ABSTRACT
Purcell was born into a period marked by violence and upheaval, and his short life was punctuated by intermittent religious and political crises. Yet the seventeenth century was also an age of more positive transitions, an age in which old epistemes began to be replaced by knowledge systems that, from our perspective, seem more recognizably modern. The Royal Society explored acoustics using the new empirically grounded science;1 and anatomical discoveries challenged, but did not completely overthrow, the notion that women and men existed on an ontological continuum, with men occupying the top of the hierarchy (the widely discussed ‘one-sex’ model described by medical historian Thomas Laqueur).2 Changing mores, as well as practical considerations, led to the introduction of structural changes on the english stage, as members of both sexes began to act in public. and music became increasingly important, as actors and actresses became thoroughly trained in the art of song and a new crop of performers known solely for their singing graced the London theatres.3
