ABSTRACT
To develop new explanations that could account for such responsiveness, theatrical theorists adopted the body of scientific and philosophical ideas known as the doctrine of sensibility. But the shift from mechanism to sensibility carried with it the seeds of yet another crisis, one that would not be solved by those who championed sensibility as a comprehensive and satisfying theory. For an understanding of the origins of the crisis of sensibility, however, we must turn once again to the example of David Garrick. The gulf between theory and practice, between what the audience thought they saw and what the actress had done, demonstrates one of the several anomalies presented by the question of sensibility. Robert Lloyd in The Actor, attempting to apostrophize Garrick's sensibility, stumbled instead into a revealing contradiction: Lloyd's selection of metaphors could not be less apt to express his aversion to prior calculation.
