Record Nr.

UNINA9910137132903321

Autore

Fawcett Julia H.

Titolo

Spectacular disappearances : celebrity and privacy, 1696-1801 / / Julia H. Fawcett

Pubbl/distr/stampa


Ann Arbor, : University of Michigan Press, 2016
Ann Arbor : , : University of Michigan Press, , [2016]

ISBN

0-472-90061-7

0-472-12180-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (ix, 280 pages) : illustrations

Disciplina

305.5/2

Soggetti

Celebrities - Great Britain - History - 18th century

Fame - Social aspects - Great Britain - History - 18th century

English literature - 18th century - History and criticism

Theater - Great Britain - History - 18th century

Privacy - Great Britain - History - 18th century

Great Britain Civilization 18th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-261) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction -- The celebrity emerges as the deformed king: Richard III, the king of the dunces, and the overexpression of Englishness -- The growth of celebrity culture: Colley Cibber, Charlotte Charke, and the overexpression of gender -- The canon of print: Laurence Sterne and the overexpression of character -- The fate of overexpression in the age of sentiment: David Garrick, George Anne Bellamy, and the paradox of the actor -- The memoirs of Perdita and the language of loss: Mary Robinson's alternative to overexpression -- Coda: overexpression and its legacy.

Sommario/riassunto

How can people in the spotlight control their self-representations when the whole world seems to be watching? The question is familiar, but not new. Julia Fawcett examines the stages, pages, and streets of eighteenth-century London as England's first modern celebrities performed their own strange and spectacular self-representations. They include the enormous wig that actor Colley Cibber donned in his comic role as Lord Foppington--and that later reappeared on the head

of Cibber's cross-dressing daughter, Charlotte Charke. They include the black page of Tristram Shandy, a memorial to the parson Yorick (and author Laurence Sterne), a page so full of ink that it cannot be read. And they include the puffs and prologues that David Garrick used to heighten his publicity while protecting his privacy; the epistolary autobiography, modeled on the sentimental novel, of Garrick's protégée George Anne Bellamy; and the elliptical poems and portraits of the poet, actress, and royal courtesan Mary Robinson, a.k.a. Perdita.

Linking all of these representations is a quality that Fawcett terms "over-expression," the unique quality that allows celebrities to meet their spectators' demands for disclosure without giving themselves away. Like a spotlight so brilliant it is blinding, these exaggerated but illegible self-representations suggest a new way of understanding some of the key aspects of celebrity culture, both in the eighteenth century and today. They also challenge divides between theatrical character and novelistic character in eighteenth-century studies, or between performance studies and literary studies today. The book provides an indispensable history for scholars and students in celebrity studies, performance studies, and autobiography—and for anyone curious about the origins of the eighteenth-century self.

Record Nr.

UNISA996215554603316

Titolo

Sociological research

Pubbl/distr/stampa


Armonk, NY, : M.E. Sharpe, 1992-

ISSN

2328-5184

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource

Classificazione

71.00

Disciplina

301.072

Soggetti

Communism and society

Sociology - Former Soviet republics

Social policy

Sociology

Sociologie

Periodicals.

Soviet Union Social policy Periodicals

Soviet Union

Soviet Union Former Soviet republics