ABSTRACT
Study of British theatre history moved from medieval and early modern plays directly to the realism and naturalism of late Victorian and modern drama, overlooking nineteenth-century melodrama entirely. Romantic and Victorian melodramas remained all but invisible, in large part because of attitudes shaped by nineteenth-century critics themselves. Melodrama blends comic, dramatic, and tragic elements, and this heterogeneous nature led some to see it as a lesser form than pure comedy, drama, or tragedy. Melodrama creates a world of clearly delineated good and evil, with robust conflicts which resolve happily, if implausibly or coincidentally, rewarding virtue and punishing vice. Many Victorian melodramas celebrated British military episodes from the Napoleonic to Crimean and Boer Wars, helping to promulgate an imperial ideology, while simultaneously constructing and maintaining the class, gender, and racial identities upon which empire depended. In nautical melodramas, middle- and working-class people, rather than members of the nobility or upper classes, save the day.
