Broken Boundaries: Women and Feminism in Restoration Drama

Title

Broken Boundaries: Women and Feminism in Restoration Drama

Files

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Description

This volume of twelve original essays is the first comprehensive study of feminist issues in Restoration drama. The late seventeenth century marks a pivotal era in the history of feminism, when Renaissance assumptions about gender and patriarchy were being directly challenged. For the first time, women appeared onstage as actresses, made their presence felt as spectators and patrons, and wrote a number of the plays produced in theaters. Ina n unusually direct and probing way, drama of the Restoration period raised radical questions about the place of women in the family and in society, and about the essential nature of men and women. The essays examine feminist issues from a variety of historical and theoretical approaches across a spectrum of plays—comedies, tragedies, tragicomedies, and heroic drama. By addressing the acute questions of gender raised in the drama, Broken Boundaries presents a vivid portrait of the uncertainties and changing perceptions in all areas of intellectual, political, and social life during the last decades of the seventeenth century.

ISBN

978-0-8131-0871-1

Publication Date

12-12-1996

Publisher

The University of Kentucky Press

City

Lexington

Keywords

feminist issues, restoration drama, women actresses, seventeenth century

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | English Language and Literature

Comments

This title can be found in the Leddy Library print collection here.

Broken Boundaries: Women and Feminism in Restoration Drama

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