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Female Performances: Melodramatic Music Conventions And 'The Woman In White', Laura Vorachek

English Faculty Publications

While the similarities between melodrama and sensation fiction are often noted, the similar use of music in each has been overlooked. Melodrama is characterized by excessive emotion, flat character types, a focus on plot at the expense of characterization and exaggerated expressions of right and wrong. As its name implies, it also relied heavily on musical accompaniment. For much of the first half of rhe nineteenth century, only the patent theatres were allowed to present drama with spoken dialogue due to grants from Charles II in 1660 giving to two royal favourites, Killigrew and Davenant, exclusive rights, which came to …