ABSTRACT
The essays in Part III all focus upon a specific English woman dramatist from the Early Modern period and are ordered according to the chronological position of the female playwrights and their oeuvres. Thus, Elizabeth I and Jane/Joanna Lumley, who both translated plays as young women, come first, and are followed by Mary Sidney, another ‘Elizabethan’ author, but one whose translation of a drama occurred when she was already a wife and mother. The next two women writers, Elizabeth Cary and Mary Wroth, may be characterised by a closer identification with the Jacobean period, and show a key development in that, rather than translate, they both authored original plays, the first tragedy and comedy (respectively) written in English by a woman. The final three women dramatists represented in this collection all belong to the Cavendish family, Jane and Elizabeth being the daughters of William Cavendish, while Margaret was his second wife. Their plays were written either during or after the English Civil War, and similarly denote an alteration in the way in which women participated in dramatic production, since their witty comedies and emphasis upon female performance mark the shift towards the professional women dramatists and actresses of the Restoration. Thus, this section traces one of the most important periods in the development of the English woman dramatist, from the initial forays into translation, through the composition of the first original texts, to a freedom of action and speech which reached its final culmination in the fully independent female playwrights of the present day.
