Date of Award
2010
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Myhill, Nova
Keywords
Renaissance Literature, Early Modern Drama, Domestic Tragedy, Gender
Area of Concentration
English
Abstract
This thesis explores the agency of women in the domestic tragedy of early modern England, focusing on plays about witchcraft and mariticide, the murder of one's husband. This thesis deals with four plays and their sources. Two are anonymous Elizabethan mariticide plays: A Warning for Fair Women and Arden of Faversham, and two are Jacobean witchcraft plays: Brome and Heywood's The Late Lancashire Witches and Dekker, Ford, and Rowley's The Witch of Edmonton. The sources for these plays are recounted in Golding's �A Briefe Discourse,� Holinshed's Chronicles, and Goodcole's �The Wonderfull Discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer.� The first chapter discusses the witchcraft plays in terms of the social mobility of the main female characters. The way the other members of the community perceive of these women affects the agency each woman has as a witch. The second chapter discusses the way in which the mariticide plays combine two different types of narrative readings found within the sources: a narrative of providence and divine will and a narrative of crime and punishment.
Recommended Citation
Tedder, Monica, "Subversion Subverted Exploring Women's Roles in Early Modern Domestic Tragedy" (2010). Theses & ETDs. 4346.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/4346