The Profession of the Playwright (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: John Russell Stephens
- First Published: 1992
- Type of Work: Literary history
- Time of Work: 1800-1900
- Setting: England
- Principal Characters: Dion Boucicault, W. S. Gilbert, James Sheridan Knowles, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Arthur Wing Pinero, James Planche, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction
- Subjects: Authors or writers, Nineteenth century, Literature, England or English people, Economics, Business or business people, Drama or dramatists, Finance, Plays or playwrights
- Locales: England
Views of authorship have ranged in the past century from antipathy to adulation, from the author as irresponsible Bohemian to the writer as hero, a larger-than-life rebel against the hypocrisies and false values of the age. Lately, under the influence of deconstruction and other poststructuralist theories, the author has been effaced, rendered irrelevant in deference to the almighty “text.” Although the general public may treat the author of the past as a demigod and the author of the present as a celebrity, radical criticism tends to regard him or her as incidental at best.
...[The entire page is 2027 words long]
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