ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Mary Wollstonecraft's adept manipulation of sentimental and gothic conventions in her use of theatrical tropes throughout Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman suggests that 'performance' can be empowering and liberating and not just coercive, which brings us to the fourth and most contentious critical context: performance. The critical lens has revised traditional assumptions regarding Romanticism and theater both in terms of theoretically informed studies of male and female-authored dramatic texts and of reading cultural and non-dramatic literary productions as informed by theater. The chapter focuses on five theoretical prisms: recent revisionary criticism on Romantic theatricality; cultural and literary studies of the politicization of theater and the theatricalization of politics; theories of masquerade; theories of mimicry; and a conceptual crisis in drama studies, resulting in the divide between theater and performance critics. It argues that critical debates about masquerade winch have instrumentally connected cultural, linguistic, and performance theories.
