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Document Type
Monograph
Description
Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Texts: In Medias Res attends to the religious, social, and material changes in England during the century following the Reformation, specifically examining how the English came to terms with the meanings of convents and novices even after they disappeared from the physical and social landscape. In five chapters, it traces convents and novices across a range of dramatic texts that refuse easy generic classification: problem plays such as Shakespeare's Measure for Measure; Marlowe's comic tragedy The Jew of Malta; Margaret Cavendish's closet dramas The Convent of Pleasure and The Religious; Aphra Behn's Restoration comedy The Rover; and seventeenth-century dialogues that include both a Catholic treatise promoting women's entrance into European convents and a proto-pornographic exposé of such convents. Convents, novices, and problem plays emerge as parallel sites of ambiguity that reflect the social, political, and religious uncertainties England faced after the Reformation.
Publication Date
4-2020
Publisher
Medieval Institute Publications
City
Kalamazoo
ISBN
9781501517907
Keywords
theatre, convents, nuns, drama, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Cavendish, Behn, religious studies, early modern England, Reformation
Disciplines
Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory | Literature in English, North America | Medieval Studies | Modern Languages | Modern Literature | Renaissance Studies | Theatre History | Women's Studies
Citation for Published Book
Rapatz, Vanessa L. Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Works: In Medias Res. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2020.
Included in
Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Medieval Studies Commons, Modern Languages Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Renaissance Studies Commons, Theatre History Commons, Women's Studies Commons
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PDF: 9781501513343
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