We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,569,717.96 | Books Available: 794,796 | Members Online: 271

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Eighteenth Century Women Playwrights

Eighteenth Century Women Playwrights
Author: Derek Hughes

This six-volume anthology documents the history of women's drama throughout the 18th century, starting with the emergence in 1695-6 of the second generation of women dramatists in succession to Aphra Benn. Containing a representative selection of newly edited and annotated texts by leading woman dramatists of the period from 1696 to 1800, the an... more »thology reflects the changes in Britain's global realignment in class models and perception of other peoples. If women's drama quickly ceases to express the raw rage at the oppression of female sexuality that is evident in Behn and Manley, it continues to show women controlling their lives through manipulation of an increasingly complex and intellectually diverse society. In the 1690s, dramatists were meditating on the 1688 revolution (and its implications for the man's authority within marriage) and Britain's international horizons were defined by its war with France and by its transatlantic colonial possessions. At the end of the period Britain was the dominant world power, ruling India, apprehensively contemplating the aftermath of another revolution, in France. From 1670 until her death in 1689, Aphra Benn had established herself as one of the leading dramatists of her time, having far more new plays performed during these years than any competitor, and paving the way for the surge in women's playwriting towards the end of the century: between 1695 and 1700, six new women dramatists had plays premiered, and from then on women consistently made an important and diverse contribution to the stage. Those included in this collection include Catherine Trotter (1679-1749), Mary Pix (1666-c.1720), Delarivier Manley (1663-1724), Eliza Haywood (c.1693-1736), Susanna Centlivre (c.1670-1723), Elizabeth Griffith (c.1720-93), Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821) and Hannah Cowley (1743-1809). Catherine Trotter, Mary Pix and Delarivier Manley formed an important trio of women dramatists at the end of the 17th centuiry. Catherine Trotter was the first woman to adapt a work of Behn's for stage (the novel "Agnes de Castro"). Manley, who like Trotter has never appeared in a complete scholarly edition, was probably the most talented of the trio and also an important writer of fiction. Her best play, "The Royal Mischief", portrays the patriarchal suppression of female desire with a frankness unique in the 1690s. Eliza Haywood - a disciple of Manley in the writing of scandalous prose fiction - wrote two original plays, of which "A Wife to be Lett" (1723) is particularly notable for its harsh portrayal of the commodification and near-prostitution of women. Writing about Susanna Centlivre, in his "Lectures on the English Comic Writers", William Hazlitt remarked: "Her plays have a provoking spirit and volatile salt in them which still preserves them from decay". Elizabeth Inchbald and Hannah Cowley were perhaps the most successful female dramatists of the late 18th century. Both were admired by Sheridan for their original work and adaptations.

ISBN-13: 9781851966165
ISBN-10: 1851966161
Pages: 6
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Pickering & Chatto Publishers
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Eighteenth Century Women Playwrights

Loading...