Artful Nature: Fashion and Theatricality 1770-1830

Exhibit Programs and Events

Fashionable Enemies: Glamour as Argument, 1770–1830 Keynote Lecture

Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Theater and Professor Emeritus of English, Yale University, presented the keynote lecture Fashionable Enemies: Glamour as Argument, 1770-1830 in connection with the opening of the Library’s spring 2020 exhibition Artful Nature: Fashion and Theatricality, 1780-1830. His lecture title is a reference to Mary Berry’s 1801 play Fashionable Friends, a comedy of manners first presented at Strawberry Hill and now postponed from its previously scheduled May performance at the Lewis Walpole Library. Professor Roach, a long-time friend of the LWL and eminent scholar of eighteenth-century theater and literature, spoke about performance studies, glamour vs. argument, mental beauty, natural theatricality, and, with a nod to the twenty-first century, called a section of his talk “say yes to the dress.”

Professor Roach's lecture can be viewed on the Yale University Library's YouTube page: Fashionable Enemies Lecture

Guided Tour of exhibit with the curators Amelia Rauser and Laura Engel