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Legal regulation of women on the English Renaissance stage, 1558-1642
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Mulcahy, Sean (2013) Legal regulation of women on the English Renaissance stage, 1558-1642. Warwick Student Law Review, 3 (1). pp. 13-28. ISSN 2046-6889.
An open access version can be found in:
Official URL: https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein...
Abstract
The question of why women did not perform on the English Renaissance stage is an enduring one, which is yet to be properly answered. This article examines contemporary legislation and case law to illustrate the regulation of women’s performance throughout the Renaissance. The article engages in a reading of legislation, provides a textual analysis of court records - both the official narrative represented in the court transcripts and the social and political attitudes that underpinned the rulings - and links the law to the position of women and performers in the Renaissance social structure. The author contends that the laws adopted by judges and legislators were not arbitrary, but reinforced dominant concepts of gender, class and status in Renaissance society. It is argued that regulations operated to cast women performers as outsiders who were subject to male controls. The author offers an alternative reading of Renaissance women performers that expounds the diegetic and political possibilities of their performances, and significantly challenges the notion that the Renaissance theatre was an all- male stage.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | K Law [LC] > K Law (General) P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Law | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Warwick Student Law Review | ||||||
| Publisher: | University of Warwick Law School | ||||||
| ISSN: | 2046-6889 | ||||||
| Official Date: | August 2013 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 3 | ||||||
| Number: | 1 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 13-28 | ||||||
| Status: | Not Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 12 August 2018 | ||||||
| Open Access Version: |
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