ABSTRACT
Michael Field’s Stephania (1892) challenged closet drama expectations in genre, form, narrative, even theme. Stephania’s metanarrative suggests Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper saw English Art in decay and in need of resuscitation through women’s choices, resilience, and intrepidity. Set in Rome, ad 1002, Stephania, a trialogue with three characters and Symbolist tendencies, confronts homosocial authority as a former empress turned courtesan triumphs as symbolic queen/emperor. Stephania, themed with victorious female vengeance, directly criticized Field’s readership and marked the downward spiral in their career.
