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

凯瑟琳·布拉德利（Katharine Bradley，1846-1914）和伊迪丝·库珀（Edith Cooper，1862-1913）是笔名迈克尔·菲尔德（Michael Field）的两位作家，他们一生共出版了27部诗剧。然而，尽管学术界对菲尔德的诗歌作品越来越感兴趣，但“对戏剧的批评性研究相对较少”（Thain and Parejo-Vadillo，2009：p.48）。事实上，没有现代完整的批评研究菲尔德的戏剧作品。此外，菲尔德的戏剧在很大程度上被视为其诗歌的参考点（见：弗雷泽[2006]和塞恩[2007]）或挖掘有关布拉德利和库珀的非正统方法的性别和性的传记材料（见：比克尔[2006]和柯比[2017]）。至关重要的是，这些方法忽略了布拉德利和库珀参与的多个当代戏剧网络。这对夫妇观看了许多19世纪后期伦敦舞台上最经典的表演，从亨利克·易卜生的《幽灵》（1891）到奥斯卡·王尔德的《理想丈夫》（1895）。他们还与当时的许多主要戏剧家进行了交流。例如，王尔德在《悲剧的玛丽》（1890）中为菲尔德的人物塑造提供了建议。此外，尽管菲尔德的戏剧都没有公开演出--除了《记忆的问题》（1893年）--布拉德利和库珀打算让他们的许多作品“登上舞台”（布里斯托，2019年，第124页）。这一意图加强了考虑他们与更广泛的维多利亚戏剧文化的接触的重要性，因为正如Jacky Bratton（2003）所指出的那样，维多利亚观众依赖于一个“戏剧内部”（第43页）的意义制造过程，涉及引用广泛的当代戏剧网络。为了解决这个学术差距，我的哲学博士试图在更广泛的戏剧背景下，研究菲尔德的戏剧。我的主要重点将是19世纪的社会问题戏剧，特别是易卜生的工作。我将专注于他们19世纪90年代的诗歌戏剧-布拉德利和库珀最强烈地专注于为伦敦舞台制作作品的时期（布里斯托，2019）。此外，由于女性性欲是19世纪80年代/90年代社会问题剧的“困扰”（Eltis：p.114），我将主要分析菲尔德对社会越轨女性角色的描述。超越当前的场域批评，主要强调这些人物的社会颠覆性，我将更多地关注如何布拉德利和库珀的认可Ibsenian主题和表演惯例的引用，使他们能够颠覆和批评挑衅性的性别政治的当代社会问题戏剧，以及Fin-de-Sie'cle诗歌传统，他们的诗借鉴。为了做到这一点，我将大量利用大英图书馆广泛收集的布拉德利和库珀的信件和日记，以及博德利图书馆自己的多个未出版的菲尔德诗剧草稿。这一研究是对这一时期女性戏剧研究的有益拓展。安娜·法卡斯（2019）阐释了多萝西·莱顿（Dorothy Leighton）的《瑟扎·弗莱明》（Thyrza Fleming，1895）如何使用可识别的易卜生主题来批判当代男性剧作家的父权制结构。然而，最近关于19世纪女性对易卜生的反应的学术研究只考察了自然主义戏剧作品，以当代背景和女权主义问题为基础（见：希尔[2018]和法卡斯）。菲尔德的诗歌戏剧在风格上和形式上与易卜生的自然主义保持距离，因此为女性对19世纪80/90年代性问题戏剧的反应提供了重要的见解，这些戏剧类型和文学形式更广泛。鉴于戏剧是19世纪消费量最大的艺术媒介（布拉顿：第40页），对易卜生文化影响的更好理解有助于对当代女性主义话语进行跨学科的研究，这些话语涉及各种文学和非文学媒介。

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.