Heteropticks: Spectatorship and Theatricality on the Eighteenth-Century London Stage and Beyond

Abstract

The central research question of this project asks how to account for the relationship between spectator and spectacle across a variety of texts which construct theatrical and performance spaces in eighteenth-century London. This study begins with an exploration of The Spectator, (1710-11) and asks what is at stake in the visual encounter between spectator and spectacle, and how this is structured. It uses The Spectator as a key text that resonates throughout eighteenthcentury discourse on vision and spectacle. Not only does The Spectator explore the theatre and specifically theatrical practices, but it is more broadly invested in ways of looking and visual practices in the eighteenth-century city. Critics have traditionally dealt with The Spectator as advancing a particular disciplinary mode of vision, however I suggest ways in which The Spectator may be understood more broadly to advance a different and more pluralistic model of eighteenth-century spectatorship. After having established the imaginative framework of what is happening in the spectatorial economy in Chapter One, subsequent chapters are organised thematically by space, taking into account first the theatre and then the pleasure garden. These chapters are concerned with exploring the cultural construction of these performance sites across a range of literature and visual sources including novels, plays, poems, prints and ephemera. Chapter Two maps out the imaginative spaces of the theatre auditorium, the stage, and backstage space, taking into account the female spectator specifically, and how women participate in spectatorial practices in the theatre space. Chapter Three maps out the pleasure garden as a theatrical space. Using the concept of sympotic space as a way to begin thinking about the pleasure garden theatrically, I argue for a holistic appraisal of the pleasure garden suited to its variety of spectacle and performance.