Warriorwomen and popular balladry, 1650-1850
By: Dianne Dugaw ; with a new preface.
Edition: University of Chicago Press ed.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 233
Subjects: Ballads, English -- England -- History and criticism.; Popular literature -- England -- History and criticism.; War poetry, English -- History and criticism.; Women soldiers in literature.; Transvestites in literature.; Transvestism in literature.; Heroines in literature.
Description: Masquerading as a man, seeking adventure, going to war or to sea for love and glory, the transvestite heroine flourished in all kinds of literature, especially ballads, from the Renaissance to the Victorian age. Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850 identifies this heroine and her significance as a figure in folklore, and as a representative of popular culture, prompting important reevaluations of gender and sexuality.

Dugaw has uncovered a fascination with women cross-dressers in the popular literature of early modern Europe and America. Surveying a wide range of Anglo-American texts from popular ballads and chapbook life histories to the comedies and tragedies of aristocratic literature, she demonstrates the extent to which gender and sexuality are enacted as constructs of history.
Notes: Originally published, Cambridge (England) ; New York , Cambridge University Press, 1989. (Cambridge studies in eighteenth-century English literature and thought ; 4).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 220-223) and index.