume proposes a new reading of theatre's relation to the public sphere. Employing a series of historical case studies drawn from the London theatre, Tony Fisher shows why the stage was of such great concern to government by offering close readings of well-known religious, moral, political, economic and legal disputes over the role, purpose and function of the stage in the 'well-ordered society'. In framing these disputes in relation to what Michel Foucault called the emerging 'art of government', this book draws out - for the first time - a full genealogy of the governmental 'discourse on the theatre'.
- Subject(s)
- 1500-1799
- Theater—England—London—History—16th century
- Theater—England—London—History—17th century
- Theater—England—London—History—18th century
- Theater—Political aspects—Great Britain—History—16th century
- Theater—Political aspects—Great Britain—History—17th century
- Theater—Political aspects—Great Britain—History—18th century
- Theater
- Theater—Political aspects
- England—London
- Great Britain
- Genre(s)
- ISBN
- 9781107182158 hardcover
1107182158 hardcover - Bibliography Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
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