Introduction

• Pizarro

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Couture, Selena
  • Dick, Alexander

• Richard Brinsley Sheridan's last play, an adaptation of August Von Kotzebue's Die Spanier set in Peru and first performed in 1799, was one of the most popular of the entire century. Set during the Spanish Conquest of Peru, Pizarro dramatized English fears of invasion by Revolutionary France, but it is also surprisingly and critically engaged with Britain's colonial exploits abroad. Pizarro is a play of firsts: the first use of music alongside action, the first collapsing set, the first production to inspire such celebratory ephemera as cartoons, portraits, postcards, even porcelain collector plates. Pizarro marks the end of eighteenth-century drama and the birth of a new theatrical culture. This edition features a comprehensive introduction and extensive appendices documenting the play's first successful performances and global influence. It will appeal to students and scholars of Romantic literature, theatre history, post-colonialism, and Indigenous studies.

• Date created

  2017-01-01

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Drama
  • Pizarro, Francisco, approximately 1475-1541

• Type of Item

  Chapter

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-7mxy-4176

• License

  © 2017 Selena Couture and Alexander Dick All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, kept in an information storage and retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as expressly permitted by the applicable copyright laws or through written permission from the publisher.