The performance of commercial knowledge in 18th-Century Dutch and German urban drama

This article explores the ways in which commercial knowledge is presented in 18th-century theatre texts from Amsterdam and Hamburg. It will be oriented on laying bare the different positions bearing on the exchange of this knowledge in these texts and address the ways in which the power structures of dramatic texts were transformed in order to open up the private sphere to discussions on public topics like the stock trade. A collection of plays about the speculation and banking crises of 1720 and 1763 inventively negotiate the distribution of roles with regard to the exchange of commercial knowledge in the 18th century. Producing, receiving, and performing information is enacted by characters with conventionally passive parts who in these plays become active participants in the ‘game of commerce.’ The family household (oikos) and the merchant class are presented as self-regulating bodies that should control the performance of economic knowledge. After 1750 a growing tension occurs between this ideal of self-regulation and the incapacity of characters to control an expanding knowledge production