Romantic Actors and Bardolatry: Performing Shakespeare from Garrick to Kean: 16 (Studies in Shakespeare)

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«Bardolatry», that whimsical term referring to Shakespeare’s rise to canonical status as well as to his worshippers’ adulation, solidified within the theatrical discourses of the eighteenth century and the British Romantic era. Celestine Woo examines the era’s four most celebrated Shakespeare performers in London – David Garrick, John Philip Kemble, Sarah Siddons, and Edmund Kean – arguing that they broadened and altered the boundaries of Shakespearean discourse in specific ways, offering and modeling novel paradigms by which to apprehend Shakespeare, and thus contributing to the growth of bardolatry as a discursive phenomenon. Using Pierre Bourdieu as a model, Woo traces the development of Shakespearean discourse as a field of cultural production, shaped by these actors. By examining their disparate approaches to performing Shakespeare, she reveals that Shakespeare as an icon became commodified, politicized, gendered, and increasingly appropriated within literary and dramatic discourse as a result of the influences of these four performers. Her analysis deepens our understanding of the processes by which Shakespeare was institutionalized as a figure representing national character, human nature, and the breadth of human experience. Cover Table of Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction “ Romantic Acting” Romantic Shakespeare CriticismL the Closet and the Stage Chapter 1 David Garrick Eighteenth3Century Acting Style and Theory of Human Passions Characterology and Garrick’s “Romantic” Style MobilityF MockeryF and Mass Media Marketing The Actor as Scholar Garrick Creates FandomL The zKOV Jubilee Commercializing Shakespeare through Theatrical Practice Garrick as Prophet and “Twin Star”L Afterlife and Apotheosis Chapter 2 John Philip Kemble The Aesthetic of DignityF ArtF and Pageantry Characterology and Evolving Dramatic Theory ScholarshipF AdaptationsF and Language Politics and Nationalism The Old Price RiotsL Public Appropriation of Shakespeare Conclusion Chapter 3 Sarah Siddons Characterology Interiority Affect and Emotion Character Development via Relationships Palpability and the Body Domesticity and Moral Values Gendered Superlatives Engagement with Discourse and Theory Pygmalion Reversed Siddons as HamletL Breaching the Breeches Part EntertainmentF StardomF and Pop Culture ConclusionL Siddons as Female Shakespeare Chapter 4 Edmund Kean The Affective Point Ousts the Gestural The Proverbial Flashes of Lightning Radical ShakespeareL Kean’s Coriolanus Cockney KeanF Representative of the Masses Kean as Shakespearean Icon Kean’s Theory The Star System Nature vsO ArtPifice’ “ New Readings” and Textuality Bibliography