"We are learning much from frequent attendance at the theatres": The influence of 19th - century sexual problems plays on Michael Field's

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Throughout their lifetimes, Katharine Bradley (1846-1914) and Edith Cooper (1862-1913), the writers behind the pseudonym Michael Field, published over twenty-seven verse-dramas. However, although there is growing academic interest in Field's poetic works, "there are relatively few critical studies of the dramas" (Thain and Parejo-Vadillo, 2009: p.48). Indeed, there is no modern full-length critical study of Field's dramatic works. Moreover, Field's dramas have largely been treated as reference points for their poetry (see: Fraser [2006] and Thain [2007]) or mined for biographical material pertaining to Bradley and Cooper's unorthodox approach to gender and sexuality (see: Bickle [2006] and Kirby [2017]). Crucially, these approaches ignore the multiple contemporary dramatic networks in which Bradley and Cooper participated. The pair watched many of the late 19th-century London stage's most canonical performances, from Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts (1891) to Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband (1895). They also communicated with many of their day's leading dramatists. Wilde, for instance, advised Field on characterisation in The Tragic Mary (1890). Furthermore, although none of Field's dramas were publicly performed - excepting A Question of Memory (1893) - Bradley and Cooper intended for many of their works to "tread the boards" (Bristow 2019, p.124). This intention reinforces the importance of considering their engagement with wider Victorian theatre culture since, as Jacky Bratton (2003) argues, Victorian audiences relied on an "intra-theatrical" (p.43) process of meaning making, involving the citation of a broad network of contemporary dramas. In order to address this gap in scholarship, my DPhil seeks to situate Field's dramas in their wider theatrical context. My primary focus would be upon 19th-century social problem drama, particularly Ibsen's work. I will focus upon their 1890s verse-dramas - the period when Bradley and Cooper were most intensely fixated on producing work for the London stage (Bristow, 2019). Furthermore, as female sexuality was the "obsession" (Eltis: p.114) of 1880s/90s social problem plays, I will predominantly analyse Field's depictions of socially transgressive female characters. Moving beyond current Field criticism, which mainly emphasises these characters' social subversiveness, I will focus more upon how Bradley and Cooper's citation of recognisable Ibsenian motifs and performance conventions allowed them to subvert and critique the provocative gender politics of both contemporary social problem dramas as well as the Fin-de-Sie'cle poetic traditions that their verse draws upon. To do this, I will draw heavily upon the British Library's extensive collection of Bradley and Cooper's letters and diaries in addition to the Bodleian Library's own multiple unpublished draft copies of Field's verse-dramas. This research valuably extends upon existing scholarship on female playwriting in this period. Anna Farkas (2019) illustrates how Dorothy Leighton's Thyrza Fleming (1895) used recognisable Ibsenian motifs to critique both patriarchal structures as contemporary male playwrights. However, most recent scholarship on 19th-century female responses to Ibsen only examines naturalistic dramatic works, grounded in contemporary settings and feminist issues (see: Hill [2018] and Farkas). Field's verse-dramas are stylistically and formally distanced from Ibsen's naturalism, therefore providing important insights into female responses to 1880s/90s sexual problem plays across a broader array of theatrical genres and literary forms. Given drama was the most consumed artistic medium of the 19th-century (Bratton: p.40), greater understanding of Ibsen's cultural influence aids essential inter-disciplinary investigations into contemporary feminist discourses across a variety of literary and non-literary mediums.