Shakespeare and vampires at the fin de siècle
Datos Bibliográficos
| ID | 4367136 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Sophie Duncan (0009-0006-0751-1315, University of Oxford, autor de correspondencia) |
| Año | 2016 |
| Volumen | 17 |
| Número | 1 |
| Páginas | 63-82 |
| Fecha de publicación | 2016-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Sí |
| Open Access | Sí |
| Tipo | ARTICLE |
| Revista | Feminist Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Identificadores de la revista | ISSN: 1464-7001 • E-ISSN: 1741-2773 |
| Editorial | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1464700115620861 |
| OpenAlex | W2329958503 |
| Idioma | EN |
| Referencias citadas | 15 |
This article illuminates Henry Irving's production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline (1896) as a major contribution to fin-de-siècle Gothic culture. Cymbeline (1896) was one of the most popular Victorian Shakespeare productions, running to wild acclaim for more than seventy-two performances. In Cymbeline's sexually-charged bedroom scene, Imogen, played by beloved Victorian actress Ellen Terry, was preyed upon by Henry Irving's villainous Iachimo. Terry and Irving were at the zenith of a twenty-year partnership at London's Lyceum theatre, and Victorian Britain's greatest star actors. Ellen Terry's Imogen became an ideally desirable heroine for both audiences and critics of Victorian Shakespeare. Simultaneously, Cymbeline, and the acclaimed performances of Terry and Irving, became a source for literature's most famous Gothic vampire novel: Dracula, published by Bram Stoker in 1897. Bram Stoker was Henry Irving's business manager, and intimately involved with Irving and Terry's professional lives at the Lyceum theatre. This article reveals the relationship between Shakespeare and Dracula, especially Ellen Terry's Imogen as an inspiration for Lucy Westenra. Textual evidence includes Terry's correspondence and unpublished promptbooks, as well as Stoker's biography of Henry Irving, and facsimile notes on Dracula. Examining Cymbeline (1896) and Dracula (1897) offers a new reading of Dracula, given Cymbeline's obsession with liminal states and female vulnerability. Moreover, Victorian responses to Ellen Terry's Imogen in the bedchamber scene highlight fin-de-siècle eroticisations of the sleeping woman, and Victorian fantasies of sexual access to the actress. Examining Terry's reception illuminates the disjunction between performed female passivity as Imogen, and the professional, creative activity that underlined Terry's stage practice and agency as a Victorian actress
Art · Art history · Biography · Dracula · Fin de siecle · Literature · Vampire · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
| Velocidad de citación | historical |
|---|---|
| Altamente citado | No |