2nd May 2012 4:30pm-5:30pm
C218, Checkland Building, Falmer
'The Library of a Seventeenth-Century Actor'
Prof David Roberts
Head of the School of English
Birmingham City University
Abstract
Recent theatre historiography has been much concerned with memorial practices in relation both to the now largely vanished world of repertory theatre and the ever-burgeoning traffic of the internet. In this talk I situate recent arguments in the context of one of the most understudied but most distinctive texts of seventeenth-century theatre history: the library catalogue of Thomas Betterton, the leading actor of the Restoration period. A unique guide to the actor's social, intellectual and 'memorial' milieu, the catalogue presents a challenge to recent accounts of the status of his profession in the late Seventeenth Century.
Bio
David Roberts is Professor and Head of English at Birmingham City University. His 2010 biography of Thomas Betterton was published by Cambridge University Press, for whom he is now writing Restoration Plays and Players. In 2013 his edition of Betterton's library catalogue, the first ever, is published by the Society for Theatre Research.
For further information, please contact:
Nigel H. Foxcroft
School of Humanities
University of Brighton
Falmer
nhf@brighton.ac.uk
