The Romantic theatre

The four essays included here investigate the relationship between the Romantics and the theatre of their own time, assess the considerable body of dramatic works composed by Byron and Shelley, and explore the history of plays by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and Byron in performance on the British stage. All argue that, though the Romantic poets were out of sympathy with the theatre of their day, they wrote forms of drama that to a considerable degree anticipate the theatre of the present century.