ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by exploring the use of direct speech in four particular scenes. It looks first the Whig politician Charles James Fox's defence in the House of Commons of his support of Cecil Wray at the Westminster by-election in July 1782, then Karl Philipp Wray's speech at this by-election, and Moritz's theological debate with a group of Oxford clerics. The chapter seeks to contextualize Moritz's use of direct speech in prose within the broader framework of late eighteenth-century narrative practice. It locates theatrical sensibility within the dramatic theory of the period, focusing particularly on the acutely problematic nature of theatricality at this time and its attendant claims to authenticity. Thus, by pursuing theatrical concerns in a text which might at first sight seem wholly unrelated to theatre. The chapter aims to reposition the non-fictional travel account within an aesthetic programme which points up not only the possibilities but also the limits of affective involvement in Moritz's account of England.
