A Cultural History of Pantomime, 1837-1901

哑剧是维多利亚时期英国最流行、最持久、最有影响力的戏剧形式之一。这是我们民族文化生活的一个组成部分，自工业革命以来，几乎每一代英国人都有过这样的经历。然而，它仍然几乎完全未经分析和未经研究的学术背景。没有关于这种形式的学术调查研究，也没有关于它对维多利亚时代英国的影响的研究。现存的这类文献大多是古物和轶事（如A。E.威尔逊，《哑剧和哑剧表演的故事》（The Story of Pantomime and Pantomime Pageant）学术上的忽视几乎肯定是由于人们普遍误解哑剧本质上是轻量级和轻浮的。然而，对哑剧的研究提出了一系列实质性和重要的研究问题，我们的主要目标是探讨哑剧在维多利亚时期反映当代政治问题的程度，以及对英国独特民族文化发展的贡献。我们有兴趣研究戏剧审查制度对哑剧的影响，并追踪哑剧对当代和时事的颠覆程度，尽管在整个时期都受到张伯伦勋爵和戏剧审查员的控制。我们有兴趣研究哑剧是如何加强和颠覆维多利亚时代对性别关系的态度，以及改变对男性气质的态度，女性气质和性别关系，包括男性夫人和女性主要男孩等哑剧机构。我们还将研究哑剧是如何在维多利亚儿童的经验，无论是观众和表演者。我们将研究哑剧在维多利亚视觉文化的位置，维多利亚音乐和舞蹈的历史，研究哑剧中的“姐妹艺术”的作用，并把哑剧舞台看作是所有艺术的交汇处，作为一种流行文化的整体艺术作品。我们对这些问题的答案将是通过几种媒体开发和传播：我们将出版两本单作者专著和一本编辑的论文集。我们将举办三个专题讨论会，与广泛的专家参与者分享我们的研究，并要求他们提出批评和评论。这些传播活动的参与者和观众将来自戏剧历史研究，音乐，舞蹈和视觉艺术，文化史和维多利亚研究领域。

Pantomime was one of the most popular, enduring and influential theatrical forms in Victorian England. It is a given of our national cultural life and has been part of the experience of virtually every generation of English people since the Industrial Revolution. However, it remains almost entirely unanalysed and unstudied in a scholarly context. There is no scholarly survey study of the form, nor of its impact on Victorian Britain. Such literature as exists is largely antiquarian and anecdotal (e.g. A. E. Wilson, The Story of Pantomime and Pantomime Pageant). Scholarly neglect is almost certainly due to the widely held misapprehension that the pantomime is essentially lightweight and frivolous. The study of pantomime, however, raises a series of substantial and significant research questions, which this project aims to investigate.Our main objective is to examine the extent to which pantomime reflected contemporary political issues, and contributed towards the development of a distinctive national culture in Britain in the Victorian period. We are interested to examine the effects of theatrical censorship on pantomime, and trace the extent of pantomime's subversive take on contemporary and topical events, notwithstanding the control of the Lord Chamberlain and the Examiner of Plays throughout the period.We are interested in examining the ways in which pantomime both reinforced and subverted Victorian attitudes towards gender relations, and changing attitudes towards, masculinity, femininity and gender relations, involving such pantomime institutions as the male dame, and the female principal boy. We will also look at how pantomime was figured in the experience of the Victorian child, both as spectator and performer.We will study the place of pantomime in Victorian visual culture, and histories of Victorian music and dance, to examine the roles of the 'sister arts' in pantomime, and consider the pantomimic stage as a meeting place for all the arts as a sort of Gesamtkunstwerk of popular culture.Our answers to these questions will be developed and disseminated through several media: we will produce two single-author monographs, and an edited collection of essays. We will hold three symposia, sharing our research with a wide range of expert participants, and asking them for critique and commentary. Our participants and audiences for these dissemination activities will be drawn from the areas of theatre history research, music, dance, and the visual arts, cultural history, and Victorian Studies.