“Spoofing Celebrities”

Nicoletta Caputo, “‘Spoofing Celebrities’: Shakespearean Parodies of Edmund Kean” (pp. 163–191) The Romantic age, and theater in particular, figure large in celebrity studies. Edmund Kean was the most celebrated actor and the preeminent Shakespearean interpreter of the time. Kean, however, was also straightforwardly notorious. Exceedingly exhibitionist and extravagant in his personal life, he reveled in scandal. His signature stage role was Richard III, and when, in January 1825, the actor became the target of ferocious parody in the press in consequence of a trial for criminal conversation, this and other Shakespearean roles that he had successfully interpreted over the years were suddenly used to attack him. The essay examines the verbal and visual parodies of Kean based on Shakespeare that were produced for the occasion, focusing on the multilevel appropriation (or misappropriation) of the Bard in the affair.

1814–1818

Part III marks a shift in the exchange between the two families as Lady Beaumont begins to write independently to Wordsworth on a regular basis. A major focus of her letters to Wordsworth of 1814 and 1815 is the sale and reception of The Excursion. Another major concern around this time is the production of the frontispiece engravings (from paintings by Sir George) to Wordsworth’s Poems and The White Doe of Rylstone (1815). This section also contains details of paintings by Washington Allston, as well as insights into Edward Nash and William Westall, and Beaumont’s assessment of Haydon’s Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem. Beaumont gives detailed appraisals of the actors Edmund Kean, Eliza O’Neill, and John Philip Kemble. In addition, letters in Part III contain two eye-witness descriptions of the battlefield of Waterloo.

Edmund Kean as Coriolanus (1787 - 1833)

Portrait of the actor Edmund Kean in the role of Coriolanus

The Histrionic Art

This chapter is a study of West End theatre in the age of Romanticism. It explains the importance of the patent theatres (particularly those in Drury Lane and Covent Garden) and their attempts to retain a monopoly over the performance of the spoken word. This is then contrasted with the emergence of so-called ‘minor’ theatres in the West End such as the Lyceum, the Adelphi, and the Olympic. They became associated with new theatrical forms including melodrama and burletta. The chapter explores the theatre-going experience in the early nineteenth-century West End and the varied styles of acting in the age of Edmund Kean. It explains why demands emerged for reform of the patent theatre system leading to the 1843 Theatre Regulation Act. This chapter links the early nineteenth century West End to the confessional state which explains why the nature of theatre had to change in the age of reform.

Shakespeare’s Word Music

The sound of Shakespeare’s words is intrinsic to their meaning and dramatic effect. This chapter understands poetry as word music whether written as verse or prose. My approach to the theme invokes Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio, Edmund Kean, John Keats, Herbert Farjeon, Edith Evans, Edith Sitwell, and Virginia Woolf. I then present a survey of how the musicality of Shakespeare’s language has been discussed by three influential theatrical practitioners of the last forty years: John Barton, Cicely Berry, and Adrian Noble, and notice their difficulty in approaching Shakespeare’s word music even whilst recognizing it as crucial to his poetry and dramatic art. There then follow close readings of an example of verse (Twelfth Night, or what you will to approach the theme I. v. 257–65) and prose (Macbeth, V. i. 18–64), the better to illustrate my recommendations of how readers might experience Shakespeare’s word music for themselves, and enrich Shakespeare when performed.

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare's Poetry

The sound of Shakespeare’s words is intrinsic to their meaning and dramatic effect. This essay understands poetry as word music whether written as verse or prose. My approach to the theme invokes Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio, Edmund Kean, John Keats, Herbert Farjeon, Edith Evans, Edith Sitwell, and Virginia Woolf. I then present a survey of how the musicality of Shakespeare’s language has been discussed by three influential theatrical practitioners of the last forty years: John Barton, Cicely Berry, and Adrian Noble, and notice their difficulty in approaching Shakespeare’s word music even whilst recognizing it as crucial to his poetry and dramatic art. There then follow close readings of an example of verse (Twelfth Night, or what you will to approach the theme 1.5.257-65) and prose (Macbeth 5.1.18-64), the better to illustrate my recommendations of how readers might experience Shakespeare’s word music for themselves, and enrich Shakespeare when performed.