Shakespeare, time and the Victorians
Subtitle: a pictorial exploration
By: Stuart Sillars
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9780521509695
Subjects: Influence; Criticism and interpretation; Time in literature; LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; History
Description: "Time and the visual sense were two essential preoccupations of the Victorians, and both were central to their presentations of Shakespeare's plays. In this extensive new study, Stuart Sillars examines multiple facets of this complex relationship. The desire for authenticity in production, in the work of Charles Kean and his followers, leads to elaborate sets that define and direct the performances' movement through time. Visual artists of all kinds fracture and extend the plays' movements, the Pre-Raphaelites through new techniques and approaches, illustrators through new forms of engraving and printing, and photographers through the emerging forms of the medium. The book also considers the multiple forms in which performances were recorded and re-created visually, and absorbed into the memories of their viewers. With many previously unpublished images, it draws together multiple fields to offer a new perspective on one of the most productive and various periods of Shakespeare activity"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: 1. History, theatre and Shakespeare; 2. Dress, attribute and image; 3. Pre-Raphaelite Meridian; 4. Charles Kean, staging and time; 5. Memorialising performance; 6. Ars et Veritas: photography and the Victorian stage; 7. Fragmentation, excision and dispersal; 8. Painting beyond Pre-Raphaelitism; 9. Later stagings and the debate with painting; 10. Encounters and memories; Select bibliography.