This book examines plays produced in England in the 1890s and early 1900s and the ways in which these plays responded to changing perceptions of marriage. Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and other late-Victorian dramatists challenged romanticized ideals of love and domesticity, and, in the process, these authors appropriated and rewrote the genre conventions that had dominated English drama for much of the nineteenth century. In their plays, theater became a forum for debating the problems of traditional marriage and envisioning alternative forms of partnership.
This book is written for scholars specializing in the areas of Victorian studies, dramatic literature, theater history, performance studies, and gender studies.
This book is written for scholars specializing in the areas of Victorian studies, dramatic literature, theater history, performance studies, and gender studies.
"Marriage and Late-Victorian Dramatists is an especially timely book. ... Marriage and Late-Victorian Dramatists is full of similar lively details. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about metatheatre-or any lover of Shaw who just wants to sit down with a readable and well-researched book about an extraordinary period in the history of British drama." (Jean Reynolds, SHAW The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies, Vol. 41 (1), 2021)