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Literature, Politics and Law in Renaissance England‘She has that in her belly will dry up your ink’: Femininity as Challenge in the ‘Equitable Drama’ of John Webster

Literature, Politics and Law in Renaissance England: ‘She has that in her belly will dry up your... [Theatre in early modern England has for some time been recognized as a crucial form of cultural exchange. It not only expresses but also inquires into and mediates between different types of social performativity, thus cutting across the boundaries of institutional discourses. This essay will focus on the dialogue between theatre and the law, emphasizing both the historical and structural dimensions of this exchange. The notion of equity — painstaking inquiry and fair judgement in consideration of the particular circumstances of a case — emerges as a privileged point of contact between the court and the stage.1 While equity appears as a crucial and contentious subject of contemporary legal debate, drama deals in the particular and unusual, and seeks to interrogate the ethics and the complexity of social interaction. The most complex cases in a patriarchal society often involve women, and John Webster perhaps more than any other contemporary playwright used the stage to explore the relation between women and the law. I will argue that his is a type of forensic drama which foregrounds equity by placing the issues of female characters at the centre of the action — as the law interrogates femininity, femininity interrogates the law.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Literature, Politics and Law in Renaissance England‘She has that in her belly will dry up your ink’: Femininity as Challenge in the ‘Equitable Drama’ of John Webster

Part of the Language, Discourse, Society Book Series
Editors: Sheen, Erica; Hutson, Lorna
Habermann, Ina
Literature, Politics and Law in Renaissance England — Nov 16, 2015
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References (6)

Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2005
ISBN
978-1-349-43051-2
Pages
100 –120
DOI
10.1057/9780230597662_5
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Theatre in early modern England has for some time been recognized as a crucial form of cultural exchange. It not only expresses but also inquires into and mediates between different types of social performativity, thus cutting across the boundaries of institutional discourses. This essay will focus on the dialogue between theatre and the law, emphasizing both the historical and structural dimensions of this exchange. The notion of equity — painstaking inquiry and fair judgement in consideration of the particular circumstances of a case — emerges as a privileged point of contact between the court and the stage.1 While equity appears as a crucial and contentious subject of contemporary legal debate, drama deals in the particular and unusual, and seeks to interrogate the ethics and the complexity of social interaction. The most complex cases in a patriarchal society often involve women, and John Webster perhaps more than any other contemporary playwright used the stage to explore the relation between women and the law. I will argue that his is a type of forensic drama which foregrounds equity by placing the issues of female characters at the centre of the action — as the law interrogates femininity, femininity interrogates the law.]

Published: Nov 16, 2015

Keywords: Female Character; Patriarchal Society; Early Modern Period; Female Protagonist; Forensic Inquiry

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