Module Information

To add diversification to the portfolio of options within the department.

This module will examine plays from the period 1670-1780 focusing on the representation of women on stage after the legitimization of women’s public performance during the Restoration. In the first half of the module students will explore contemporary anxieties regarding public women and the voyeuristic potential of female bodies on stage. They will consider the ways in which contemporary commentators defined women’s place in society in relation to the increasing opportunities for women’s public presence. By examining dramatic texts and philosophical writings concerned with women’s place in society, their education, marriage and appropriate conduct, this module aims to illustrate a transition from the objectification of female bodies on stage to the de-sexualisation of women’s public presences which many scholars have associated with domestication and disempowerment. The second half of the module will move away from such assertions by reading these texts alongside contemporary interpretations of women’s public roles. Students will discuss the theatrical potential of the female body, not as an object of titillation but as an icon with a propagandistic political function. They will consider the ways in which playwrights created women who represented contemporary notions of the ideal Briton. The module aims to challenge the assumption that women’s dramatic roles during this period were increasingly restricted to domestic duty. Students will be encouraged to read these texts as contributions to broad debates concerning British national identity and they will be asked to consider the role played by women in publicising and promoting nationalism.