Censorship of Early English Women Dramatists. Sigrid Marika King Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1994 "Vertue Vanish'd": Censorship of Early English Women Dramatists. Sigrid Marika King Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation King, Sigrid Marika, ""Vertue Vanish'd": Censorship of Early English Women Dramatists." (1994). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 5807. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5807 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. 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Ann Arbor, MI 48106 "VERTUE VANISH'D": CENSORSHIP OF EARLY ENGLISH WOMEN DRAMATISTS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Sigrid Marika King B.S., Louisiana State University, 1983 M .A ., Louisiana State University, 1989 August 1994 Copyright 1994 Sigrid Marika King All rights reserved ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am particularly thankful to Lisa Walker and Catherine Williamson, who have seen the dissertation through from the beginning and have provided insightful advice and excellent suggestions for revision over copious cups of coffee. I am also very thankful to Scott Nelson and Michael Dietz for their readings of several chapters of this work. My profound thanks also go to Jacqueline Parker, Lisa McFarren, and Lois Nilsen, whose friendship and generosity made the difficult times so much easier. I also want to thank my dissertation committee, Jim Borck, Gale Carrithers, William Demastes, Katherine Kemler, and Emily Toth, for their helpful advice and suggestions for revision. There are two people whose significant contributions to this work are impossible to enumerate. Josephine Roberts first encouraged my interest in early women writers, and has persevered in bringing these women back out of obscurity and into the mainstream of academic discourse. Her dedication and skill as a scholar and teacher will always be a source of inspiration. Michael Dennison has been through each step of this dissertation, providing support and encouragement every day; his love, infinite patience, and valuable scholarly advice made an integral contribution to this work's completion. With love and respect, I dedicate this dissertation to them. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................... iii ABSTRACT..................................................... v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ................................... 1 II DRAMATIC CENSORSHIP: BACKGROUND AND REDEFINITION................................ 9 III "BE AND SEEM": RENAISSANCE CENSORSHIP AND ELIZABETH CARY'S MARIAM ....................... 71 IV "TURNED SHADOW": OFFICIAL CENSORSHIP AND APHRA BEHN'S THE RO V E R ......................... 136 V THROWN "OUT OF THEIR KIND": THE FEMALE WITS AND CENSORSHIP 1688-1708 ................ 177 VI DRAWING THE VEIL: CENTLIVRE, GARRICK AND THE WONDER FROM 1714 TO1776 238 VII CONCLUSION .................................... 2 91 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................. 297 APPENDIX: OFFICIALS RESPONSIBLE FOR CENSORSHIP OF ENGLISH DRAMA .................................. 313 VITA .........................................................314 iv ABSTRACT This dissertation traces the impact of censorship on women dramatists from the Renaissance through the late eighteenth century, focusing on the plays of Elizabeth Cary, Aphra Behn, Mary Pix, and Susanna Centlivre. Several types of censorship--political, religious, and moral-- affected the work of these playwrights, and several agencies--the Master of Revels, the audience, the theatre manager, and the prompter--were involved in censorship of their works. When early modern women wrote for the stage, they confronted the strictures against publication and public exposure. The four playwrights discussed here used a combination of self-censorship and subversive strategies in their work. Self-censorship was particularly significant for Elizabeth Cary, the first Englishwoman to write and publish an original full-length play. Her closet drama, The Tragedie of Mariam (1613), demonstrates the extent to which she had internalized Renaissance gender paradigms but was able to utilize them to make a statement about women's subjectivity. The Master of Revels, who became an important censoring agent for women in the Restoration and eighteenth century, had a direct effect on a promptbook for the revival of Aphra Behn's The Rover. Behn's censored play underwent substantial cuts and emendations in material related to political, religious, and gender issues. In the v 1690s, the audience became a strong censoring agent, particularly as the movement for stage reform coincided with the appearance of new women playwrights, including Mary Pix. Although her efforts were lampooned in The Female Wits. Pix demonstrated the ability to please the changing audience in a promptbook for a 17 07 production of The Spanish Wives. Efforts to reform the stage culminated in the late 1700s when theatre managers took over the censoring role. A promptbook for David Garrick's production of Susanna Centlivre's The Wonder demonstrates that one hundred and fifty years after Englishwomen began to write for the stage, gender was still an important factor in alteration of their works. Cary, Behn, Pix, and Centlivre persevered despite efforts to silence their voices and helped dispel the idea that when women wrote, their "vertue vanish'd." vi I. INTRODUCTION Thus Afra, thus despairing Sappho mourn'd; Sure both their Souls are to your Breast return'd. By the same Tyrant-Passion all enslav'd, Like you they wrote, like you they lov'd and rav'd. But ah! the Vertue vanish'd, what remain'd? Their Verse as spotted as their Glory stain'd? They lost that Gem with which Orinda shin'd, And left a sully'd Name and Works behind. (John Dunton, The Athenian Mercury, 27 November 1694) Who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body? (Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own. 1929) Censorship is a source of intense fascination to literary scholars. What is allowable, what is moral, what is true: these are all issues that shape our understanding of literature and influence its publication and canonicity. Censorship becomes even more complex in dramatic literature where the immediacy of performance creates an additional level of interpretation for the author, audience, and authorities. The purpose of this study is to establish the importance of censorship as an issue for early women playwrights, to show the effects of different types of censorship on the works of four specific women dramatists, to explore the areas of similarity and difference in censorship of plays by men and women, and to provide information and a theoretical framework for further scholarship in this area. 1 In order to demonstrate how censorship affected the works and lives of early women playwrights, this study begins with an in-depth analysis of censorship in sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth-century England. This historical survey examines censorship in terms of political, religious, moral, and libelous elements. The survey also analyzes how the importance of each of these elements fluctuates throughout the history of English dramatic censorship. This section explores how dramatic censorship functions through both internal and external