Date of Award
Summer 8-15-2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Mildred Lewis
Second Advisor
Joanna Levin
Third Advisor
Brian Glaser
Abstract
This thesis examines the often overlooked and consistently maligned African/black female figure in 16th and 17th Century literature. Drawing from historical contexts and feminist literary criticism, this thesis accentuates a culturally nuanced and intersectional feminist examination of specific texts from the period in question and the extent to which they inform or draw from racist rhetoric. The texts examined will include William Dunbar’s Ane Blak Moir, Ben Jonson’s Masque of Blackness and Masque of Beauty, and Shakespeare’s Othello.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Reed, Tonika. Black Women’s Bodies as the Site of Malignity: Interrogating (Mis)representations of Black Women in 16th and 17th Century British Literature. 2019. Chapman University, MA Thesis. Chapman University Digital Commons, https://doi.org/10.36837/chapman.000089