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Article: Reflections on the importance of romantic drama.(Romantic Drama in Place)(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Texas Studies in Literature and Language
- Article date:
- December 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 University of Texas at Austin (University of Texas Press). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The University of Texas symposium, "Romantic Drama in Place," drew me back to 1797, the year that is the subject of a large part of the last section of Spectacular Politics. My method is "thick description" and obsessively asking, "Why does it--the text or performance--matter?" I select a slice of a time period--as little as six weeks or as much as five years--and begin to complicate it endlessly. That's what I was doing when I encountered Monk Lewis's Castle Spectre. In 1797 Lewis's Castle Spectre played sixty-seven nights at Drury Lane. (1) It is often the exception that lays bare what is hidden; there is always an exception--and Castle Spectre is one. At the conclusion ...