“Our National Taste” : English Early Eighteenth-Century Stage as a Part of English National Identity
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English writers and commentators often referred to a seemingly self-evident entity called the “English stage”. For instance, Jeremy Collier raged against the immorality and profaneness of the English stage in his famous anti-theatrical pamphlet from 1698. John Dennis complained about the corrupted influence of operas “after the Italian manner which are to be established on the English stage” in his Essay on the Operas After the Italian Manner (1706). The anonymous engraving from 1724 attributed to William Hogarth evokes a similar idea in its title A Just View of the British Stage. Although the phrase “English/British stage” seems to be at first sight clear enough, it deserves careful reconsideration. What exactly were the qualities that made the English stage English? Were the authors from different time periods referring to the same entity? What did Colley Cibber mean when he in his Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber (1740) wrote about the “National Taste”? This presentation aims to raise those questions and explore the theatre-related definition of English national identity in the writings for and about London theatres in the early eighteenth century. By employing the theory of the public sphere and by drawing on selected plays, satires, essays and other contemporary accounts, the presentation will argue that the definition of the English stage, which facilitated a growing sentiment of collective theatrical identity, was informed by three following circumstances. First, the English stage was tightly connected to the on-going formation of the literary and dramatic canon, which necessarily involved value judgments and thus established a hierarchy of dramatic genres of the English stage. Further, not unlike national identities as a whole, the English theatrical identity was occasionally defined in opposition to foreign genres, such as the extravagant Italian opera. Lastly, the phrase “English stage” acquired new connotations of nostalgia and lost dramatic value with the increasing commercialization of London theatre business after 1700s and the growing popularity of afterpieces and other additional entertainments which seemed to drive away the traditional Restoration repertoire. This paper aims to show that nationalistic anxieties were very much at play in the discussion about the English stage in London theatres in the early eighteenth century and that theatre culture could also contribute to the national consciousness of the English people. |
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