Roles of Authority: Thespian Biography and Celebrity in Eighteenth-century BritainTexas Tech University Press, 2003 - 258 pages Celebrity biographies, with their stories of scandal, never fail to titillate. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find record of the best-seller list they didn't punctuate. But delving into professional struggles, private torments, and sexual escapades of performing artists has a long and unexplored history. Eighteenth-century Britain had its own tradition of celebrity biographies and autobiographies. In fact, the genre began in English in 1695, with the story of Matthew Coppinger, a little-known actor who wrote verses, engaged in pretty crime, and ended his life on the gallows. Roles of Authority provides the first comprehensive study of the earliest hundred years of celebrity biography in English, from actor-thief Coppinger to the superstars David Garrick and Sarah Siddons. Of interest to historians of theater and popular culture alike, Roles of Authority shows the ways in which these emerging public figures entered into other disclosures of authority during the eighteenth century. By engaging with traditional and contemporary learning, medical legitimacy, gender hierarchies, literary authority, paternalistic family structure, and financial power, writings about stage performers gained them cultural status and social acceptance. As traditional forms of authority transmuted in a culture shifting from a more centralized patronage-related financial and artistic system to one driven by commercialism and market capitalism, cultural spaces for new types of authorities appeared. Alternately condemned and acclaimed, performers epitomized this new cultural space in which high and low, fame and notoriety, respectability and eccentricity combined. Wanko's careful study defines how biographies gave birth not only to these new cultural heroes but also to an enduring cash cow that has since thrived in all economies. |
Contents
Rogues and Gentlemen THE ANCIENTS AND MODERNS TAKE THE STAGE | |
MATTHEW COPPINGER AND JOSEPH HAYNS | |
THOMAS BETTERTON | |
CONTAINING THE CONTRADICTORY ACTOR | |
Three Stories of Celebrity The Beggars Opera BIOGRAPHIES | |
The Life of Lavinia Beswick Alias Fenton Alias Polly Peachum | |
Memoirs concerning the Life and Manners of Captain Mackheath | |
The Life of Mr James Spiller the Late Famous Comedian | |
CIBBER AUTHORSHIP AND PRINT CONTROVERSY | |
CIBBER AND THEATER HISTORY | |
Inherited Authority IN THE SHADOW OF COLLEY CIBBER | |
THEOPHILUS CIBBER AND HIS ANXIETY OF INFLUENCE | |
THE USES OF NOVELS | |
BEYOND CIBBER | |
Parable of the Talents THE ECONOMICS OF ACTING AUTHORITY | |
THE VALUE OF PLAYERS | |
THE INFLUENCE OF The Beggars Opera BIOGRAPHIES | |
The EighteenthCentury Actress and the Construction of Gender LAVINIA FENTON AND CHARLOTTE CHARKE | |
The Life of Lavinia Fenton | |
A Narrative of the Life of Mrs Charlotte Charke | |
THE TEXTUAL AND ACTUAL ACTRESS | |
Dissecting the Actors Authority BARTON BOOTHS FINAL ACT | |
THE SOURCE OF THE CASE OF MR BOOTH | |
BOOTHS BODY IN BIOGRAPHY | |
ACTORS AND QUACKS | |
Actor v Author COLLEY CIBBERS CHALLENGE TO LITERARY AUTHORITY | |
CIBBER AND CONTROL OF THE STAGE AND TEXT | |
Common terms and phrases
acting actor actress Akerby ancients Ann Oldfield anonymous Apology appear audience authority autobiography autopsy Barton Booth Beggar's Opera Bellamy biogra Biographical Dictionary career celebrity century chapter character Charke's Charlotte Charke claims classical Colley Cibber Comedian contemporary Coppinger criminal criticism cultural Curll David Garrick Davies Davies's death dramatic Drury Lane Edmund Curll eighteenth eighteenth-century English fame father future page references genre George Anne Bellamy Gildon Hayns Hayns's heroes John Johnson Laureat Lavinia Fenton literary lives London male manager Memoirs mercury modern moral Murphy Murphy's narrative narrator notes Oldfield performers person play players poet Polly Peachum popular published quacks readers references parenthetically rogue role Roscius satire Sexual Suspects shows social spectators Spiller stage Straub talent texts textual theater theatrical Theophilus Cibber Theophilus's thespian biographies Thomas Betterton tion traditional Tristram Shandy University Press Victor woman women Wrighten writers