Heroines of the Golden StAge

Heroines of the Golden StAge PDF Author: Rina Walthaus
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
The essays in this collection focus on early modern women's contributions to theatrical production in Spain and England, as inspirations for characters, as dramatic performers and as playwrights. While the possibilities for Spanish and English women's active engagement with either public or private theatricals were different in many respects, the themes covered by these women dramatists as well as the roles performed by women from the two nations reveal interesting similarities. In spite of decrees that intended to forbid woman's public performance, women conquered the stage in Spain from the late sixteenth century onwards. The unconventional, assertive female, the mujer varonil, became a favourite character in Spanish Golden Age drama. Moreover, women hit the Spanish stage as actresses, in the public theatres as well as in the enclosed ambience of the convent, as leaders of theatre companies and as playwrights. While plays by English writers equally questioned ideas about traditional femininity, staging strong and assertive women who reject submission as well as silent domesticity, women's active role in the English public theatre could only begin after the Restoration in 1660. However, English women found alternative ways of manifesting themselves as actresses or dramatists through household theatricals and through the genre of closet drama. As a comparative study this volume shows how on both Golden Age stages theatrical activity was bound up with gender subversion. The volume contains contributions by María del Carmen Alarcón Román, Marguérite Corporaal, Alison Findlay, José Manuel González Fernández, María J. Pando Canteli, Maite Pascual Bonis, Barbara Ravelhofer, Rina Walthaus, Helen Wilcox, Amy R. Williamsen and Marion Wynne-Davies.

Heroines of the Golden StAge

Heroines of the Golden StAge PDF Author: Rina Walthaus
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Get Book

Book Description
The essays in this collection focus on early modern women's contributions to theatrical production in Spain and England, as inspirations for characters, as dramatic performers and as playwrights. While the possibilities for Spanish and English women's active engagement with either public or private theatricals were different in many respects, the themes covered by these women dramatists as well as the roles performed by women from the two nations reveal interesting similarities. In spite of decrees that intended to forbid woman's public performance, women conquered the stage in Spain from the late sixteenth century onwards. The unconventional, assertive female, the mujer varonil, became a favourite character in Spanish Golden Age drama. Moreover, women hit the Spanish stage as actresses, in the public theatres as well as in the enclosed ambience of the convent, as leaders of theatre companies and as playwrights. While plays by English writers equally questioned ideas about traditional femininity, staging strong and assertive women who reject submission as well as silent domesticity, women's active role in the English public theatre could only begin after the Restoration in 1660. However, English women found alternative ways of manifesting themselves as actresses or dramatists through household theatricals and through the genre of closet drama. As a comparative study this volume shows how on both Golden Age stages theatrical activity was bound up with gender subversion. The volume contains contributions by María del Carmen Alarcón Román, Marguérite Corporaal, Alison Findlay, José Manuel González Fernández, María J. Pando Canteli, Maite Pascual Bonis, Barbara Ravelhofer, Rina Walthaus, Helen Wilcox, Amy R. Williamsen and Marion Wynne-Davies.

The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Women on Stage

The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Women on Stage PDF Author: Jan Sewell
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030238288
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 850

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Book Description
This book brings together nearly 40 academics and theatre practitioners to chronicle and celebrate the courage, determination and achievements of women on stage across the ages and around the globe. The collection stretches from ancient Greece to present-day Australasia via the United States, Soviet Russia, Europe, India, South Africa and Japan, offering a series of analytical snapshots of women performers, their work and the conditions in which they produced it. Individual chapters provide in-depth consideration of specific moments in time and geography while the volume as a whole and its juxtapositions stimulate consideration of the bigger picture, underlining the challenges women have faced across cultures in establishing themselves as performers and the range of ways in which they gained access to the stage. Organised chronologically, the volume looks not just to the past but the future: it challenges the very notions of ‘history’, ‘stage’ and even the definition of ‘women’ itself.

Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages

Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages PDF Author: Tanya Pollard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192511610
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages argues that ancient Greek plays exerted a powerful and uncharted influence on early modern England's dramatic landscape. Drawing on original research to challenge longstanding assumptions about Greek texts' invisibility, the book shows not only that the plays were more prominent than we have believed, but that early modern readers and audiences responded powerfully to specific plays and themes. The Greek plays most popular in the period were not male-centered dramas such as Sophocles' Oedipus, but tragedies by Euripides that focused on raging bereaved mothers and sacrificial virgin daughters, especially Hecuba and Iphigenia. Because tragedy was firmly linked with its Greek origin in the period's writings, these iconic female figures acquired a privileged status as synecdoches for the tragic theater and its ability to conjure sympathetic emotions in audiences. When Hamlet reflects on the moving power of tragic performance, he turns to the most prominent of these figures: 'What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba/ That he should weep for her?' Through readings of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporary dramatists, this book argues that newly visible Greek plays, identified with the origins of theatrical performance and represented by passionate female figures, challenged early modern writers to reimagine the affective possibilities of tragedy, comedy, and the emerging genre of tragicomedy.

The Diva's Gift to the Shakespearean Stage

The Diva's Gift to the Shakespearean Stage PDF Author: Pamela Allen Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192638084
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
The Diva's Gift traces the far-reaching impact of the first female stars on the playwrights and players of the all-male stage. When Shakespeare entered the scene, women had been acting in Italian troupes for two decades, traveling in Italy and beyond and performing in all genres, including tragedy. The ambitious actress reinvented the innamorata, making her more charismatic and autonomous, thrilling audiences with her skills. Despite fervent attacks, some actresses became the first international stars, winning royal and noble patrons and literary admirers in France and Spain. After Elizabeth and her court caught wind of their success in Paris, Italian troupes with actresses crossed the Channel to perform. The Italians' repeat visits and growing fame posed a radical challenge to English professionals just as they were building their first paying theaters. Some writers treated the actress as a whorish threat to their stage, which had long minimized female roles. Others saw a vital new model full of promise. Lyly, Marlowe, and Kyd endowed innamorata parts with hot-blooded, racialized passions, but made them self-aware agents, not counters traded between men. Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster and others followed, ringing changes on the new type in comedy, tragedy, and romance. Like the comici they recycled actress-linked theatergrams and star scenes, such as cross-dressing, the mad scene, and the sung lament. In this way, the diva's prodigious virtuosity and stardom altered the horizons of playmaking even on the womanless stage. Capitalizing on the talents of boy players, the best playwrights created bold new roles endowed with her alien glamour, such as Lyly's Sapho and Pandora, Marlowe's Dido, Kyd's Bel-Imperia, Webster's Vittoria, and Shakespeare's Beatrice, Viola, Portia, Juliet, and Ophelia. Cleopatra is not alone in her superb theatricality and dazzling strangeness. As this book demonstrates, the diva's gifts mark them all.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Women's Writing in English, 1540-1700

The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Women's Writing in English, 1540-1700 PDF Author: Elizabeth Scott-Baumann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192604732
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 897

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Women's Writing in English, 1540-1700 brings together new work by scholars across the globe, from some of the founding figures in early modern women's writing to those early in their careers and defining the field now. It investigates how and where women gained access to education, how they developed their literary voice through varied genres including poetry, drama, and letters, and how women cultivated domestic and technical forms of knowledge from recipes and needlework to medicines and secret codes. Chapters investigate the ways in which women's writing was an integral part of the intellectual culture of the period, engaging with male writers and traditions, while also revealing the ways in which women's lives and writings were often distinctly different, from women prophetesses to queens, widows, and servants. It explores the intersections of women writing in English with those writing in French, Spanish, Latin, and Greek, in Europe and in New England, and argues for an archipelagic understanding of women's writing in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and England. Finally, it reflects on—and challenges—the methodologies which have developed in, and with, the field: book and manuscript history, editing, digital analysis, premodern critical race studies, network theory, queer theory, and feminist theory. The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Women's Writing in English, 1540-1700 captures the most innovative work on early modern women's writing in English at present.

A New Companion to Renaissance Drama

A New Companion to Renaissance Drama PDF Author: Arthur F. Kinney
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118824032
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 572

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Book Description
A New Companion to Renaissance Drama provides an invaluable summary of past and present scholarship surrounding the most popular and influential literary form of its time. Original interpretations from leading scholars set the scene for important paths of future inquiry. A colorful, comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the material conditions of Renaissance plays, England's most important dramatic period Contributors are both established and emerging scholars, with many leading international figures in the discipline Offers a unique approach by organizing the chapters by cultural context, theatre history, genre studies, theoretical applications, and material studies Chapters address newest departures and future directions for Renaissance drama scholarship Arthur Kinney is a world-renowned figure in the field

Women in Shakespeare

Women in Shakespeare PDF Author: Alison Findlay
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472557514
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 647

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Book Description
This is a comprehensive reference guide examining the language employed by Shakespeare to represent women in the full range of his poetry and plays. Including over 350 entries, Alison Findlay shows the role of women within Shakespearean drama, their representations on the Shakespearean stage, and their place in Shakespeare's personal and professional lives.

Beyond Spain's Borders

Beyond Spain's Borders PDF Author: Anne J. Cruz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131543878X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
The prolific theatrical activity that abounded on the stages of early modern Europe demonstrates that drama was a genre that transcended national borders. The transnational character of early modern theater reflects the rich admixture of various dramatic traditions, such as Spain’s comedia and Italy’s commedia dell’arte, but also the transformations across cultures of Spanish novellas to French plays and English interludes. Of particular import to this study is the role that women and gender played in this cross-pollination of theatrical sources and practices. Contributors to the volume not only investigate the gendered effect of Spanish texts and literary types on English and French drama, they address the actual journeys of Spanish actresses to French theaters and of Italian actresses to the Spanish stage, while several emphasize the movement of royal women to various courts and their impact on theatrical activity in Spain and abroad. In their innovative focus on women’s participation and influence, the chapters in this volume illustrate the frequent yet little studied transnational and transcultural points of contact between Spanish theater and the national theaters of England, France, Austria, and Italy.

Women Writing Back / Writing Women Back

Women Writing Back / Writing Women Back PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004193537
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
Privileging both a transnational and a sociological approach, this volume explores the position of women in the early modern literary field, emphasising the international scope of their literature and examining their historical position, influence, network and dialogues.

Women Writing Back / Writing Women Back

Women Writing Back / Writing Women Back PDF Author: Anke Gilleir
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004184635
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Privileging both a transnational and a sociological approach, this volume explores the position of women in the early modern literary field, emphasising the international scope of their literature and examining their historical position, influence, network and dialogues.