Empire on the English Stage 1660–1714

Contesting the argument that Restoration and early eighteenth-century drama referred almost exclusively to domestic social and political issues, Empire on the English Stage 1660–1714 shows that the theatre was a crucial location for debates over England's contemporaneous colonial expansion. The book provides a comprehensive account of colonialism, national identity and the representation of race and ethnicity on stage. Joining historical discussions of the development of British imperial ideology, Bridget Orr argues that dramatic texts and production provide a rich and unexamined archive in which the issues attendant on the emergence of the first empire figure largely. Her account not only sheds light on plays by Dryden, Orrery, Behn, Wycherley and Southerne but directs attention to popular but often marginal texts by Settle, Sedley, Dennis and Charles Shadwell. Attention to the imperial themes of these dramatists decisively redraws the map of Restoration and early eighteenth-century drama.

Reviews & endorsements

'Empire on the English Stage offers a set of illuminating case-studies of drama and empire quite unlike any other book's in their breadth and subtlety. The best recent scholarship on this crucial period of transformation and transition has emphasised the salience of foreign policy and colonial interests for British history as well as the interpenetration of global empires - and not only European ones - from the North American interior to Southwestern India and Southeast Asia, as well as most points between. Orr's work is right on the cutting-edge of this exciting historiography.' David Armitage, Columbia University

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Product details

• Date Published: May 2007
• format: Paperback
• isbn: 9780521036009
• length: 364 pages

• dimensions: 228 x 150 x 20 mm
• weight: 0.548kg
• contains: 4 b/w illus.
• availability: Available