As theatre and drama of the Romantic Period undergo a critical reassessment among scholars internationally, the contributions of women as playwrights, actresses, and managers are also being revalued. This volume, which brings together leading British, North American, and Italian critics, is a crucial step towards reclaiming the importance of women's dramatic and theatrical activities during the period. Writing for the theatre implied assuming a public role, a hazardous undertaking for women who, especially after the French Revolution, were assigned to the private, primarily domestic, sphere. As the contributors examine the covert strategies women used to become full participants in the public theatre, they shed light on the issue of women's agency, expressed both through the writing of highly politicized or ethicized drama, as in the case of Elizabeth Inchbald or Joanna Baillie, and through women's professional practice as theatre managers and stage producers, as in the case of Elizabeth Vestris and Jane Scott. Among the topics considered are women's history plays, domesticity, ethics and sexuality in women's closet drama, the politics of drama and performance, and the role of women as managers and producers. Specialists in performance studies, Romantic Period drama, and women's writing will find the essays both challenging and inspiring.

As theatre and drama of the Romantic Period undergo a critical reassessment among scholars internationally, the contributions of women as playwrights, actresses, and managers are also being revalued. This volume, which brings together leading British, North American, and Italian critics, is a crucial step towards reclaiming the importance of women's dramatic and theatrical activities during the period. Writing for the theatre implied assuming a public role, a hazardous undertaking for women who, especially after the French Revolution, were assigned to the private, primarily domestic, sphere. As the contributors examine the covert strategies women used to become full participants in the public theatre, they shed light on the issue of women's agency, expressed both through the writing of highly politicized or ethicized drama, as in the case of Elizabeth Inchbald or Joanna Baillie, and through women's professional practice as theatre managers and stage producers, as in the case of Elizabeth Vestris and Jane Scott. Among the topics considered are women's history plays, domesticity, ethics and sexuality in women's closet drama, the politics of drama and performance, and the role of women as managers and producers. Specialists in performance studies, Romantic Period drama, and women's writing will find the essays both challenging and inspiring.

This volume presents a selection of essays by established Italian and international scholars in the field of Romantic drama. It is divided into four main sections: 1) Dramatic Theory and Practice; 2) On the Romantic Stage: History, Arts, and Acting; 3) Interaction of Genres: from Fiction to Drama; 4) The Romantics' Debate on Theatre and Drama: a Selected Anthology. The crucial area of debate these essays address is the way in which the problem of the dramatic representation of the self becomes in Romantic drama the very centre of reflection on the constitution of the modern subject. Each essay explores one or more aspects of the formation of modern subjectivity through dramatic representation of the self and through critical enquiry into the modes of that representation. The first and the fourth sections discuss the complex interaction between the theoretical questions that animated the debate around the Romantic theatre and the multifarious and often unruly performance practices of the time. The other two sections deal with the many and diverse ways in which Romantic drama engaged with and incorporated other artistic genres such as painting, performing arts, music, and the novel.

Two centuries after his birth in October 1795, John Keats occupies a secure place in the canon of great literature of the western world. But for much of the nineteenth century and even during periods of the twentieth century, his right to such a position was not so firmly established. On the bicentenary of Keats's birth, various Italian scholars, along with specialists from English-speaking countries, decided to take advantage of the occasion not only to render homage to a poet whose greatness now seems unchallenged but also to accept his continuing challenge to his readers. The contributors to this volume re-examine some of the harshest criticisms of Keats, from Byron onwards, and some of the unconditional exaltations of the poet in order to discover possible sites between the two for new critical impulses and fertile re-evaluations of his achievement. Under five headings - Romantic Truth, Textual Readings, History and Myth, Keats and Other Poets and Painting and Music - the essays in this book appraise the historical-cultural contexts that nurtured Keats's creativity; discuss the influences and interrelationships among Keats and other poets; and consider Keats's artistry as revealed in the analyses of particular texts.