“Fright the ladies out of their wits”: Gendered passion and the English stage
This essay discusses female spectatorship from within Shakespeare’s plays as performed in his lifetime. Several plays such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet or King Lear address the issue of female spectatorship, providing comedic and tragic illustrations of how women reacted to theatrical perfor...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Institut du Monde Anglophone
2023-01-01
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| Series: | Etudes Epistémè |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/16165 |
| _version_ | 1811167962125565952 |
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| author | Yan Brailowsky |
| author_facet | Yan Brailowsky |
| author_sort | Yan Brailowsky |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This essay discusses female spectatorship from within Shakespeare’s plays as performed in his lifetime. Several plays such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet or King Lear address the issue of female spectatorship, providing comedic and tragic illustrations of how women reacted to theatrical performances, and how playwrights seemed to address the needs of female spectators. Interpretation of female spectatorship is rendered difficult by the scant evidence pertaining to actual women spectators at the time, pointing to the problem of interpreting how such spectatorship and gendered emotions could be performed and received by Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences. The essay shows that gendered constructs of spectatorship rarely followed accepted norms, and that men were as likely as women to be frightened “out of their wits”. The plays are as fictional as the gendered differences between female and male spectators. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-10T16:18:00Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4fceb00d51684c93bf8847fa13b0420f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1634-0450 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-10T16:18:00Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | Institut du Monde Anglophone |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Etudes Epistémè |
| spelling | doaj.art-4fceb00d51684c93bf8847fa13b0420f2023-02-09T16:13:41ZengInstitut du Monde AnglophoneEtudes Epistémè1634-04502023-01-014210.4000/episteme.16165“Fright the ladies out of their wits”: Gendered passion and the English stageYan BrailowskyThis essay discusses female spectatorship from within Shakespeare’s plays as performed in his lifetime. Several plays such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet or King Lear address the issue of female spectatorship, providing comedic and tragic illustrations of how women reacted to theatrical performances, and how playwrights seemed to address the needs of female spectators. Interpretation of female spectatorship is rendered difficult by the scant evidence pertaining to actual women spectators at the time, pointing to the problem of interpreting how such spectatorship and gendered emotions could be performed and received by Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences. The essay shows that gendered constructs of spectatorship rarely followed accepted norms, and that men were as likely as women to be frightened “out of their wits”. The plays are as fictional as the gendered differences between female and male spectators.http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/16165spectatorshipgenderwomenShakespeare WilliamMidsummer Night’s Dream (A)Hamlet |
| spellingShingle | Yan Brailowsky “Fright the ladies out of their wits”: Gendered passion and the English stage Etudes Epistémè spectatorship gender women Shakespeare William Midsummer Night’s Dream (A) Hamlet |
| title | “Fright the ladies out of their wits”: Gendered passion and the English stage |
| title_full | “Fright the ladies out of their wits”: Gendered passion and the English stage |
| title_fullStr | “Fright the ladies out of their wits”: Gendered passion and the English stage |
| title_full_unstemmed | “Fright the ladies out of their wits”: Gendered passion and the English stage |
| title_short | “Fright the ladies out of their wits”: Gendered passion and the English stage |
| title_sort | fright the ladies out of their wits gendered passion and the english stage |
| topic | spectatorship gender women Shakespeare William Midsummer Night’s Dream (A) Hamlet |
| url | http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/16165 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT yanbrailowsky frighttheladiesoutoftheirwitsgenderedpassionandtheenglishstage |