abstract: Early modern theater was a major site of cultural exploration into Britain’s imperial ambitions. The frequency with which drama depicted exotic locations and foreign peoples has prompted a wealth of excellent scholarship investigating how London theater portrayed Asia and the New World. With so much attention paid to the places and people of the world, however, dramatic scholarship has yet to take note of the way in which the commodities of empire, the actual driving force behind expansion of British trade routes and colonial holdings, featured in long eighteenth-century drama. "Affecting Objects; or, the Drama of Imperial Commodities in English Performance, 1660-1800" investigates how imperial commodities—goods made available by Britain’s rapidly expanding trans-Atlantic trade routes— were used as stage props in long eighteenth-century comedy as a means to explore domestic ramifications of Britain’s developing empire. "Affecting Objects" recovers the presence of exotic commodities in the theater by bringing together branches of object theory, material culture studies, performance scholarship, and theater history. Drawing attention to imperial commodities used as theatrical props on the Restoration and eighteenth-century stage, I reassess commonly studied plays as well as critically overlooked works. Foreign “things” in performance, such as spices and produce in seventeenth-century Lord Mayor’s Shows, china in William Wycherley’s _The Country Wife_ (1675), jewels from the East in Oliver Goldsmith’s _She Stoops to Conquer_ (1773), and the Indian shawl in Elizabeth Inchbald’s _Appearance is Against Them_ (1785), informed reception of the works they appeared in while also influencing how the people of London understood the role of those commodities in their everyday lives. As the commercialism of British society increased, imperial commodities became necessary “actors” in British social relations; the British stage responded in kind by showcasing how such goods dictated and mediated communal relations and constructions of the self. I argue that the way in which exotic goods were utilized in performance served to create, investigate, underwrite, and/or critique a British national and personal identity constructed upon access to and control over imperial commodities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2015

<p> This project analyzes a long-neglected dimension of Early Modern Peninsular Studies: court theater. My thesis explores theoretical, political, and scenographic frameworks of court drama written for and produced in the court of Carlos II of Spain. I explore the notions of imagined communities and agency in order to understand how the theater functioned within the Habsburg court, and I juxtapose the role of the king as a spectator to that of the individual consumer of the public theater to confirm it is possible not to identify as part of the mass public during theater consumption. From there, my archival research exposes the political conflicts during the 1670s between Queen Regent Mariana of Austria and her illegitimate step-son, Don Juan Jos&eacute;, as their opposing factions vied to dominate the terrain of courtly politics in Madrid. My research investigates how these tensions were reflected in the 1670s works: <i>La estatua de Prometeo</i> and <i>Fieras afemina amor</i> by Pedro Calder&oacute;n de la Barca. This then led me to consider the political anxieties around the topic of succession in the 1690s as well. I illustrate that Francisco Antonio de Bances Candamo&rsquo;s political trilogy offered viable options for an heir through his presentation of what I term the nephew-king paradigm. My research illustrates how politics and royal theater production in the 1670s and 1690s were linked due to theater&rsquo;s status as a facet of the royal Baroque identity. My project concludes by establishing court drama as its own genre through an investigation of court performance, the scenographic advancement, and the musical evolution in Baroque Spanish court drama&mdash;a highly original artistic genre in seventeenth-century Spain. I establish staged performance as malleable and trans-dynastic as it outlasts the performance of the monarchs for which the work was staged. Ultimately, this project proves that theater is a part of royal Baroque Spanish identity. </p><p>

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Andrew Marvell (1621-78), though best known today as a lyric poet, was also the author of a handful of aggressive pamphlets on religious toleration and proto-Whig political values. In comparison to earlier polemic produced by divines such as John Owen, Richard Baxter, or Samuel Parker, Marvell's books appear as a radical aesthetic departure into a witty style of dramatic pamphlet. This thesis argues that Marvell's aesthetic innovation owes to his infusion of theatre and theatricality into ecclesiastical controversy. The hybrid polemic caused a point of contact between smaller separate publics foreshadows the opening of the wider Public Sphere that Jurgen Habermas situates in the wake of the 16889 Glorious Revolution. As a new style of public writing, Marvell's hybrid polemic initiated a crossover between the ecclesiastical and theatrical publics that expanded debate to a new idiom and a wider audience.

Rolf de Maré’s Ballets Suédois was at the forefront of the Parisian avant-garde between 1920 and 1925. The company produced twenty-four distinctive, innovative works that challenged conventions of ballet and explored diverse modes of creative expression. Its goal was “to interpret modern life” through a synthesis of the arts, and in doing so, the company reflected the vitality and volatility of the postwar milieu. Primary sources reveal the considerable impact the Ballets Suédois had in its day, yet the company has been largely overlooked in scholarly research, mostly due to its brief lifespan and the shadow of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. This dissertation seeks to expand historical narratives of modernism in Paris in the early 1920s. It considers the vital role of the Ballets Suédois and its embrace of the art of the “everyday” in the wake of the Great War. It reveals that eclecticism and ephemerality are at the heart of the everyday aesthetic, and the Ballets Suédois and its oeuvre both extolled and embodied these concepts as viable artistic values. A multidisciplinary study of three selected works produced by the Ballets Suédois—La Boîte à joujoux (1921), Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (1921), and Within the Quota (1923)—illuminates varied manifestations of the everyday among the company’s body of work. The primary focus in each case study is on the music, which was composed by Claude Debussy, members of Les Six, and Cole Porter, respectively. Essential elements of the music are examined through style analysis and discussed alongside aspects of the dance, visual art, scenario, and mise-en-scène, evidence for which comes from archival research conducted at the Dansmuseet in Stockholm, Sweden, and the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, France. Furthermore, each ballet is considered within the larger context of the company’s vision, repertoire, and achievements. Ultimately, this dissertation addresses the significance of the art of the everyday, as well as the nature of the Ballets Suédois’ legacy. It demonstrates that the Ballet Suédois and its collaborators celebrated the realities of eclecticism, simultaneity, and ephemerality. They offered postwar audiences new perspectives on art and life during a period of great change. They elevated the art of life. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2016. / May 2, 2016. / 1920s, Art of the everyday, Ballets Suédois, Dance and music, Modernism, Postwar Paris / Includes bibliographical references. / Denise Von Glahn, Professor Directing Dissertation; James Mathes, University Representative; Jennifer Atkins, Committee Member; Charles E. Brewer, Committee Member; Douglass Seaton, Committee Member.