Silly, harmless household doves: The changing representation of women in Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare's plays
Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare's plays reflect an emerging social and historical trend toward the containment of female power. Written exclusively by men, the plays reveal textual and aesthetic changes that flatten the female characters from Shakespeare's powerful and ambiguous her...
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| Format: | Dissertation |
| Language: | English |
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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
01-01-1995
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare's plays reflect an emerging social and historical trend toward the containment of female power. Written exclusively by men, the plays reveal textual and aesthetic changes that flatten the female characters from Shakespeare's powerful and ambiguous heroines to their more domesticated and constrained Restoration counterparts. This study looks at seven of the Restoration adaptations--Colley Cibber's Richard III, William Davenant's Macbeth, John Lacy's Sauny the Scot: or the Taming of the Shrew, John Dryden's Troilus and Cressida, or, Truth Found Too Late, Nahum Tate's King Lear, Dryden's All for Love, or A World Well Lost, and the Dryden/Davenant version of The Tempest, called The Enchanted Island--through the lens of social and historical studies of changing family structures. Fewer arranged marriages and more marriages based on love or companionship appear not only in Restoration society but also on its stage. The alterations made in the female characters not only mimic but also reinforce the domesticated position of women in the society at large. |
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| ISBN: | 9780591124248 0591124246 |