Laughter and Civility

The Theater of Emma Gad

Lynn R. Wilkinson

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780299329334
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

Emma Gad (1852–1921) was a prolific Danish playwright at the turn of the twentieth century. With sparkling prose and witty dialogue, Gad's ambitious and sophisticated theatrical productions raised important and still pressing questions about sexuality and morality—including the status of women in marriage, divorce, same?sex desire, and marital infidelity. Through her plays she engaged with contemporaries like Henrik Ibsen, Oscar Wilde, and George Bernard Shaw, yet she is primarily remembered for her etiquette book, Takt og Tone. Laughter and Civility, the first biographical and scholarly volume to examine and contextualize her dramas, deeply explores how and why influential women are so often excluded from the canon. Lynn R. Wilkinson provides insightful readings into all twenty-five of Gad's plays and demonstrates how writers and intellectuals of the time, including Georg and Edvard Brandes, took her critically acclaimed work seriously. This volume rightfully reinstates Emma Gad's work into the repertory of European drama and is crucial for scholars interested in turn?of?the?century Scandinavian drama, literature, culture, and politics.

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Emma Gad, Comedy, and Fin-de-siècle Copenhagen
• 1. Etiquette High and Low: The Faces of Emma Gad
• 2. Imagining Freedom and Equality: Emma Gad’s Plays of the 1880s
• 3. Beyond the Morality Debate: Gad’s Plays of the First Half of the 1890s
• 4. Marriage, Motherhood, and Solidarity among Women: Gad’s Plays of the Second Half of the 1890s
• 5. The Promises of Modern Life: Gad’s Plays of the First Decade of the Twentieth Century
• 6. Globalization, War, and New Technologies: Gad’s Plays of the 1910s
• Conclusion: Emma Gad between Past and Future
• Appendix. Echoes: A Dramatic Bagatelle, translated by Lynn R. Wilkinson
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index