Shakespeare in the Victorian Periodicals by Prince Kathryn;

Author:Prince, Kathryn;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Language & Literature
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2008-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

The proceedings of the 1832 select committee, old news when this article was published in 1840, were worth recollecting at that particular moment because the issue of legitimacy had remained vexed and was threatening to become meaningless as the legitimate theatres continued to assert their exclusive right to the “legitimate” drama while failing to produce much of it. Shakespeare had still found an occasional home at Covent Garden in the 1830s, but the rarity of his appearances there is evident in their degree of noteworthiness in the theatrical reviews. The Theatrical Journal’s retrospective of Macready’s tenure as manager of Covent Garden during the 1838 and 1839 seasons, for instance, recalls that the theatre had been in such a disastrous state before he took over from Osbaldiston that “the spirit of eternal Shakespeare paused and wept” while the seat of legitimate drama abandoned its birthright to become “a bear garden,—a monkey cage,—a lion pit—and a raree show for the gilt gingerbread of pageantry.”10 With the Theatres Regulation Act, Shakespeare was transformed from the property of the legitimate theatres into a token that all theatres might use to claim the stamp of legitimacy.

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