That “Fine Word” Illegitimate: Children in Late Georgian Theater

Abstract

Upon a board Whence an attendant of theatre Served out refreshments, had this been placed, And there he sate environed with a ring Of chance spectators, chiefly dissolute men And shameless women ... ... but I behold The lovely boy as I beheld him then, Among wretched and falsely gay, Like one of those who walked with hair unsinged Amid fiery furnace. --William Wordsworth The Prelude 7:383-88, 395-99 Among surprising finds revealed by online publication of Godwin Diary is frequency with which William Godwin attended London theater. At height of his playgoing, Godwin attended theater eighty times a year, frequenting blockbuster spectacles as well as legitimate fare. Over span of diary (1788-1836), he records attending theater close to 2,000 times. (2) Even more intriguing is number of times that Godwin records taking one or more of his children to Drury Lane, Covent Garden, Haymarket, Sadler's Wells, Astley's Amphitheatre, and other public exhibitions. Out of a total of one hundred eighty-three references to his stepdaughter Fanny in diary, thirty pertain to attendance at theater (versus fifteen to Coleridge's 1811-12 lectures and six to painting-related exhibits). Of twenty-six references to his son William from 1803 until 1817 (that is, until he is fourteen), twelve, or virtually half, involve trips to theater (as compared to three trips to a fair, three to Coleridge's lectures, and one to an art exhibition). Godwin's use of M to designate Mary as well as James Marshal makes ascertaining Mary's early theater visits difficult--there is a possibility that she was with Fanny at viewing of Castle Spectre and Children in Wood on 15 November 1799, though she would have only been two, and annotators conclude that M refers to Marshal. Her first confirmed playgoing occurs at age three and a half, when she attends Shylock and Harlequin's Tour on 2 January 1801, with three more theater visits that year and four in 1802. Fanny is four first time that Godwin takes her to see Children in Wood, and together they attend theater three more times following year. William is eight when he sees his first play, Pizarro, at Covent Garden, a play that his father had seen already thirteen times before. As usual, Godwin's diary provides no commentary on why he took his young children to theater or what they experienced while there, but fact of their attendance suggests that going to theater played some role in Godwin's practices of childrearing and notions of suitable entertainment for them. To what extent is Godwin anomalous in this notion or practice? Were children under fourteen visible attenders of theater in London and, if so, how did this affect adults or children as playgoers? Were children's visits dictated primarily by theater-based or extra-theatrical concerns? That is, can we correlate their presence to showing of particular plays, genres, and actors or was it largely dependent on what types of care were unavailable elsewhere? Moreover, what mode of childrearing would taking young children to late Georgian theater imply? Abusive? Fantasy-friendly? Cavalier? Would it reinforce or contradict wealth of writing in period on children's minds and pedagogical requirements, complement or compete with burgeoning market for children's books? I do not have definitive answers to these questions, difficult as they are, and made moreso by lack of existing commentary by children or accurate commentary by others on them and by capaciousness of terms infant and child as used in period. But asking how many children attended theater and how this affected playgoing and childrearing strikes me as an important way to sharpen our views of Romantic era children and aesthetic education provided by viewing plays in late Georgian theater. That Godwin--dubbed the Philosopher even by affectionate friends--loved playgoing and wrote enthusiastically for stage challenges claim that late Georgian theater represents mindless entertainment. …