Illegitimate Power: Bastards in Renaissance DramaIn Renaissance drama, the bastard is an extraordinarily powerful and disruptive figure. We have only to think of Caliban or of Edmund to realise the challenge presented by the illegitimate child. Drawing on a wide range of play texts, Alison Findlay shows how illegitimacy encoded and threatened to deconstruct some of the basic tenets of patriarchal rule. She considers bastards as indicators and instigators of crisis in early modern England, reading them in relation to witchcraft, spiritual insecurities and social unrest in family and State. The characters discussed range from demi-devils, unnatural villains and clowns to outstandingly heroic or virtuous types who challenge officially sanctioned ideas of illegitimacy. The final chapter of the book considers bastards in performance; their relationship with theatre spaces and audiences. Illegitimate voices, Findlay argues, can bring about the death of the author/father and open the text as a piece of theatre, challenging accepted notions of authority. |
Contents
Bastardy and evil45 | 45 |
Unnatural children85 | 85 |
Natural children129 | 129 |
Copyright | |
4 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
accursed share actor alien Antipater Antipater's argues Arthur audience authority Bakhtin Barnabe Barnes base bastard characters bastard villain beggar behaviour birth body Brome brother Caliban chastity Church Corydon culture dangerous demonised devil discourse dramatic Dramatists Edgar Edmund Edmund Ironside Edricus English evil father female feminine forces Gaspar grotesque Hercules hero Herod Heywood hierarchy honour ideas identity illegitimacy illegitimate inheritance King John King Lear Late Lancashire Witches legitimate world London lust male marriage masque Misfortunes of Arthur moral Mordred mother murder natural child noble Oldrents Oxford paternity patriarchal performance Philip play play's plots position Prince Prospero psychomachia rebellion rebels Renaissance Drama Renaissance England Revenger's Tragedy Richard Brome role scene sexual Shakespeare shows Sir Richard social society soliloquy sonne speech Springlove stage subversive Suckabus theatre theatrical Thersites Thomas Thomas Heywood thou Tiberius Nero Tragedy University Press unnatural vice virgin virtuous voice witch woman women