Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

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It has been suggest ed that one of the leading topics of
art-criticism in the eight e en-eighties was the relationship
between "literary" and more abstract values, and that a further
problem, arising from the first, was that of "finish" - the
importance and nature of detail in painting. In this chapter
it is proposed to examine the similar debate in theatrical
criticism of the period - a debate as to the relative importance
of literary and pictorial values. in stage plays and their
presentation.
The prevailing mood amongst literary men was pessimistic
- A.W.vvard's -article on Drama in the ninth edition of The
Encyclopedia Britannic Q is representative:
The history of the English stage in the present
century has been one of gradual decline and decay,
not (especially at the present day) without
prospects of recovery, of which a praiseworthy
hopefulness is ever willing to make the most.-,
Agninct this must be set the "praiseworthy l:opefulnoss" of
some individuals, notably Henry Irving, whoso public pronouncements
represent the contempoary stago as an achievement of
Victorian democracy:
The genuine opreacl of education, the incrorced
community of taste between classes, and the
almost absolute divorce of the stage from
mere wealth and aristocracy... It is now the
property of educated 'eople. It has to
satisfy them or pine in neglect.
This is a manager's optimiom - indeed an actor'o or>timio.:i -
and it was through such managers that Vac author had to roach
his public. Various alternatives were eourjht to the conditiono
of the fashionable, commercial theatre, but in the chapters that
follow it is the .vork of the reformists i;hat is examined, rather
than that of the revolutionists.
i. Tiio author and the, theatre.
In one reopect the ; ut:.or*G lot had improved since the i::i-Mle
of the century: he v/as bettor paid. George Au ;-uctus Sala and
hie brother Chcries, dissatisfied with their pocition under
Charles .lean's raanaco^ent of tlio Princecs's, toolc thoir service