ABSTRACT
While most critical essays on women’s involvement with drama in the Early Modern period focus upon specific authors or texts, there are several key areas which cut across individual authorship. The pieces in Part II all focus upon an issue which is important to our understanding of the way in which Renaissance women negotiated a route which allowed them to participate in the dramatic discourses of their day. The initial essay included here, Nancy Cotton’s commentary on Renaissance noblewomen, was the first contemporary critical work undertaken on Early Modern women dramatists, and as such, it provides us with an important and essential starting point. Thus, the social group from which the Renaissance women dramatists arose was clearly identified as courtly by Cotton. The following two essays, by Barroll and Wynne-Davies, pursue this idea of the social context, while adding a sense of location: Leeds Barroll looks at the role of the court in allowing, and policing, women’s dramatic activity, and Marion Wynne-Davies analyses the way in which the English country house served as an alternative arena for women’s dramatic output. The next three essays all examine the way in which women gained access to drama through ancillary, but nevertheless important, activities. David M.Bergeron was the first contemporary critic to investigate the way in which women influenced theatre with their patronage. Jean E. Howard excavates the role of women as spectators and ‘paying customers’ in the Early Modern theatre. Finally, S.P.Cerasano has uncovered important evidence showing that women actually part-owned theatres in the English Renaissance. The last essay, by Gweno Williams, turns away from the history of the women dramatists, instead focusing upon the way in which their plays may be successfully produced today. Thus, the Contexts and Issues part of this book provides the reader with several possible channels of investigation, from social history to contemporary performance.
