The Victorian Actress in the Novel and on the Stage (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture)

Examines representations of the actress in Victorian novels and theatresTraces the actress as a figure in social and literary struggles, and examines the interrelations between these fields as they informed each otherTraces a genealogy of Victorian cultural attitudes toward actresses that culminated in the centrality of the theater and actresses in the early-twentieth-century women's suffrage movementRedresses Victorian theater's neglect in literary study, treating the theater not only as a figure in the Victorian imagination, but also as an active participant in the literary culture of its timeProvides new analyses of the melodramatic and realistic mechanisms through which Victorian novels and theater established authenticity and sympathyThis book analyses how Victorian novels and plays used the actress, a significant figure for the relationship between women and the public sphere, to define their own place within and among genres and in relation to audiences. Providing new understandings of how the novel and theatre developed, Miller explores how their representations shaped the position of the actress in Victorian culture with regard to her authenticity, her ability to foster sympathetic bonds, and her relationships to social class and the domestic sphere. The book traces how this cultural history led actresses to appropriate the pen themselves by becoming suffragette playwrights, thereby writing new social roles for women "This book analyses how Victorian novels and plays used the actress, a significant figure for the relationship between women and the public sphere, to define their own place within and among genres and in relation to audiences. Providing new understandings of how the novel and theatre developed, Miller explores how their representations shaped the position of the actress in Victorian culture with regard to her authenticity, her ability to foster sympathetic bonds, and her relationships to social class and the domestic sphere. The book traces how this cultural history led actresses to appropriate the pen themselves by becoming suffragette playwrights, thereby writing new social roles for women."--Page 4 of cover List of Figures 7 Series Editor’s Preface 8 Acknowledgements 10 A Note on the Cover 13 Introduction: Setting the Stage – Views of Victorian Theatre 16 Chapter 1 An Actress’s Tears: Authenticity and the Reassertion of Social Class 51 Chapter 2 The Actress at Home: Domesticity, Respectability and the Disruption of Class Hierarchies 87 Chapter 3 The Actress and Her Audience: Performance, Authorship and the Exceptional Woman in George Eliot 121 Chapter 4 Novelistic Naturalism: ‘The Ideal Mother Cannot Be the Great Artist’ 161 Chapter 5 From Playing Parts to Rewriting Roles: Actresses and the Political Stage 188 Epilogue 241 Bibliography 244 Index 257 A fresh perspective on the history of the radical left in inter-war Scotland