1. WOMEN IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY THEATRE
1.3. BIASED REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN'S SEXUALITY
1.3.1. THEATRE CONVENTIONS.
The early modern theatre had seen the emergence of "private houses"78, where companies which were not approved by the King, could play. However, it was more expensive for the audiences to go in these theatres and there were still public theatres such as The Globe which "attract[ed] fashionable audiences"79. When James I became king, companies had to have the royal patronage to have the right to play in public. Thus, Lord Chamberlain's Men – which became the King's Men in 1603 – was the most prolific
74 L. STONE, op. cit., p.70.
75 P. DROUET and W.C. CARROLL (dir.), et al., op. cit. , p.101.
76 C. KAHN, op. cit., p.248.
77 G.A. SULLIVAN, P. CHENEY and A. HADFIELD, op. cit., p.272.
78 S. TRUSSLER, The Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre, p.92.
79 Ibid, p.94.
company in the seventeenth century as it was the King's official theatre company. William Shakespeare used to work there for most of his career as an actor and playwright80. The satirical playwrights who used their plays to strongly criticise the King and came too closely upon his susceptibility had seen their royal patronage removed81. Because drama plays were still performed in public events with its own influence over society, it could not express too much of a disapproval directly of the monarchy.
In the seventeenth century, theatre conventions were based either on moral purposes or used to deal with the struggling aspect of the English culture82. In the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, society was represented through the prism of Italian courts to "exploit their audience's prejudices against papistry […] but also [to speak] of an endemic corruption that could not safely be identified nearer home"83. The playwrights also wanted to represent the human nature of the era84 . In Théâtre et spiritualité au temps de Shakespeare, Maurice Abiteboul even tells that the "mythical Italy" was an "object of fascination, which constitute[d] one of the greatest obsession of the Renaissance English drama."85.
1.3.2. WOMEN OUT OF FAVOUR WITH RENAISSANCE THEATRE.
If we consider the female sexuality represented onstage, it was "more confusing as female roles were played by boy actors"86 and as women could not be actresses, they supposedly brought misfortune. This caused a problem as women started wearing men's clothing and King James I outrageously protested against it87. For Aleksandra Kowalska the women did not have their place in theatre, because of the moral damage that it would do to them:
"la liberté intellectuelle affichée par le fait d'être auteur était liée à la liberté sexuelle; parler de soi en public était semblable à se donner en spectacle
80 ‘Lord Chamberlain’s Men | English Theatrical Company’. Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lord-Chamberlains-Men. Accessed 28 Feb. 2019.
81 J.L STYAN, The Elements of Drama. Cambridge university Press, 1976, p. 92.
82 M.B ROSE, op. cit., p.1
83 J.L STYAN, op. cit., p. 90.
84 M. ABITEBOUL, Dames de cœur et Femmes de tête, l'Harmattan, 2008, p.205.
85 trad. " une "Italie mythique", objet de fascination, qui constitue l'une des grandes obsessions du drame anglais de la Renaissance.", p.3.
86 A. RIGAUD, and F. PALLEAU-PAPIN, An introduction to Anglophone theatre. Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2015, p.53.
87 M.B ROSE, op. cit., p.69.
en tant qu'actrice, ce qui constituait, en quelque sorte, une perte de chasteté et suggérait un lien entre une femme écrivain et une prostituée"88.
Women could not, in the patriarchal society, strive after celebrity and professional recognition89. It can be questioned whether or not female roles were written for female actresses or directly for boy actors90.
Besides, the seventeenth century theatre was the target of Puritans who were opposed to it. This meant the "decrease in the play-going public"91 because Puritans would assert that
"the cause of the plagues [was] sin, if you look to it well: and the cause of sin [were] plays:
therefore the cause of plagues [were] plays"92. Stuart tragedy was accused of decadence93, because of the Early Modern society's fascination and representation of Italians' values which were considered as not morals. But also with the place of women, sometimes not represented as obedient and docile as patriarchal society wanted them to be. For instance, in The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, the Duchess challenged the male authority to remarry, which was something poorly regarded at that time94. Thus, in the Jacobean drama women were categorised either as angels or devils in roles such as wives, servants or prostitutes and witches for instance with no in-between as it can be seen in Swetnam's pamphlet The Arraignment of Women95. This pamphlet was a misogynistic and anti-feminist tract which provoked a controversy in the English society around 1615. The author had been contested, mostly, by three female writers among whom Rachel Speght, Esther Sowernam (who used a pseudonym which referred to the word 'Swetnam') and Constantia Munda, who also used a pseudonym.
The dangers of the female sexuality were also exploited in the seventeenth century drama, with the representation of the remarried widows which were "subject[s] for comedy in early England"96. Even marriage was one of the main dramatic themes of the Stuart tragedy97. In In Another Country, Coppélia Kahn states that whores are women who sleep
KEHLER, and S. BAKER. In Another Country. Scarecrow Press, 1991, p.242.
94 M.B ROSE, op. cit., p.79.
95 D. KEHLER, and S. Baker, op. cit., p.79.
96 M. PRIOR (ed.), op. cit., p.54.
97 M. LAEL MIKESELL, op. cit., p.234.
with other men than their husband, even if they are not married98. She later adds that "A virgin, is in fact, a whore"99. These statements show that in the patriarchal society women are considered as whores even if they do not have sexual intercourses, because men were afraid of not controlling the female sexuality100. They also tended to be moralistic with women through the female victimisation or the "distress virtue" theme, which was the idea that women needed help to protect their virtue. These moralistic behaviours were made to warn women against the dangers of sexuality.
1.3.3. CELEBRATED WOMEN.
Even though they were considered sometimes as whores, virtuous women were still praised in writings of the seventeenth century, and into the Renaissance imagination101. However, some playwrights such as William Shakespeare did not have the same patriarchal view towards female characters. Thus, "a great diversity of female characters" had been created in the Shakespearean theatre102. Playwrights also challenged the moral conventions103 such as in The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster in which a woman is in charge of her own home and is not willing to give power to her brothers. In the Jacobean plays, female characters can be celebrated even though they have a sexuality and are not afraid of unveiling it. Through the theatre, playwrights wanted to show the society's struggles such as sexual emancipation and sexual freedom. According to Christy Desmet "The Jacobean Drama also celebrates women who cross conventional lines between virtue and vice"104, such as the virgin Isabella who plays on her own sexuality and virtue to play a trick on Angelo.
However, apart from appearing in drama as written characters and even if their presence onstage had been forbidden, some women were part of the theatre landscape beginning with Elizabeth I, whose reign had seen the blooming of different arts and
98 C. KAHN, op.cit., p.252.
99 C.KAHN, op. cit., p.255.
100 Ibid, p.252.
101 M.B ROSE, op. cit., p.17.
102 M. ABITEBOUL, Théâtre et spiritualité au temps de Shakespeare. éd. de l’Association de recherches internationales sur les arts du spectacle, 1995, p.7.
103 P. DROUET and W.C. CARROLL (dir.), et al., op.cit., p.98.
104 C. DESMET, "Neither Maid, Widow, nor Wife": Rhetoric of the Woman controversy in Measure for Measure and The Duchess of Malfi" in D. KEHLER and S. BAKER, In Another Country, Scarecrow Press, 1991, p.71
especially drama. However, after her death, when James I became king, women did not seem to be in an anti-feminist fight against the Court, as they still had some prominent positions in it as well as in art105. Even if they could not perform directly on stage women could still be part of the theatre game being patrons when playwrights were refused by important men or when they wanted to have female patrons. In his commentary "Women as patrons of Renaissance Drama", David M. Bergeron states that he has identified fourteen women that were patrons of drama mostly rich women from the courts of Europe106. Because of that we can wonder if female patrons influenced women's cause through their patronage and if they had their say on what the playwright was writing.
Also, in the commentary of Jean E. Howard, there is a reference to Andrew Gurr's study Playgoing in Shakespeare's London. Through this study it appears that women were in "significant number" in the theatre audience, not only the aristocracy or the women of the Court but also citizen's wives107 who came from England's emerging middle-class108.