Over the past few weeks, I have had the chance to research how Shakespeare's works were received and adapted on the Victorian stage. This particular era holds a lot of interest for me as far as literature and art go, so I thought it would be worthwhile to research Shakespeare during the evolving time of the Victorian period.
There were several items of interest I found out while reading up on the actresses Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt, and the actor/manager Charles Kean. I think that I will continue to research Shakespeare appropriations in the Victorian era as I hope to conclude that Shakespeare's works acted as a perfect conduit for the changing social structure as well as the Victorian values. Although I had initially hoped to focus on Victorian revival of ritualism through Shakespeare, I soon realized that I was falling flat with that particular route. So I will pick up where I left off last week with my research this upcoming weekend. I intend to focus on Shakespeare themes in Victorian art, as I think this will give me a good background on Victorian values.
Wow, sounds fun. In a different English class we've been talking a lot about Victorian Art. We've been reading poetry from that age, but I think the issues are the same - lots of woman's rights issues going on. There is this thing called 'aesthetics of renunciation' I don't know if it's applicable to what you're doing or not, but it's about women rejecting men and love - Charlotte Dante writes about it a lot in her poetry.
ReplyDelete- anyways, good luck, sounds like a fun topic to research!
oh cool! i'll have to look into that aesthetics thing...it just might work with what i'm trying to do! or at least aid me in my final product. thanks laura!
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