ABSTRACT
First outlining the intellectual and disciplinary tension between drama and performance, this chapter shows how theater utterly pervaded Victorian culture, comprising the intersection of embodiment with language, aesthetics, economics, gender, race, disability, sexuality, transit, entertainment, markets, popularity, politics, and material culture. However, despite its vitality, its historical consequence, and its growing fascination for many scholars, Victorian drama has almost always been and remains the least examined genre of Victorian literature, often due to the unchallenged influence of prior critical judgments that devalue the fundamental aesthetics of Victorian dramatic art. In contrast, this chapter charts the development Victorian drama/performance historiography and literary study, not only illustrating what areas of research in drama, theater, and performance now excite the most attention but also projecting future trends. Tremendous untapped research opportunities in archives of unread plays and unexamined ephemera beckon.
