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Description

Given the interrelation of female chastity and female theatricality in early modem discourses, it comes as no surprise that both figure importantly in what is believed to be the first original English drama to be written by a woman. As Elizabeth Cary explores a Jewish queen 's sexual purity in The Tragedie of Mariam, she does so by concentrating on questions of performance. Cary's title character explicitly abjures theatricality even as she embraces chastity, creating a fissure in Renaissance discourses on women that threatens to swallow up the antifeminist idea that female chastity is always an act.

ISBN

978-0-7546-6941-8

Publication Date

2011

Publisher

Ashgate

Keywords

chastity, theatricality, Tragedy of Mariam, Tragedie of Mariam, gender, early modern England, women, virtue, purity

Disciplines

Family, Life Course, and Society | Gender and Sexuality | Literature in English, British Isles | Performance Studies | Theatre and Performance Studies | Theatre History

Comments

In Kathryn M. Moncrief and Kathryn R. McPherson (Eds.), Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance. Dr. Lehnhof's chapter begins on page 217.

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

Ashgate

Acting Virtuous: Chastity, Theatricality, and The Tragedie of Mariam

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