‘Staging the imperial city: the Pageant of London, 1911’ (original) (raw)

in Imperial Cities: Landscape, Space and Identity, eds. F. Driver & D. Gilbert, Manchester University Press, 1999

Abstract

IIn this chapter I consider the ways in which the urban ceremony and display of the Pageant of London depicted the capital as an imperial city, paying particular regard to the uses of landscape and space in the pageant performance. Despite such public display, however, pageants were not simply state propaganda. Like exhibitions and other forms of spectacular entertainment, it was the element of participation and the possibilities that pageants gave to their performers to make their own entertainment that was crucial to their success. A diary/scrapbook compiled by a young woman who performed in the Pageant of London vividly illustrates the personal investments and meanings that performers gained from pageants which subverted their organisers’ educational and imperial intentions.

Deborah Sugg Ryan hasn't uploaded this paper.

Let Deborah know you want this paper to be uploaded.

Ask for this paper to be uploaded.