Harlequin Britain

Download or read book Harlequin Britain written by John O'Brien and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2004-07-28 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the fall of 1723, two London theaters staged, almost simultaneously, pantomime performances of the Faust story. Unlike traditional five-act plays, pantomime—a bawdy hybrid of dance, music, spectacle, and commedia dell'arte featuring the familiar figure of the harlequin at its center—was a theatrical experience of unprecedented accessibility. The immediate popularity of this new genre drew theater apprentices to the cities to learn the new style, and pantomime became the subject of lively debate within British society. Alexander Pope and Henry Fielding bitterly opposed the intrusion into legitimate literary culture of what they regarded as fairground amusements that appealed to sensation and passion over reason and judgment. In Harlequin Britain, literary scholar John O'Brien examines this new form of entertainment and the effect it had on British culture. Why did pantomime become so popular so quickly? Why was it perceived as culturally threatening and socially destabilizing? O’Brien finds that pantomime’s socially subversive commentary cut through the dampened spirit of debate created by Robert Walpole's one-party rule. At the same time, pantomime appealed to the abstracted taste of the mass audience. Its extraordinary popularity underscores the continuing centrality of live performance in a culture that is most typically seen as having shifted its attention to the written text—in particular, to the novel. Written in a lively style rich with anecdotes, Harlequin Britain establishes the emergence of eighteenth-century English pantomime, with its promiscuous blending of genres and subjects, as a key moment in the development of modern entertainment culture.

Download or read book Harlequin Empire written by David Worrall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the 1737 Licensing Act, Covent Garden, Dury Lane and regional Theatres Royal held a monopoly on the dramatic canon. This work explores the presentation of foreign cultures and ethnicities on the popular British stage from 1750 to 1840. It argues that this illegitimate stage was the site for a plebeian Enlightenment.

Download or read book Popular Children’s Literature in Britain written by Julia Briggs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The astonishing success of J.K. Rowling and other contemporary children's authors has demonstrated how passionately children can commit to the books they love. But this kind of devotion is not new. This timely volume takes up the challenge of assessing the complex interplay of forces that have created the popularity of children's books both today and in the past. The essays collected here ask about the meanings and values that have been ascribed to the term 'popular'. They consider whether popularity can be imposed, or if it must always emerge from children's preferences. And they investigate how the Harry Potter phenomenon fits into a repeated cycle of success and decline within the publishing industry. Whether examining eighteenth-century chapbooks, fairy tales, science schoolbooks, Victorian adventures, waif novels or school stories, these essays show how historical and publishing contexts are vital in determining which books will succeed and which will fail, which bestsellers will endure and which will fade quickly into obscurity. As they considering the fiction of Angela Brazil, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and J.K. Rowling, the contributors carefully analyse how authorial talent and cultural contexts combine, in often unpredictable ways, to generate - and sometimes even sustain - literary success.

Download or read book Representations of China in British Children's Fiction, 1851-1911 written by Shih-Wen Chen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her extensively researched exploration of China in British children’s literature, Shih-Wen Chen provides a sustained critique of the reductive dichotomies that have limited insight into the cultural and educative role these fictions played in disseminating ideas and knowledge about China. Chen considers a range of different genres and types of publication-travelogue storybooks, historical novels, adventure stories, and periodicals-to demonstrate the diversity of images of China in the Victorian and Edwardian imagination. Turning a critical eye on popular and prolific writers such as Anne Bowman, William Dalton, Edwin Harcourt Burrage, Bessie Marchant, G.A. Henty, and Charles Gilson, Chen shows how Sino-British relations were influential in the representation of China in children’s literature, challenges the notion that nineteenth-century children’s literature simply parroted the dominant ideologies of the age, and offers insights into how attitudes towards children’s relationship with knowledge changed over the course of the century. Her book provides a fresh context for understanding how China was constructed in the period from 1851 to 1911 and sheds light on British cultural history and the history and uses of children’s literature.

Download or read book Prologues, Epilogues, Curtain-raisers, and Afterpieces written by Daniel James Ennis and published by University of Delaware Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prologues, Epilogues, Curtain-Raisers, and Afterpieces: The Rest of the Eighteenth-Century London Stage presents a fresh analysis of the complete theater evening that was available to playhouse audiences from the Restoration to the early nineteenth century. The contributing scholars focus not on the mainpiece, the advertised play itself, but on what surrounded the mainpiece for the total theater experience of the day. Various critical essays address artistic disciplines such as dance and theatrical portraits, while others concentrate on peripheral performance texts, including prologues, epilogues, pantomimes, and afterpieces, that merged to define the overall theatrical event.

Download or read book Harlequin (The Grail Quest, Book 1) written by Bernard Cornwell and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2009-07-24 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was the time when the English came across the Channel to take the battle to the French.

Download or read book British Poultry Standards written by Victoria Roberts and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-03-16 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British Poultry Standards 6th edition is the official reference toall the recognised Poultry Standards in Great Britain. It containscomplete specifications together with judging points for allstandardised breeds and varieties, as compiled by the specialistBreed Clubs and recognised by the Poultry Club of GreatBritain. Breeding and exhibiting poultry is a long-held tradition as well asa popular and rewarding hobby. The work of the Breed Clubs and themany dedicated breeders in preserving the pure breeds is vital inmaintaining our breeds of poultry not only for the culturalheritage of future generations but also as a gene bank for thecommercial world. Under the guardianship of the Poultry Club ofGreat Britain, this book details the authorised standards ofexcellence for each breed. New to this edition: * New and improved colour images for many breeds, now with almost300 colour photographs. * The inclusion of silhouettes to show the perfect shape for eachbreed. * An additional 14 breeds are covered.