Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Caldwell, Tanya M

Titel

Hannah Cowley, the Dilemma of the Female Playwright, and the Pseudonymous Prelude to Which Is the Man?

Ist Teil von

• Restoration and 18th century theatre research, 2012-07, Vol.27 (1), p.25

Ort / Verlag

University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Literature Online (LION)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In its own right, however, the prelude deserves attention for its presentation of a machine (or an imaginary machine) that would dictate audience response well over a century before the appearance of canned response mechanisms. Because The Dramatic Puffers appears not to have been published since 1782 and because its ingenuity and the vitality of the characters are so important to the argument that follows, here is a complete transcript of the Huntington Larpent handwritten anonymous copy:5 Scene The Stage. While the figure of Lewes as officer winning the sympathy of the audience connects to Which is the Man? thematically through the sympathetic soldier Beauchamp and to the performance through the entertaining Lord Sparkle whom Lewes played, Cowley may well have also felt an urge to take a nationalistic military stance through her prologue in spiritual support of her husband who was serving on a commission in India. Besides the structure, the main characteristic of Cowley that underscores this prologue, however, is, as the opening of this essay stresses, her concern for true comedy: in this case, rallying all forces "Thalia's standard to display." Besides their dramatic sensibilities, Bate and Cowley shared several other commonalties that suggest mutual support rather than the production coincidence of their plays in February 1782. [...]in its own right, the prelude deserves attention for its presentation of a machine that would dictate audience response well over a century before the appearance of canned response mechanisms. 1 .