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The West Indies, Commerce, and a Play for U.S. Empire: Recovering J. Robinson's The Yorker's Stratagem (1792)

The West Indies, Commerce, and a Play for U.S. Empire: Recovering J. Robinson's The... sean x. goudieVanderbilt University TheWestIndies, Commerce, and a Play for U.S. Empire Recovering J. Robinson’s The Yorker’s Stratagem (1792) In a 1794 letter to his family, trader James Brown, brother of fa- mous Philadelphia novelist Charles Brockden Brown, urged, ‘‘It is time to decide what we ought to think of the real utility of theatres. A patriot had said...that theatres are a kind of priesthood exercised over thoughts. We should examine whether our theatres should not in future be set aside for mercantile purposes. This question is of greatest importance and I move that it may be referred to the [Philadelphia] Committee of Public Instruc- tion’’ (qtd. in Bingham 150–51). Set on a remote, unnamed West Indian island, J. Robinson’s The Yorker’s Stratagem; or, Banana’s Wedding appears on its surface to have little to do with James Brown’s imperative about the theater as a space for ‘‘public instruction’’ in U.S. commercial policy. First performed three years into Alexander Hamilton’s tenure as Washington’s aggressively pro-commerce secretaryof the treasury, Robinson’s drama has remained obscure since its publication in 1792. It has never been treated in any detail by critics and scholars, and is alluded to but a handful of times, often http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Early American Literature University of North Carolina Press

The West Indies, Commerce, and a Play for U.S. Empire: Recovering J. Robinson's The Yorker's Stratagem (1792)

Early American Literature , Volume 40 (1) – Feb 17, 2005

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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 The University of North Carolina Press.
ISSN
1534-147X

Abstract

sean x. goudieVanderbilt University TheWestIndies, Commerce, and a Play for U.S. Empire Recovering J. Robinson’s The Yorker’s Stratagem (1792) In a 1794 letter to his family, trader James Brown, brother of fa- mous Philadelphia novelist Charles Brockden Brown, urged, ‘‘It is time to decide what we ought to think of the real utility of theatres. A patriot had said...that theatres are a kind of priesthood exercised over thoughts. We should examine whether our theatres should not in future be set aside for mercantile purposes. This question is of greatest importance and I move that it may be referred to the [Philadelphia] Committee of Public Instruc- tion’’ (qtd. in Bingham 150–51). Set on a remote, unnamed West Indian island, J. Robinson’s The Yorker’s Stratagem; or, Banana’s Wedding appears on its surface to have little to do with James Brown’s imperative about the theater as a space for ‘‘public instruction’’ in U.S. commercial policy. First performed three years into Alexander Hamilton’s tenure as Washington’s aggressively pro-commerce secretaryof the treasury, Robinson’s drama has remained obscure since its publication in 1792. It has never been treated in any detail by critics and scholars, and is alluded to but a handful of times, often

Journal

Early American LiteratureUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Feb 17, 2005

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