On the Queerness of Early English Drama: Sex in the Subjunctive

Synopsis

Often viewed as theologically conservative, many theatrical works of late medieval and early Tudor England nevertheless exploited the performative nature of drama to flirt with unsanctioned expressions of desire, allowing queer identities and themes to emerge. Early plays faced vexing challenges in depicting sexuality, but modes of queerness, including queer scopophilia, queer dialogue, queer characters, and queer performances, fractured prevailing restraints. Many of these plays were produced within male homosocial environments, and thus homosociality served as a narrative precondition of their storylines. Building from these foundations, On the Queerness of Early English Drama investigates occluded depictions of sexuality in late medieval and early Tudor dramas. Tison Pugh explores a range of topics, including the unstable genders of the York Corpus Christi Plays, the morally instructive humour of excremental allegory in Mankind, the confused relationship of sodomy and chastity in John Bale’s historical interludes, and the camp artifice and queer carnival of Sir David Lyndsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis. Pugh concludes with Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi, pondering the afterlife of medieval drama and its continued utility in probing cultural constructions of gender and sexuality

Copyright:

2021

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

256 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781487538873

Related ISBNs:

9781487508746

Publisher:

University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division

Date of Addition:

02/05/21

Copyrighted By:

University of Toronto Press

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Art and Architecture, Literature and Fiction, Social Studies, Drama, Plays and Theater

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.