1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910511470803321

Titolo

Women on the early modern stage : a woman killed with kindness, the tamer tamed, the Duchess of Malfi, the witch of Edmonton / / introduction by Emma Smith

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Methuen Drama, , [2014]

©2014

ISBN

1-4081-8232-7

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (582 pages)

Collana

New mermaids

Disciplina

822.3

Soggetti

English drama - Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600

English drama - 17th century

Women in literature - History - 16th century

Women in literature - History - 17th century

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

A Woman killed with kindness -- The Tamer Tamed -- The Duchess of Malfi -- The Witch of Edmonton.

Sommario/riassunto

This New Mermaids Anthology brings together four plays which centre around female characters on stage: A Woman Killed With Kindness (Thomas Heywood); The Tamer Tamed (John Fletcher);  The Duchess of Malfi (John Webster) and The Witch of Edmonton  (William Rowley, Thomas Dekker and John Ford) with a new introduction by leading scholar Emma Smith.  A Woman Killed with Kindness is a domestic tragedy of property and marriage, adultery and revenge, and strips bare two women's lives in one of the first tragedies ever to be written about ordinary people.   The Tamer Tamed is a free-wheeling and witty comedy in which the place and status of women, and the nature of marriage, are subjected to sustained attention, demonstrating one way in which early modern writers were able to challenge and invert social convention, and to at least imagine alternative modes of behaviour.   The Duchess of Malfi is a  classic revenge tragedy and masterpiece of the Jacobean bizarre, featuring a severed hand, a wolf-man, and a



poisoned Bible.  The Witch of Edmonton is a domestic tragedy in which Elizabeth Sawyer sells her soul to the Devil to revenge her neighbours.  These four early modern plays plays upset old certainties about gender ideology: less 'chaste, silent and obedient' and more diverse, eloquent, and complex.