Fun with Farquhar, indeed.

The Beaux' Stratagem: A Play Guide

Should anyone be interested in taking a look, it is available for viewing. Finished? No. But part of the beauty of it rests in that very fact. Will be updating it until leaving for the presentation Tuesday (as much as other papers allow, hrm), and intend to keep working at it well beyond that time. So much more to be put together and set onto the site, including a glossary, framing material and articles of my own, a smattering of images, as many quotes as I possibly can collect... and so on, and so forth.

At the very least, the framework and idea of it can be seen. I think. I hope.

Suppose we shall see.

"But here's the point to get."

This as a bit of a tag-along to my previous post... We're moving to America of the late-1930s, a vastly different work, but thoughts on educating girls to more or less wake up to themselves brought Eugene O'Neill's Iceman Cometh to mind time and again, and though I might throw a bit of it out here, just for thought.

Through much of the play, itinerant salesman and all-around jolly guy Hickey prods his fellow barflies to wake up to themselves, to confess their shortcomings and let go of their pipe dreams, the unrealizable ideals that protect them from fully facing life's harsh truths. Meanwhile, his fellows shift uncomfortably between adoration of the Hickey they've long known--that is, the Hickey ever-willing to foster their delusions--and resentment toward the Hickey who now threatens them with the truth.

During the play's second act, Hickey attempts to explain his actions to the bar's denizens, protesting that this tearing away of delusions is for their own good:

But here's the point to get. I swear I'd never act like I have if I wasn't absolutely sure it will be worth it to you in the end, after you're rid of the damned guilt that makes you lie to yourselves you're something you're not, and the remorse that nags at you and makes you hide behind lousy pipe dreams about tomorrow. You'll be in a today where there is no yesterday or tomorrow to worry about. You won't give a damn what you are any more. I wouldn't say this unless I know, Brothers and Sisters. This peace is real! It's a fact! (p. 129)

Point being, so far as the post regarding Fielding's Governess is concerned, that realization of one's own faults seems to be linked to happiness, even to a sort of freedom. Only once delusions have been broken can life carry on... Or so Fielding seems in some ways to imply, and so Hickey here suggests.

Yet The Iceman Cometh has much to say beyond this point, and the matter of life beyond delusion is, well, a bit tricky. Whether the promoted peace is real, whether Hickey's mission of truth-telling proves effective... Well. We've not time to get into that, now, but we might note that there are a few pitfalls, and the recognition of one's shortcomings is no guaranteed path toward an improved life.

Again, a bit (a lot of a bit) of a leap from Fielding, but it was on the mind, so there you have it. Hickey's education methods... They are perhaps not so effective (or are perhaps too terribly effective, hrm).

Oh, and should anyone be at all interested in watching the scene noted above, check out this clip from the 1960 recording of the play, directed by Sidney Lumet. (Honestly, do; it's well worth the look.)

Note: The quotation cited is from the 2006 Yale Nota Bene publication of The Iceman Cometh.

The problem? Oh, hey, it's you. (And you, and you...)

As seen in The Governess, education prompts the development of self-awareness, a waking up to one’s own shortcomings and faulty tendencies. It is not enough that the students be shown or told of their faults; they must own them for themselves, must spill confessions and face the shame of these shortcomings. The recognition is a painful one, but a necessary step in finding happiness and in becoming part of an ordered society.

As the model student, Jenny Peace helps push her fellows into this self-recognition. After the apple-grabbing incident, Jenny determines to restore peace among the girls and enable them to “be happy” (54). In order to “persuade […] her School-fellows to be reconciled to each with Sincerity and Love” (57), Jenny must first reconcile each girl to herself. That is, rather than point out the admirable traits in other girls and simply suggest that each girl ought to adore her fellows, Jenny must locate and reveal each girl’s own faults. In each girl, some hostile habit rests deeply rooted, causing dissatisfaction with the self and others alike while distorting each girl’s view of the world and sense of how to live in it. So long as this habit of thought remains, the girls can never open up to others or see their worth. In approaching her task, then, Jenny reaches to uncover this root problem. She undertakes individual conversations in order to best guide each student, searching out their mistaken impressions of the world. It is only by helping to change each girl from within that she is able to urge an atmosphere of earnest harmony. And it is with this aim that she sets out to reform the girls “one by one” (57).

Her first quarry comes in the form of Sukey Jennett, and with this encounter, we see the basic method—the “Same manner” (57)—that Jenny will apparently use with each girl. During the course of her exchange with Sukey, Jenny constructs a careful argument of truths in which she notes that Sukey has received only pain from arguing, and rightly guesses that Sukey’s contention has led the girl to many a sleepless night. When Jenny suggests that Sukey wishes “to be revenged on” (55) her schoolmates for petty reasons, Sukey herself confesses, “if I could but hurt my Enemies, without being hurt myself, it would be the greatest Pleasure I could have in the World” (55). A startling admission, and Sukey herself soon comes to see it as such.

Indeed, when Jenny leaves Sukey to think on what has passed, the girl realizes “how much hitherto she had been in the Wrong; and that Thought st[ings] her to the Heart” (56). Sukey confesses alone and aloud,

But […] have I been always in the Wrong all my Life-time? for I always quarrelled and hated every one who had offended me.—Oh! I cannot bear that Thought! It is enough to make me mad! when I imagine myself so wise and so sensible, to find out that I have been always a Fool. (57)

The truth wavers on the verge of realization, but it is a hard admission Sukey faces. To truly confess her wrong (and there would be little good in a false admission) she must in a sense re-envision herself and tear away long-held assumptions of ways to act in the world. On her own Sukey (as is the case with so many of the girls) had been a sort of sovereign, secure in her assumptions, never truly tested and thus able to find herself in the right at all times. Yet coming into the world—or in this case, the school—she must revise her thoughts to suit a bigger picture, for what may seem beneficial to the self often clashes with the world. This recasting of the self proves a painful process, a fall of cherished sovereignty and a humbling that may seem enough to make anyone mad.

However difficult the change, Sukey comes around to an abashed, if somewhat mute, acknowledgement, meeting Jenny and “stammer[ing] out some Words, which impl[y] a Confession of her Fault” (57). If not the most assertive of admissions, it seems an earnest one, for the school is soon brought to a harmony that “surprise[s]” Miss Teachum with evidence of “their inward good Humour” (67-8). And indeed, there will be no more quarrels, and the girls will rest easy in one another’s company, creating a peace and awareness most useful for the purposes of education.

WORK CITED

Fielding, Sarah. The Governess. Ed. Candace Ward. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2005.

Everybody's adapting...

In lieu of an, eh, actual blog post, and in light of recent (and not-so-recent) discussions regarding authorship and appropriation, thought I might share a brief bit regarding The Beaux' Stratagem, discovered whilst poking at the production history.

Turns out that perhaps the most recent, larger-scale U.S. production of Stratagem came in 2006, under the direction of Michael Kahn with D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre Company. The trick here? The text used was, well, something of an adaptation of an adaptation, or perhaps an adaptation with contributions by two authors separated by half a century.

...Eh?

During the late 1930s, Thornton Wilder (yes, the Wilder of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth) apparently set to adapting Farquhar's play. He didn't finish the project, however, and Ken Ludwig (think Lend Me a Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo) picked it up in 2004, gave the play a final presumed polish, and there the newly revised Beaux' Stratagem stood, ready to hit the stage (or, at least, to head into the production process).

And consider the following quote (taken from an interview with Lincoln Konkle) from Ludwig on considering Wilder's unfinished adaptation of Farquhar's play: 

"I imagine that Wilder must have said to himself something like this: 'Here is a great piece of theatre with really remarkable comic exuberance and unusually wonderful characters, and it goes unperformed for decades at a time because it’s too long, too dense, and has too many complicated sub-plots. So why don’t I shake things up a bit? I’ll keep the exuberant story-line, the major characters and the great speeches, and I’ll cut out all the boring bits. And to make up for the cuts, I’ll add some new plot twists and write some new scenes. Then, perhaps, I can restore this play to the glory it deserves...'"

Wilder through the eyes of Ludwig, getting at Farquhar. Makes the head spin a bit, non?

And so arise the questions. Is this a matter of "restoring the play," or something more like creating a new work? Picking, choosing, and remolding can very quickly blur a work's (dare we say original... or perhaps simply earlier) identity. Where indeed is the original or are the originals here, and who may lay claim to creative talent? Having undergone the treatment of three separate playwrights (noting again that the writers were separated by decades or even centuries, so that none were in, eh, lively conversation), having been altered to suit more modern sensibilities and clear up supposed clutter, to whom does this new Stratagem belong? At what point does it become more Wilder and/or Ludwig's than Farquhar's? What does this shifted authorship mean? And, at bottom, does this matter of the author matter overmuch?

Whatever the answers, here we have another piece of print passed about, marked up and marked over, remade at the whim of whichever author happens to hold the pen. Seems rather a likely fate for an 18th-century work, given the many freely circulated and re-worked pages (shall we briefly return to Pamela and friends?).

At any rate. Check out The Shakespeare Theatre Company's show site for further information regarding the adaptation, and about Farquhar himself. A couple of theatre reviews will offer outside impressions of the adaptation. And if you'd like a glimpse for yourself, Google Books offers a preview of the adapted script.

Oh, those unities, crampin' our style...

In his “Conjectures on Original Composition,” Edward Young suggests that the most brilliant of authors must flaunt rules in order to create original works. “All eminence, and distinction, lies out of the beaten road; excursion, and deviation, are necessary to find it” (341), as he puts it…. Which is not to say that all antiquity is to be tossed aside, but to prompt authors to look beyond old prescriptions, to trust in their own abilities and ideas, “For by the bounty of nature we are as strong as our predecessors” (Young 341). Rules might prove “like crutches […] a needful aim to the lame” (342), but their “rigid bounds” (341) must be broken if authors are to find “that liberty, to which genius often owes its supreme glory” (341). It is only with room to roam and liberty to explore that the author may create an original piece.

This matter of long-held forms arose in the realm (yes, it was a veritable realm) of the theatre as artists ran headlong into the omnipresent matter of those pesky unities. Passed down by Aristotle, restrains of time, place, and action stamped their assertion and demanded adherence. French neoclassicists had fairly thoroughly embraced the unities—or what they held to be close enough to the unities—and the mania had bled its way onto the English stage. These were the rules, these were the ancient rules, and surely, they must hold.

To hold up for a moment, I ought to note that this is itself a bit of an exaggeration, though perhaps not too much of one. Time, place, and action could be and were churned through a variety of definitions, some looser than others; as Eric Rothstein points out in his study of Farquhar, even those—English and French alike—who supported the rules were ready to bend them. Yet if the standards weren’t always exact, they certainly loomed in existence, to be grappled with in plays and pieces of dramatic criticism (or what may now be shuffled under the heading “dramatic criticism”).

Fun with Farquhar: Final project proposal.

As suggested, I'm posting the final project proposal, just to give an idea of my current direction (and perhaps indicate in advance why it is that Farquhar'll likely be cropping up in further blog entries). So, here goes.

Project Proposal: A digital play guide for George Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem.

For my final project, I intend to create a digital play guide (it might also be considered a dramaturgical resource or study guide) for George Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem. In no small part, I am modeling this off of dramaturgical sites that I have come across or for which I have helped to create material (see below for examples). The site will include written pieces as well as images, excerpts, and links. My hope is that it might serve as an informative resource, along with a jumping-off point for further research and thought, for theatrical endeavors (such sources as a comprehensive production guide could certainly save some time and headaches), educational purposes, or for any particularly curious readers of the play. I have chosen The Beaux’ Stratagem because it seems a likely candidate for production and general study, and because it seems (unlike, say, She Stoops to Conquer) to lack such a resource.

The guide will eventually include the following sections (noting that the categories and contents might change somewhat as I accumulate and sift through information):

• The Play. A synopsis, setting information, a character list or guide, and quotes from the play. Links to (and any possible information on) available editions, whether purchasable or found through such sources as Google books.
• About the Author. A biography, perhaps some quotes from Farquhar’s other works.
• Historical Context. Any background related to the play and its setting that might help to illuminate pieces of the play. Might include anything from a glance at 18th-century Lichfield to a piece on 18th-century society or etiquette to images of the articles of clothing mentioned in the play. Hopefully including images and links galore, along with any miscellaneous observations, articles, and outlining pieces.
• Glossary. Information on terms, names, and places encountered in the play. If possible, terms used on the site (say, in “Historical Context”) will link to the glossary for quick clarification.
• Production History: A list of past productions and adaptations, to be fleshed out with any useful information or bits of miscellany (would like to include, for instance, any references to the plays found in diaries, any available playbills, etc.) and links to reviews (this particularly for more recent productions).
• Resources: Links, books, articles, films… Anything used in creating the site, and anything that might branch off into further study. As comprehensive as is useful, and annotated to whatever extent is possible.

This will, I believe, be something of a continual work-in-progress; I hope to update it as I find further information, and as theatres mount productions of the piece (that is, I would at least intend to update the production history).

For a couple of examples of the sort of resource I have in mind, see The Importance of Being Earnest (among others) at CENTERSTAGE (should say that I did contribute to and help [to some extent or another] plan those, so that general layout and such may be kept in mind while proceeding with this project) and She Stoops to Conquer at the McCarter Theatre. (The Guthrie's play guides also tend to serve as quite useful resources. Uploaded pdfs more than interactive websites, but often quite a bit of information included.)

As I've been vaguely hoping to create something of this sort for a little while, now (though the thought-focus had been more along the lines of, oh, O'Neill's Iceman Cometh, which may become a further project), I'm quite excited to play around with this and see what may come. So, hey, onward to the world of Farquhar, and all.

Fielding and his title pages...

For a further sample of Fielding's mad spoofing abilities, check out the title page for his 1736 play, Tumble-Down Dick:

More perhaps to be added on the particulars later; for the moment, simply wanted to set it out there.

Of a gentleman's tale, which does shew theatre in a most lamentable light.

In the third book of Joseph Andrews, we hear the tale of Wilson, a “Gentleman” who began a well-born lad, slid into rakedom’s moral decay and invariable poverty, and was at last saved by a generous wife and a home away from the world. In part, this tale of decline traces Wilson’s association with the theatre, painting a none-too-favorable picture of an industry well-known to Fielding. Here, I’d like to poke at Fielding’s presentation of the theatre in the tale and consider a few of the questions raised.

At a glance, Wilson seems to have first turned to theatre as one means of attaining the “Knowledge of the Town” (176) presumed necessary in his rather ruinous formula for becoming “a fine Gentleman” (176). Living it up in London, he attended performances at Drury Lane and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, then frequented Covent Garden and enjoyed fleshly pleasures while casting judgment upon plays. After falling out with a mistress, Wilson once more “became a great Frequenter of the Play-houses” (185) and drew closer still to the theatre by making the acquaintance of “[s]ome of the Players” (185). Finally, harried by debt, he wrote and unsuccessfully submitted a play of his own, only to earn the scorn of businessmen suspicious of poets and plunge deeper into dissipation.

Not so much a complimentary reflection of the theatre, of its audiences or its authors.

A little bit of print-fratching.

Apparently, the more, eh, substantial post for this week didn't want to sort itself out. However. I did want to share this; part of the somewhat epic print battle between Richardson and bookseller Richard Chandler over the continuation-to-be of Pamela and John Kelly's Pamela's Conduct (as mentioned in last week's report, yes).

For a bit of a rehash, basic story being that after the first two volumes Richardson wasn't keen on taking Pamela any further. Kelly and Chandler (among others, though they created the more irksome pain for Richardson), however, saw and grasped the opportunity for continuing the tale of the virtuous Pamela. Appearing to be a, shall we say, legitimate continuation of Pamela, Pamela's Conduct threatened to overthrow Richardson's authority and to bend her story and any of its purported morals to Kelly's liking. As Pamela's Conduct showed signs of staying power, Richardson decided to jump into the ring and whip out a continuation of his own. And as both sides competed for terms of authority, Richardson and Chandler flung accusations back and forth via the wonder of the print.

Thus, this clipping, captioned by Thomas Keymer and Peter Sabor, "The advertising war between Richardson and Chandler, London Evening-Post, 23-5 June 1741."(Click to enlarge, thank yeh.)

And the image itself, as well as the general sense of the account given, have been taken from Keymer and Sabor's Pamela in the Marketplace (see the post linked above for a more complete citation).



(All of this in lieu of an, eh, actual or more substantial post for this week, as that apparently didn't work out quite so well as might have been hoped.)

Pamela in the Marketplace: or, The Multimedia Adventures of a Sawcy Wench (book report)

[note: Yes, I do intend to go back and add italics... soon as time allows.]

Keymer, Thomas and Peter Sabor. Pamela in the Marketplace: Literary Controversy and Print Culture in Eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

In Pamela in the Marketplace: Literary Controversy and Print Culture in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland, Thomas Keymer and Peter Sabor explore the burgeoning 18th-century media culture, a whirl of print, pictures, and theatre in which developing medium and genres offered sweeping possibilities for the production and adaptation of any story. To investigate this complex culture, Keymer and Sabor utilize a dizzying wealth of resources in exploring the craze and controversy that developed around Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. They face the Pamela event largely “as a market phenomenon: as a product, agent, and uniquely visible trace of the new consumer culture” (15), all the while filling in gaps of Pamela scholarship and provoking enticing questions.

Through their study, Keymer and Sabor create a vast and intricate web of relationships in which many of the players in the Pamela controversy knew one another and fed off of each others’ works. Keymer and Sabor use these connections to reveal echoes—similar themes and twists on storylines—that resonate through the web of Pamela manifestations. Meanwhile, rather than focusing on Richardson or such prominent works as Henry Fielding’s Shamela, Keymer and Sabor emphasize figures and works obscured by history, those long-forgotten pieces that helped propel Pamela to its lasting position of fame (or, if you like, infamy).

Pamela in the Marketplace does fall somewhat short where Keymer and Sabor overstretch their attempts to draw connections, stumbling over an excess of tangled associations or faltering in links based on weak speculations. Then, too, the book occasionally veers from its main drive in giving excessive attention to biographies that trail far from Pamela, creating interesting but ultimately distracting sidetracks. And occasionally, Keymer and Sabor skip perhaps too quickly from one subject to the next, planting possible conclusions but declining to develop these.

Still, the book’s virtues far outweigh its faults, and Pamela in the Marketplace offers a thorough introduction to both the Pamela craze and the culture in which it thrived. The study itself is divided into six chapters, with an introduction and an afterword. In the introduction, Keymer and Sabor sketch the extent of Pamela’s influence, rehash recent scholarly approaches to Richardson’s work, and lay the groundwork for their own study of the novel’s reception (17), which moves from page to stage to images to Ireland.

Pamela, Pamela, everywhere...

More details to be added when I'm not working at the report, but thought I might share a few links. Whilst reading Thomas Keymer and Peter Sabor's Pamela in the Marketplace, I've been intrigued by a number of the responses culled by Richardson's novel.

So. To share a few of the written responses.

Pamela Censured

Pamela's Conduct in High Life, John Kelly

The Virgin in Eden, Charles Povey

The True Anti-Pamela: or, Memoirs of James Parry, James Parry

And for a couple of image-based sites. The first offers images from Richardson's octavo (believe Joan linked to this in her blog), while the second offers illustrations created for editions beyond Richardson's own.

Just a bit to glance through, should you be interested. All fortune permitting, I'll be adding to this post... But either way, hey, look what one little Pamela can yield....

Oh brave new world, that has such Wretches in't!

And here cometh Pamela, in all her unparalleled virtue. Pamela who has the strength to overcome all. Pamela who remains constant in her devotion to her honor. Pamela, who seems to float above the world—

Well, in a way. Maybe. Because while she begins the novel on almost a cloud of her own, fully trusting and blinded to the harder realities before her eyes, Pamela is eventually forced to recognize the world and its wickedness. And as soon as she has seen the world’s uglier face, she must reorder her notions of innocence and change tactics in order to safeguard her virtue.

Through the opening sections of the novel, Pamela appears naïve indeed, unable to think ill of the world. In a vague sense she almost resembles The Tempest’s Miranda (this is not to claim any direct link between the two, but there seems an interesting connection in their seeming purity and confrontation with humanity; not overwhelming, but something that came to mind). Consider Miranda’s response upon first seeing the gaggle of treacherous men who have—courtesy of her truly not-so-sainted father—been wrecked and washed ashore. Having lived long from the sight of men, Miranda is awed by their appearance: “How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! Oh, brave new world / That has such people in it!” (5.1.184-6) After what we have seen and heard throughout the play—the tale of Prospero’s exile, Sebastian and Antonio’s plot to murder the king, and so forth—this impression may strike as rather misplaced. But Miranda has known nothing beyond the island and her father’s close care. She (and perhaps, to some extent, Ferdinand) is an innocent voice among those sullied by experience.

So too Pamela, when we first encounter her voice. Having for so long believed in virtue alone, protected by her parents and then by her kind Lady, she cannot initially (or even for quite some time) recognize vice or ill-intent, thinking the best of all people and situations. Thus, through the early sections of the novel, Pamela speaks in a voice blithe as Miranda’s, her mind shedding a positive light on all actions, her trust ever-strong. (As a side note, while we’re talking about over-trusting characters, we might just give a nod back to Oroonoko….)

Playwrights selling plays? Well, whoa, there.

With such talk of (er, reading related to) the 18th-century print industry and its increasing mass of paper-paper-PAPER, I’ve been drawn toward a bit of poking around at the publication of play scripts during the 18th Century. How did scripts fit into this flurry of available works? How were scripts presented to the public, in what fashion offered and to what presumed purpose? How closely were the scripts tied to the theatres that presented the original production, and how closely to the authors? While all of these questions continue to roil and multiply in mind, it is toward the last-mentioned—that of scripts and authors—that I now turn.

A look into Paulina Kewes’s Authorship and Appropriation: Writing for the Stage in England, 1660-1710* offered some intriguing matter for mulling. Kewes discourses at length on the matter of originality** in theatrical writing, particularly as it played into consideration during the 17th and 18th Centuries. As a part of this, Kewes draws attention to the playwright’s role, suggesting that playwrights rose toward greater prominence—or perhaps independence—as they received the power to sell their own scripts to publishers. Prior to the Restoration, theatre companies had held tight reins on and rights to the scripts of their productions (ownership being thus identified with performance, with those who used the script rather than the one who composed it). And as Kewes notes, “[c]ompanies tended to withhold their scripts from the press, especially the most popular ones” (20); whatever the author might have wished, a script could easily be denied distribution, never to see the light of day or reach the hands of public readers.

On influences (ancient or otherwise)

Last week’s confrontation with Swift’s Battle of the Books (maybe less a confrontation, more an entertainingly provocative encounter) left impressions from that most bitter battle of ancients versus moderns, of whether classical authors ought to be read and praised or tossed to the wayside. The modern mania (whether speaking of Swift’s case or a more recent modern) for distancing a supposed genius from his influences seems to aim toward a superlative being, a man who can stand completely free from the world. A pleasant thought, perhaps (if a lonely one, and I’ll refrain from going on an East of Eden sidetrack), but how likely a possibility? What of the implications beyond the ancients’ influence, or beyond literature? What does it mean to stand so apart? Questions upon questions, as ever, all buzzing in the brain.

The debate returned to mind whilst reading selections from The Spectator in which Addison apparently fall quite soundly on the side of the ancients. Addison’s talk of imagination, among other topics, appears to suggest that all authors attend to the same general themes or stories—the “same Thought[s]” (384)—that are “cloathed in” or interpreted through “the Specifick Qualities of the Author” (384). Addison seems to indicate that these qualities may be observed by noting in any author “the several Ways of thinking and expressing himself, which diversify him from all other Authors, with the several Foreign Infusions of Thought and Language, and the particular Authors from whom they were borrowed” (383). In creating a fictional work, then, an author pulls from three sources: first, a sort of universal theme or sentiment; second, his own particular inclinations and ideas; and third, a collection of outside influences from which he might—guided by his own tastes—draw anything from ideas to form. Through these sources, he crafts thoughts and words into a work of his own.

As suggested above, while individual viewpoints are essential and separate one author from another, adept writers must look outside of themselves and admit influences, thereby enhance their own works. For Addison, these influences extend beyond past masters; the writer is daily influenced by all that he sees and hears, even while influencing those around him. Hence Addison’s note on engaging in conversation with others: “Every Man […] forms several Reflections that are peculiar to his own manner of Thinking; so that Conversation will naturally furnish us with Hints which we did not attend to” (385). Outside views open unexpected avenues of thought, from which a writer might craft further reflections of his own. In a sense, writing comes out of (and may become part of) a social dialogue, an exchange of ideas.

Addison and Steele play nice in sharing information.

Coming to a blog, er, right here and now, actually, we’ve got some thoughts after reading further selections from The Tatler and The Spectator, informed as well by the collection’s introductory material. At present, I’d like to consider Addison and Steele’s awareness of their readership, of a growing wealthy merchant group that sought guidance in finding a common identity and set of societal rules. In The Tatler and The Spectator, Addison and Steele offer a helping hand and a prescription for culture while ever companionably acknowledging their readers.

Writing under the guises of Mr. Bickerstaff in The Tatler and Mr. Spectator in The Spectator, Addison and Steele (along with their cohorts) do not assume the full interest of readers, but seek to cultivate it. From the start, they seem up front with their readers, laying out their purposes and aims—the general idea being, as Steele puts in The Tatler’s initial dedication, “to expose the false Arts of Life … and to recommend a general Simplicity in our Dress, our Discourse, and our Behaviour” (47). And in The Tatler, Steele promptly outlines exactly what will be found in the publication and how readers might navigate and use the content. From the start, then, he provides a strong but amiable sort of guiding hand, his attention geared ever-toward his presumed readers.

Addison and Steele also express a desire to tailor their publications to suit their readers, and claim to be indebted to their readership. A publication requires an eager public, and Addison and Steele are careful to make theirs feel a necessary part of the paper and its process, to emphasize their importance. Addison remarks in The Spectator, Number 10, “Since I have raised to my self so great an Audience, I shall spare no Pains to make their Instruction agreeable, and their Diversion useful” (88), and in Number 262 notes that the success of The Spectator, “does not perhaps reflect so much Honour upon my self, as on my Readers, who give a much greater Attention to Discourses of Virtue and Morality, than ever I expected, or indeed could hope” (98). In both—though the second might also be a bit of a backhanded compliment—Addison is careful to indicate a sense of obligation to the readership.

As with most other matters, Steele in The Tatler speaks frankly of the paper’s cost. Although the first issues of the paper were available gratis, Steele notes that he will soon be obliged to charge, explaining, “I cannot keep an Ingenious Man to go daily to Will’s, under Twopence each Day merely for his Charges; to White’s, under Sixpence; nor to the Graecian, without allowing some Plain Spanish, to be as able as others at the Learned Table; and that a good Observer cannot speak […] without clean Linnen” (50). In order to glean the talk of the town, in order to ferret out useful information for readers, observers found themselves darting among coffee-houses, and required some amount of money to participate properly in the discussions (for drinking in the congenial company of others, for instance, and so as not to appear slovenly). It seems, then, that information comes at a cost of both time and money. And so Steele and then Addison must charge a small fee for their printed word (or for words that may have been at least partially appropriated from others, snatched from the general discourse).

“a loathsome, infectious carcase, cloathed in an angelic garb”... That is, The Beggar’s Opera.

This week, we’re hitting up some 18th-century theatre with John Gay and The Beggar’s Opera, and I should like to dedicate a bit of space to examining the play’s reception. We have heard—would likely hear in any general introduction—that it was a popular piece. But what prompted this popularity? What drew viewers to The Beggar’s Opera? Was it sheer amusement, diverting songs, perhaps the biting satire? In considering such questions, I’ll be presenting bits of contemporary (or near-contemporary) accounts regarding the play, just to find some sense of what viewers desired, and what was perceived in The Beggar’s Opera.

Seems fair to begin by considering the tastes of the time. What manner of performances did people with money and time to indulge wish to attend, and what did they hope to find? Given the general taste for lavish and otherwise excessive display, attention may well have been given to more visual spectacles, to pleasing images rather than words and lessons. Indeed, Richard Steele noted in 1709 (writing in The Tatler) that ladder dances and other such “Buffooneries” (329) drew crowds more readily than plays. Steele lamented the fact that, “to please the People, [competing theatres] must entertain them with what they can understand, and not with Things which are designed to improve their Understanding” (330). Above all else, crowds sought unthinking diversion. Shows were to be enjoyed for entertainment rather than education; thought-provoking content (or even content that required just a bit of puzzling) seemed an unnecessary challenge, particularly when sheer spectacle could be found in the next theatre.

Aphra takes the stage? Wha-at?

As a sort of supplement to that last post....

After glancing at the dedicatory epistle in Oroonoko, I wanted to take a few moments to consider the authoress herself… Or, rather, a few recent perceptions of Ms. Behn. Certainly, she seems to’ve become quite the popular figure (“popular” being a relative term), a bastion of early feminine strength and achievement whose role as a spy adds a spice of intrigue. Ms. Behn has traveled a long route to reach her current status (the collection of reviews and references provided in the Norton edition help to land this point), tossed back and forth from designations of heralded authoress to shiftless wanton; for the time, at least, she seems largely to have landed on the positive side.

This passage through time’s shifting lenses is itself quite fascinating. But there is another thought. What with the Norton-provided excerpts of Thomas Southerne’s adaptation of Oroonoko, in-class references to the ways in which the 18th Century saw stories transferred or adapted into diverse forms, and recollections of a play I happened to read last year, my thoughts turned to pondering recent theatrical adaptations of Behn’s life. Because, yes, while her own work continues to see the light of production, the allure of her life has prompted playwrights and production teams to make attempts at reviving Aphra (whether conjuring some associated spirit or symbol, or attempting to recreate the woman herself) on the stage.

So, to the plays. I won’t begin to claim that this is an all-inclusive list, with all of its, oh, four (well, five) examples. This is simply the selection I’ve thus far found. If you happen to know of any other pieces, please do tell… I’m curious, here, and would like to see the range of representations Ms. Behn has earned herself. (The question of “ why translate Behn and her work into this particular form and tale” lurking with each of these.)

The plays, then.

Or, – Liz Duffy Adams: Following Aphra from debtor’s prison to bedroom trysts, from one man’s arms into another woman’s and one close call into the next, Or, seems a regular rollick of a play, and appears to be the most widely known play depicting Behn (it has, at the very least, earned the lion’s share of web space). Adams draws parallels between the 1660s and 1960s, noting in an interview with Adam Szymkowicz (check out his blog for a veritable slew of playwright interviews, by the by) that “the Restoration period was humming with a kind of aesthetic/ideology that reminded me of the late 1960s.” Think on that one, for a moment… Oh, and why Aphra? In the same interview, Adams suggests that she “thought it would be fun to write about” Behn, who “seems to have had a genius for reinventing the world around her instead of adapting herself to it.” The piece was first produced by Women's Project in late 2009 (check out a review from The New York Times).

“Aphra Does Antwerp” – Liz Duffy Adams: The fun doesn’t stop with Or,…. Actually, it appears that Adams’ fun began with “Aphra Does Antwerp” (yes, I do intend to dwell on the title, thank you). In an interview with Women’s Project, Adams notes that this ten-minute play “set just before the events of Or, when Aphra was stuck in Antwerp on a spying mission that was going badly.” Written and produced in 2001, for the Women’s Project’s Playwrights Lab.

The Empress of the Moon – Chris Braak: The most recently written of the pieces listed here, The Empress of the Moon was produced in August of 2010 by Special Operations Executive, connected with Iron Age Theatre. Accounts indicate that the play involves an attempt at melding Oroonoko (oh, hey!) and The Rover, and Braak (or someone posting under his names) describes the piece as, “a mythic, epic ride into an imagined history, flirting with facts at a discreet distance.” For further information, read a bit more from Braak at his blog or check out a couple of less-than-awestruck reviews.

Love Arm’d: Aphra Behn and her Pen – Karen Eterovich: It’s 1682, and Aphra Behn has a lover to discard and issues to confront. This one-woman show apparently provides a retrospective look at Behn’s life (told by the woman herself, of course), woven with fragments of Behn’s work, and was first produced in 1994. For further information, wander over to the production’s website or check out this brief review.

The Spirit of Aphra Behn – Illona Linthwaite: Another one-woman show. A modern-day actress is hijacked by Aphra Behn's spirit. Complications ensue for about an hour. First performed in 1999, at the Edinburgh Festival, the piece has since seen several further productions. If you should be curious, take a look at the actress/author’s website, on which Linthwaite indicates, “I decided to create a piece that weaved [Aphra’s] own words with those of the fictitious Isabel. In this way I felt sure that I was speaking directly from her mind and heart.”

Perhaps not all the most stimulating-sounding pieces (not even stimulating in the majority, one might say… though could be fun to do so some comparing and contrasting of scripts), but interesting to see the ways in which Ms. Behn has set to work on some more theatrically inclined imaginations. Adaptation, it appears, continues ever apace.

Aphra the author and her introductory epistle.

And so we’ve encountered Aphra Behn and Oroonoko. This being a time of introductions—to this blog, this course, the workings and wiles of the 18th Century—I thought I might begin by considering Behn’s dedicatory epistle to Lord Richard Maitland. A bit of reading on the 18th-century publishing industry had me thinking on the various sections of a book (that is, any physical book), of the material that might be encountered before reaching the actual story. Indeed, a reader’s eyes (and judgment) may well be first drawn to this additional material, this supplement to the novella that may compose an integral part of the book and even inform the story itself.

Behn certainly seems to anticipate critical eyes cast over her dedication, as suggested by the opening line: “[T]he world is grown so Nice and Critical upon Dedications, and will Needs be judging the Book, by the Wit of the Patron […] ” (5). Not only is Behn aware that readers may peruse this introductory material, but she also recognizes that they may devour or ditch the book according to its patron’s character, and perhaps to what they find in the dedication.* Thus, the dedication becomes an opportunity to address and reassure readers. Behn certainly uses the epistle to establish her patron as “a perfect pattern of all that accomplish a Great Man” (6).

Yet there seems to be more at work in this dedication than a simple recitation of Lord Maitland’s virtues (covering the stretch of three pages in the Norton edition, the epistle is no brief blip). What does Behn seem to reveal about herself here? A closer look at the dedication discloses hints of Behn’s own aims in penning the account of Oroonoko, suggesting why she should have chose to make the story widely known and offering some sense of her role as author.

Consider first the traits that Behn praises in her patron. Expecting that others will judge the book by its patron and that readers will thus heed descriptions of Lord Maitland’s character, Behn may select descriptions that illuminate her own concerns. After all, if she must give space to praising him, if she has her readers’ eyes, why should she not work simultaneously toward her own ends? What, then, does Behn highlight? She cites Maitland’s “Knowledge” (6), noting particularly that he uses his intellect for “the Publick Good,” that he “hoard[s] no one Perfection, but lay[s] it all out to the Glorious Service of [his] Religion and Country.” From there, she lauds a “Greatness of Mind, that ingages the World” and an “admirable Conduct, that so well Instructs” that world. Indeed, Behn repeatedly emphasizes Maitland’s stalwart dedication to sharing his wealth of knowledge with others. Rather than revel in a clutch of secrets, gloating over privileged information, he opens others to new thoughts and views of life.

Is this not what Behn herself does (or might do) with Oroonoko? Drawn from the depths of her mind—whether culled initially through experience, encounters with travel narratives, or imagination—she offers images of life far from England, changes in view that may well have prompted contemporary readers to peer through unaccustomed lenses. (Admittedly, Behn doesn’t stray too far from convention, doesn’t risk frightening readers away with utter strangeness. If she offered alternative views, they weren’t entirely alien. It may be that she required some familiar-seeming foundation on which to guide readers into the story’s more challenging elements.) And while there is much of glory and romance in her story, with impressions of beauty to enthrall the mind, there are also moments of jarring harshness. Behn does not shy from conjuring betrayal and thrice-wounded trust, murder forced by the bounds of slavery, and she suggests hard-edged questions and scenarios that may ask for uncomfortable reflection (on, say, the frailty of oaths and religion, the cost of human bondage). Thus may Oroonoko—in an ideal situation—both delight and teach.

For Behn, then, it seems that the role of the author is to engage the world and to share the fruits of thought and experience, to provide a story for public entertainment and education. Recording a story, the author “giv[es] the World” (36)** an extraordinary (and, one might hope, informative) gift.*** Once written, this gift has simply to be set to print and distributed to its growing body of eager readers (“simply” being a less-than-earnest term, here, but we’ll doubtless reach the fascinatingly messy business of printing soon enough).

And with that, looks as if we’ve reached an end (of this beginning? hrn).

*Here confessing that I know little of the manner in which dedications were typically encountered and treated, how often read, how seriously taken. It is a point I’ve pondered, and an area I intend to investigate.

**Found mid-way through the tale of Oroonoko, a slightly fuller glimpse of the line reads “giving the World this Great Man’s Life” (36). While this does represent the story as an offering to the public, there is a tricky twinge, for it also indicates that Behn is offering Oroonoko, himself. (Granted the difficulty of speaking of the life of a man who may not have existed as anything more than scattered scraps.) Once again, Oroonoko’s life seems taken beyond his hands. Hasn’t the man’s life been passed around enough already? And taking a step back, what happens when a human’s personality is wound into a character in a book? Who claims ownership of that personality? And then, who claims ownership of personality, in any case, to what extent do we own ourselves? And, oh dear, I’m going down another rabbit hole. In any case. Another something (or couple of somethings) to think on.

***I find it interesting that in all of this giving, in all of this praise of patron and her novella’s subject, Behn downplays her own prowess and places herself at the service of all. This is marked more strongly still at the beginning and end of Oroonoko, itself…. Again, a matter for further thought.

Text Used: Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko. Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Joanna Lipking. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.

For an on-line edition of Oroonoko, check out this link.

A quick "hullo" and an introduction.

To be coming. This, as all else, is a work in progress.

The short of it? Consider these the attempted musings of a graduate student. Thrills are sure to come.