Women, Nationalism and the Romantic Stage: Theatre and Politics in Britain, 1780-1800 by Betsy Bolton (review)

Abstract

966 Reviews As suggested above, there is little coverage of eighteenth-century writers other than Haywood. This is a missed opportunity. Readings ofeighteenth-century women writ? ers could be enhanced by adopting some of the approaches in Women Writing, such as considering writers as defining themselves in coteries or groups, understanding the extent to which their work combines high and low genres, and exploring how seemingly trivial or personal writing can carry a political or religious interpretation. SOMERVILLECOLLEGE,OXFORD KATE WlLLIAMS Women, Nationalism and the Romantic Stage: Theatre and Politics in Britain, ij8o? 1800. By Betsy Bolton. (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism) Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. 2001. xiv + 272 pp. ?40; $59.95. ISBN0-52177-116-1. Betsy Bolton explores women's part in defining national identity at the end ofthe eigh? teenth century. Her arena is the Romantic stage, both London theatre and the public platform of politics. She argues that definition of nation, of gender, and of genre are interrelated, and her study provides a historical context for each. Her subject matter is vast, drawing on parliamentary debate and commentary, political cartoons, history and biography, prose, poetry, drama, and criticism, taken from a longer period than the twenty years indicated in the title. Bolton begins by characterizing the slants taken by writers and politicians who drew on the commonplace analogy between the nation and the theatre, either praising social inclusiveness or bemoaning divisiveness, praising English drama and politics while condemning the 'farce' that was Revolutionary France, or vice versa. Next, she outlines the kinds of English romance being read or performed in the eighteenth century, ultimately narrowing her focus to the minor subgenre of 'dramatic romance', which she peruses for its relevance to women and nationalism. Then comes an examination of Horatio Nelson and Emma Hamilton as figures of romance, he glorified as popular national hero, she having some qualities of a heroine of prose romance, but finallybe? ing caricatured as the subject of vulgar farce. Documents and facts, commentary and cartoons are scrutinized in the context of these genres, which themselves carry connotationsof class, education, and gender. The next subject is Mary Robinson, actress, mistress of the Prince of Wales, of Charles Fox, and of war hero Banastre Tarleton, and eventually a writer, exemplifying the debasement by cartoonists of women who, like Hamilton, and like Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, approach the political centre. Bolton also uses Robinson as a springboard to examine Wordsworth's attitude to theatre and romance, firstby looking at his ambivalent response to the challenge made to his Lyrical Ballads by the publication of her more cynical Lyrical Tales, then by close study of the London book of The Prelude, reaching this by a somewhat tortuous analogy, built on the coincidence that his 'Belle of Buttermere' was also 'Mary Robinson'. Then comes an account of the development of farce, as prologue to examining 'mixed dramas' by Hannah Cowley and Elizabeth Inchbald. These heterogeneous subjects are ambitiously yoked together, along with many other figures of politics, literature, and the theatre, as manifestations in life, romance, farce, and caricature of women's liminal influence, through their subordinate and subservient roles, on domestic and national life. Often, Bolton's multidimensional approach pays dividends in historical understanding. For example, her examination of Hannah Cowley's A Day in Turkey; or, The Russian Slaves (1791) is set in the following contexts: parliamentary debates about Britain's intervention in a dispute between Russia and Turkey; James Gillray's sexual caricatures of Pitt the Younger and Catherine the Great; Cowley's choice of genre, writing a play which combined MLR, 98.4, 2003 967 sentiment, a mode largely underwriting conventional patriarchy, with farce, usually eschewed by established male playwrights for reasons of finance and prestige, but offeringopportunities to ridicule postures and absurdities; her ambivalent refutation of accusations that the play was 'political'; the use of orientalism as a perspective on imperialism, national identity,and sexual politics. The problem is that the choice of subjects seems arbitrary and their connections are overstretched. Bolton frequently prologues, recapitulates, restates her programme, draws in more characters, but this has the effectof complicating every section. The book refuses either the satisfaction ofa simple...