Overview

Readings in Renaissance Women's Drama collects together for the first time the key critical commentaries and historical essays - both classic and contemporary - on Renaissance women's drama. The essays cover the following playwrights: Joanna Lumley Elizabeth Cary Mary Sidney Mary Wroth the Cavendish sisters Specifically designed to provide a comprehensive overview for students, teachers and scholars, this collection combines: key critical essays on drama by women in the early modern period, by early critics such as Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot specially-commissioned new essays by some of today's important feminist critics a preface and introduction explaining the selection and contexts of the materials a bibliography of secondary sources Readings in Renaissance Women's Drama is the most complete sourcebook for the study of this revalatory and growing area of inquiry.

Full Product Details

Author:   S. P. Cerasano (Colgate University, New York, USA) ,  Marion Wynne-Davies
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Dimensions:   Width: 17.40cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 24.60cm
Weight:   0.703kg
ISBN:  

9780415164436

ISBN 10:   0415164435
Pages:   336
Publication Date:   01 October 1998
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction PART I Early commentaries, Introduction 1 Mary Sidney is Praised to Elizabeth I (1594) 2 Samuel Daniel to Mary Sidney (1594) 3 John Davies of Hereford Commends Mary Sidney and Elizabeth Cary (1612) 4 William Sheares to Elizabeth Cary (1633) 5 Jonson and Wroth (1640) 6 Elizabeth Cary’s Biography (1643–9) 7 Celebrating Several Ladies (1752) 8 The Cavalier’s Lady and her Plays (1872) 9 The First Scholarly Edition of Mary Sidney’s Antonie (1897) 10 Lumley’s Play First Published (1909) 11 The First Modern Edition of Mariam (1914) 12 Early Critical Recognition of Elizabeth Cary and Margaret Cavendish (1920) 13 Woolf on Margaret Cavendish (1925) 14 T.S.Eliot on Senecan Drama (1927) 15 Virginia Woolf on ‘Judith Shakespeare’ (1929) 16 The First Edition of The Concealed Fancies (1931) 17 Cary and ‘A Woman’s Duty’ (1940) 18 Mary Sidney: Philip’s Sister (1957) PART II Contexts and issues, Introduction 1 Women playwrights in England: Renaissance noblewomen 2 The Arts at the English Court of Anna of Denmark 3 ‘My seeled chamber and dark parlour room’: the English country house and Renaissance women dramatists 4 Women as patrons of English Renaissance drama 5 Women as spectators, spectacles, and paying customers 6 Women as theatrical investors: three shareholders and the second Fortune Playhouse 7 ‘Why may not a lady write a good play?’: plays by Early Modern women reassessed as performance texts PART III Early Modern women dramatists, Introduction ELIZABETH I 1 ‘We princes, I tell you, are set on stages’: Elizabeth I and dramatic self-representation JANE/JOANNA LUMLEY 2 Joanna Lumley (1537?-1576/77) ELAINE V. BEILIN 3 Jane Lumley’s Iphigenia at Aulis: multum in parvo, or, less is more 4 ‘Patronesse of the Muses’ MARGARET P. HANNAY 5 Mary Herbert: Englishing a purified Cleopatra ELIZABETH CARY 6 Elizabeth Cary (1585–1639) 7 The spectre of resistance: The Tragedy of Mariam (1613) MARGARET W. FERGUSON 8 Resisting tyrants: Elizabeth Cary’s tragedy BARBARA KIEFER LEWALSKI 9 An unknown continent: Lady Mary Wroth’s forgotten pastoral drama, ‘Loves Victorie’ MARGARET ANNE MCLAREN 10 ‘Like one in a gay masque’: the Sidney cousins in the theaters of court and country JANE CAVENDISH AND ELIZABETH BRACKLEY 11 ‘To be your daughter in your pen’: the social functions of literature in the writings of Lady Elizabeth Brackley and Lady Jane Cavendish MARGARET J.M. EZELL 12 ‘She gave you the civility of the house’: household performance in The Concealed Fancies MARGARET CAVENDISH 13 ‘My brain the stage’: Margaret Cavendish and the fantasy of female performance 14 ‘A woman write a play!’: Jonsonian strategies and the dramatic writings

Reviews

With its intelligent, historically grounded, clearly written essays -- some classic and some new, some on dramatic writings by women and some on the role of women in Renaissance drama -- this beautifully conceived work has a minimum of fustian and murk; thus, the essays not only inform undergraduates and specialists but also provide them with models of interpretation and style. Both this volume and its companion anthology belong in all libraries supporting an English major. -Choice, July/August '99

With its intelligent, historically grounded, clearly written essays -- some classic and some new, some on dramatic writings by women and some on the role of women in Renaissance drama -- this beautifully conceived work has a minimum of fustian and murk; thus, the essays not only inform undergraduates and specialists but also provide them with models of interpretation and style. Both this volume and its companion anthology belong in all libraries supporting an English major. <br>-Choice, July/August '99 <br>

Author Information

S. P. Cerasano is in the English Department at Colgate University, and Marion Wynne-Davies is in the English Department at the University of Dundee. They co-edited Renaissance Drama by Women, published by Routledge, 1996.

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