Staging Gender: Shakespeare to Behn

Assessment: coursework (5000 words in total)
This module thinks about the connections between ideas of gender and ideas of theatre, exploring the ways in which gender was represented on the early modern stage from the emergence of the all-male Renaissance theatre to the mixed-sex stages of the Restoration (c. 1576-1688). Reading play texts and historical materials, we will think in depth about such ideas as early modern femininities and masculinities; the cross-dressed boy actor and the all-male stage; the Jacobean tragic hero; the relationship between clothing, costume, character and gender; women?s writing for the stage; the Restoration dandy and the Restoration actress; women?s performance; hermaphrodites and alternative genders on the Renaissance stage; misogyny and the possibility of proto-feminism. In this way, you will read a wide range of Renaissance dramatic texts, be equipped to think about them in relation to their historical and literary contexts, and to understand both concepts of gender and its various depictions on the Renaissance stage. This module would sit very well next to any of the Shakespeare modules on offer.