TITLE:

 

THEATRE, AUTHORSHIP, AND PRINT: NEGOTIATING PATRONAGE IN THE EARLY RESTORATION PERIOD

    

Author:

María José Mora

Institution:

Universidad de Sevilla

E-mail:

sena@us.es    

ABSTRACT


Although studies of the literary marketplace in the late seventeenth century tend to describe an increasing professionalization of the author and a decline of the patronage system, the theatre, especially in the early Restoration period, remained a field in which patronage was still a formidable force. Besides the income they could derive from the performance and, to a lesser extent, the publication of their works, playwrights also expected to gain a reputation they would convert into symbolic capital; shrewdly managed, this could open the doors to advancement.

 

The present paper analyses a series of factors concerning the publication of play-texts in the 1660s and 1670s, which reveal a growing interest of the poets in asserting their authorship and in using dedications to invest their symbolic capital in a bid for patronage. The contrasting careers of Etherege and Dryden provide good examples of the ways in which Restoration playwrights attempt to negotiate this system.

 
PANEL MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES