William Godwin and the Theatre

---

David O'Shaughnessy

The Enlightenment World

William Godwin is one of the most important figures of the Romantic period. Interest in his life and works has grown in recent years, as has a concurrent interest in the theatre of the time. Godwin wrote four plays at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries: St Dunstan (1790), Antonio; or, The Soldier’s Return (1800), Abbas, King of Persia (1801) and Faulkener (1807).

This book has two main objectives, the first being to provide the first comprehensive discussion of these four plays, situating them in their historical and political context, giving their publication and performance history where relevant and examining their relationship with Godwin's better-known novels. The second, broader aim is to consider the notion of theatricality in relation to Godwin’s political project. The theatrical culture of Britain in the 1790s was intrinsically linked to the political climate of the day, and Godwin’s writing was affected by this to the degree that his plays, novels and philosophical writings can be seen as part of a continuous train of thought. In drama he saw possibilities for the dissemination of political justice unmatched by any other means of literary expression. This book shows that any assessment of Godwin's political or literary legacy should now acknowledge the importance of his sustained commitment to drama.

Sample pages

• William Godwin and the Theatre: Introduction
• William Godwin and the Theatre: Index

Readership

History of the Theatre, Literature, Politics and Romanticism

Contents

Introduction: 'A Head Full of Plays and Novels'
1 Godwin and London's Theatrical World
2 'The Link between the Literary Class of Mankind and the Uninstructed': St Dunstan and Caleb Williams
3 'Applause Hitherto Would be Impertinent': Spectacle and Anti-Spectacle in Antonio and St Leon
4 Conversation and Spectacle in Abbas, Faulkner and Fleetwood
Conclusion

Reviews

'... this is an accurate, even moving, and deeply productive vision of Godwin that compels from slight to massive revisions of the ways that scholars have come to view him ... Published together, The Plays of William Godwin and William Godwin and the Theatre provide readers the opportunity to make their own assessments of the merits of the content of either volume because they give us physical and interpretive access to Godwin’s plays for the first time. For Godwin studies and Romantic-era theatre studies, these books are epoch-making.'
– Julie A Carlson, The Wordsworth Circle

Related titles

• Charlotte Smith in British Romanticism
• Dialogue, Didacticism and the Genres of Dispute: Literary Dialogues in the Age of Revolution
• Harlequin Empire: Race, Ethnicity and the Drama of the Popular Enlightenment
• John Thelwall: Radical Romantic and Acquitted Felon
• The Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin
• The Novels and Selected Plays of Thomas Holcroft
• The Plays of William Godwin

Return to top

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•