Aesthetic Movement Satire: A Dramatic Anthology: The Grasshopper; Wheres the Cat; The Colonel; Patience

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Description

Few stylistic movements in the history of art and design have provoked the imagination and indignation of British playwrights as much as the so-called Aesthetic Movement. During an intense and short-lived period from 1877 to 1881, the London stage saw fierce competition as playwrights and theatre managers raced to capture the zeitgeist, capitalizing on this unorthodox, eccentric and highly theatrical new movement and its apostles to such an extent that the Illustrated London News (1881) observed that the London stage was thickly sown over with a crop of lilies and sunflowers with aesthetes in every burlesque and comic opera produced. Starting with John Hollingsheads farce, The Grasshopper, at the Gaiety Theatre in 1877, this trend was built-upon by a quick succession of the plays including James Alberys Wheres The Cat (Criterion, 1880), F.C. Burnands The Colonel (Prince of Wales Theatre, 1880) and culminating in W.S. Gilberts Patience (Opera Comique/Savoy, 1881).. This edited volume finally provides these four key Aesthetic Movement in an easily accessible format, allowing scholars and students to discover their secrets. Including a brief introduction, providing background and context to the dynamic, symbiotic relationship between the Aesthetic Movement and the British stage, and complete with biographical notes and an introduction to each play, this collection shines a light on this explosive flashpoint in British Theatre

Author Bio

Dr Devon Cox is an art and theatre historian with a specialisation in the Aesthetic Movement. In 2015, he published a biography, The Street of Wonderful Possibilities: Whistler, Wilde & Sargent in Tite Street, which was nominated for the prestigious William MB Berger Prize in British Art History. Between 2018 and 2020, he catalogued paintings in the collection of Mells Manor, Somerset for the Paul Mellon Centres Collection and Display project. In 2022, he edited Constance Wildes Autograph Book, 1886-1896 for the Oscar Wilde Society. He is currently working on a new biography of John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) to be published in 2025.