Early systematic research into the many types of dramatic performance – civic, religious, and popular — written beginning around 1895 was curiously oblivious to the extensive participation of women, while more recent work has solidly established that presence. This oversight was not so much deliberate as a byproduct of how early research was conducted, in particular, a presumption that civic pageants formed a unified and uniform tradition, with the best known examples focusing on male guild performers.
17th c
LHMP entry
During the 16th and earlier 17th century, women were not members of professional acting troupes, but did participate in class-appropriate performances at all levels: masques and plays at court, pageants and parish plays in towns, and traveling performers at the poorest level. In addition, women were patrons and spectators. All of these undermine the idea of the “all-male stage”. At the same time, women players were often heaped with scorn. This could be hazardous to the critic when the attacks were on court ladies participating in masques and plays.
Blake is looking at the history of the dildo in early modern culture not as a physical object, but as fulfilling the function of a fashion accessory. This, despite opening the conversation by stating that she is not viewing it for its symbolic purpose, but for its functional one. In passing, she notes that philosophical arguments about the function on the dildo in history have resonances with modern arguments about the symbolism and function of dildoes in lesbian relationships.
William Walsh was a late 17th century English poet and critic. The work of his that piques our interest is a philosophical treatise A Dialogue Concerning Women, being a Defence of the Sex, which is dedicated to someone identified as Eugenia. The work is in the form of a debate between Misogynes (the misogynist) and Philogynes (the lover of women), with authorial asides commenting on their arguments and directly addressing the dedicatee.
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was a French gem merchant and traveller in the 17th century. He traveled extensively for business to Persia and India, making six voyages between 1630-1668. At the request of King Louis XIV of France, in 1675 he wrote up his experiences as Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier.
Thomas Glover was born in Constantinople to an English father and Polish mother and was raised there, being fluent in Turkish, Greek, Italian, and Polish (as well as English). He served as secretary to two successive English ambassadors to Constantinople before being installed as ambassador himself in 1606. He was recalled to London in 1611 under something of a cloud, perhaps due to interceding in Moldavian royal politics, but evidently it blew over.
Libertine, rake, and dandy (LRD) are a sequence of persona types that emerged sequentially from the 16th to the 20th century, with overlaps, and blurring between them. They existed alongside other named character types, such as 18th-century, fops, macaronis, coxcombs, and coquettes. All are defined in relation to the “respectable” character types, such as the pious person, the bluestocking, etc. to name only a very few. The sexually-marked types of LRD don’t correspond directly to the modern concept of queerness, though some connections can be traced.
From the topic, one might think this chapter would focus primarily on the male homoerotic potential of boy actors dressing as female roles on the early modern stage, but the choice of plays that Orvis chooses to examine clearly bring in female themes as well.
This chapter begins with a discussion of historic terminologies for women who loved women and the eternal problem of whether to use the label “lesbian”. Should the historian look for specific acts, or for evidence of emotional intimacy? And as a literary historian, should one distinguish between literary, artistic, or dramatic depictions, and “non-fictional” content in the fields of law, medicine, and theology?
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