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A discriminating audience: Touring Shakespeare and mid-nineteenth-century Tasmania
Citation
Gaby, R, A discriminating audience: Touring Shakespeare and mid-nineteenth-century Tasmania, Cogent Arts & Humanities, 3, (1) Article 1237143. ISSN 2331-1983 (2016) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2016 The Authors. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
DOI: doi:10.1080/23311983.2016.1237143
Abstract
The 1850s were a defining decade for colonial Tasmania, encompassing
the cessation of convict transportation, the establishment of a House of
Assembly and the jettisoning of the island’s old identity as Van Diemen’s Land. Many
Tasmanian settlers were dedicated to the task of raising the cultural standing of the
colony and Shakespeare became an integral part of this process. A steady stream of
visiting players from America and England brought Shakespeare to Tasmania in the
1850s, including Sarah and James Stark, Eleanor Goddard and John Caple, McKean
Buchanan and G.V. Brooke. Newspapers of the period reflect a lively and varied local
interaction with their productions. Focusing on the evidence of contemporary
reviews, this paper considers the political resonance of Shakespeare in mid-nineteenth-
century Tasmania. It suggests that touring Shakespeare productions opened
up key opportunities for this geographically and socially marginalised community
to assert a new sense of itself as a discriminating audience, ready to engage with
complex and profound modes of thinking and expression.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
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Keywords: | Shakespeare; nineteenth century; Tasmania; reviews; convicts; touring |
Research Division: | Language, Communication and Culture |
Research Group: | Literary studies |
Research Field: | British and Irish literature |
Objective Division: | Culture and Society |
Objective Group: | Understanding past societies |
Objective Field: | Understanding past societies not elsewhere classified |
UTAS Author: | Gaby, R (Dr Rosemary Gaby) |
ID Code: | 112327 |
Year Published: | 2016 |
Deposited By: | School of Humanities |
Deposited On: | 2016-11-04 |
Last Modified: | 2017-10-30 |
Downloads: | 132 View Download Statistics |
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