The Cambridge Companion to English Melodrama

A lively and accessible account of the most popular form of nineteenth-century English theatre, and its continuing influence today.

Carolyn Williams (Edited by)

9781107479593, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 October 2018

330 pages, 13 b/w illus. 1 table
22.7 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.57 kg

This newly commissioned series of essays by leading scholars is the first volume to offer both an overview of the field and also current emerging critical views on the history, form, and influence of English melodrama. Authoritative voices provide an introduction to melodrama's early formal features such as tableaux and music, and trace the development of the genre in the nineteenth century through the texts and performances of its various sub-genres, the theatres within which the plays were performed, and the audiences who watched them. The historical contexts of melodrama are considered through essays on topics including contemporary politics, class, gender, race, and empire. And the extensive influences of melodrama are demonstrated through a wide-ranging assessment of its ongoing and sometimes unexpected expressions - in psychoanalysis, in other art forms (the novel, film, television, musical theatre), and in popular culture generally - from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century.

1. Introduction Carolyn Williams
Part I. Histories of English Melodrama: 2. Early English melodrama Matthew Buckley
3. Gothic melodrama Michael Gamer
4. Nautical melodrama Ankhi Mukherjee
5. Domestic melodrama Christine Gledhill
6. Theatres and their audiences Jim Davis
Part II. Melodramatic Technique: 7. Melodramatic music Michael V. Pisani
8. Melodramatic acting George Taylor
9. Stagecraft, spectacle, and sensation Hayley Jayne Bradley
Part III. Melodrama and Nineteenth-Century English Culture: 10. Melodrama and gender Katherine Newey
11. Melodrama and class Rohan McWilliam
12. Melodrama and empire Marty Gould
13. Melodrama and race Sarah Meer
Part IV. Extensions of Melodrama: 14. Melodrama and the realist novel Carolyn Williams
15. Melodrama and early [silent] film David Mayer
16. Moving picture melodrama Jane M. Gaines
17. Melodrama and the modern musical Sharon Aronofsky Weltman
18. Melodrama and psychoanalysis Peter Brooks
19. Metamodern melodrama and contemporary mass culture Juliet John.

Subject Areas: Literary companions, book reviews & guides [DSRC], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literature: history & criticism [DS]