Men in Women's Clothing: Anti-theatricality and Effeminization, 1579-1642, Vol. 5
In 1597 anti-theatricalist Stephen Gosson made the curious remark that theatre 'effeminized' the mind. Four years later Phillip Stubbes claimed that male actors who wore women's clothing could literally 'adulterate' male gender and fifty years after this in a tract which may have hastened the closing of the theatres, William Prynne described a man whom women's clothing had literally caused to 'degenerate' into a women. How can we account for such fears of effeminization and what did...
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In 1579 a leading dramatic critic made the curious remark that theatre 'effeminated' the mind. Four years later another insisted that male actors who wore women's clothing could literally 'adulterate' male gender. In a tract which may have hastened the closing of the theatres in the mid-seventeenth century, William Prynne described a warrior whom women's clothing had caused to 'degenerate' into a woman. How can we account for these persistent anxieties and their effect on the work of Renaissance playwrights, simultaneously haunted by such fears and obsessively intent on coming to terms with them?
AcknowledgementsIntroduction11Men in women's clothing102Troilus and Cressida and the politics of rage263"Strange flesh": Antony and Cleopatra and the story of the dissolving warrior444Theatre as other: Jonson's Epicoene735The "Nothing" under the puppet's costume: Jonson's suppression of Marlowe in Bartholomew Fair896Magic as theatre, theatre as magic: Daemonologie and the problem of "entresse"1087Magic as theatre, theatre as magic: the case of Newes from Scotland120Epilogue134Notes137Works cited174Index181
