Fatal desire
Subtitle: women, sexuality, and the English stage, 1660-1720
By: Jean I. Marsden.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Ithaca, N.Y
Language: eng
Number of pages: 216
ISBN-13: 9780801444470
Subjects: English drama -- Restoration, 1660-1700 -- History and criticism; Women in the theater -- England -- History -- 17th century; English drama (Tragedy) -- History and criticism; Women and literature -- England -- History -- 17th century; Literature and society -- England -- History -- 17th century; Sex role in literature
Description: "Informed by film theory and a broad historical approach, Fatal Desire examines the theatrical representation of women in England, from the Restoration to the early eighteenth century - a period when for the first time female actors could perform in public. Jean I. Marsden maintains that the feminization of serious drama during this period is tied to the cultural function of theater. Women served as symbols of both domestic and imperial propriety, and so Marsden links the representation of women on the stage to the social context in which the plays appeared and to the moral and often political lessons they offered the audience. The witty heroines of comedies were usually absorbed into the social fabric by marrying similarly lighthearted gentlemen, but the heroines of tragedy suffered for their sins, real or perceived. That suffering served the dual purpose of titillating and educating the theater audience." "Marsden discusses such plays as William Wycherley's Plain Dealer (1676), John Vanbrugh's Provoked Wife (1697), Thomas Otway's Orphan (1680), Thomas Southerne's Fatal Marriage (1694), and William Congreve's Mourning Bride (1697). The author also addresses tragedies written by three female playwrights, Mary Pix, Catharine Trotter, and Delarivier Manley, and sketches developments in tragedy during the period."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Female spectatorship, Jeremy Collier, and the antitheatrical debate; title: Women watching : Wycherley's Plain dealer and Vanbrugh's Provoked wife; title: Falling women : she-tragedy and sexual spectacle; title: Women writing women : female authors of she-tragedy; title: Nicholas Rowe and the second generation of she-tragedy; title: Sex, politics, and the Hanoverian succession : refiguring Lady Jane Grey.