University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-1922 Woman's place in modern drama. Ruth Wilson University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Recommended Citation Wilson, Ruth, "Woman's place in modern drama." (1922). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1583. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/1583 This Master's Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UNIVERSITY ot LOUISVILLE III III III WOllAlI'S PLACE IN llODERN DRAMA * III * .A Dissertation Submitted to the :racult;y Of~he Graduate School of Arts and Sciences In Partial JlUltillment of the Requirements for the Degree ot )(aster of Arts Department of English Ruth Wilson 1922 TABLE OF CONTENTS 13198 TABLE OF CONTENTS *** - Introduotion••••••••••••••••••••••• Page 1-14 CHAPTER I. Women in the Rome •••••••••••••••••• Page 14-23 CHAPTER II. wayward Women •••••••••••••••••••••• Page 25-29 CHAPTER In. The Eternal Triangle ••••••••••••••• Page 40-52 CHAPTER lY. Women and Commercialism •••••••••••• Page 53-65 - ***** - Conclus1.lbi •••••••••••••••••••••••• Page 66-69 Plays used in Thesis ••••••••••••••• Page 71-72 Bibliography••••••• · •••••••••••••••• Page 73-74 IHTRODUOTION While the character of women in the plays of anct.nt times has ever played an important part in the history of the drama, the. appearance of women in the feainine roles is. a distinct- 1y reoent development. It might well be said that this is a tairly modern addition to the stage. Perhaps it Aesohy1us or Shakespeare were here to.day, they would shake their heads and sigh because women, who'e place they considered to be in the home, should have so far degraded themselves as to appear before an audience on an equal footing with their huabands or brothers. They would probably never realize how much better would have been a woman's interpre- tation ot a woman's part. This advance of women then into the public eye would be nQ less preposterous to them than the idea of women in politics was to our own men folk a few years ago. In order to lead up to the time when women first appear- ed on the stage, it might be well to consider woman's position in the early drama, and to give a brief sketch ot the history ot the drama in the various c.ountries. The inhabitants of India belonged to the Aryan race. These peoples settled down, ai'tel" their migrations to three differ- ent peninsulars, and advanced three distiDCt oivilizations. One -1- branch made its home in the Hindu peninsule.r and spoke the Sanskrit tongue; the secord went to "the Italian peninsular and sppke the Italian language; while the third great group of this Ar1an,tamily settled in the Grecian peninsular and spoke the Greek language. rhis last division beoame the most cultured ot all. The Greeks not only gave to the world the aesthetic and intellectual qualities which dominate the cultured peoples ot to-day, but they originated the drama---the most powerful tactor in modern life and educational deYelopment. In ancient Greece we see the savage people assembled on ocoasions on the village green to oelebrate the great .god Dionysus, the personification ot nature's great productive force. The peasants selected a level plaoe on the side ot a hill and entertained the gods by means of song and dance. Now and then some votary would spring upon the sacrificial table and relate in glowing terms his personal experiences with the gods. This man, overwhelmed with his great desire to explain to others the adVentures of the gods, was the tirst actor. This sacriticial table, spread by the wizards and soothsayers, was the first stage. At first there was only one aotor, this inspired votary. At the time of Aeschylus the number ot actors had increased to two, and during Sophooles'day there were as many as three. As time went on the aotors began to dress the part. Thus arose the first costume. Dignified oostumes were Used for the tragedies and grotesque ones for oomedies. The soene developed in as casual a 1f8.y as did the oostume. It 1f8.1 inconvenient, naturally, for an actor to run across the green to a tent and change his garb, so the table, or stage, ....s placed against the tent. This tent formed the first background or scene, and beoame the parent of those artistic oreations which our. popular soenio artists of to-day devise to give oolor and atmosphere to the modern drama. This celebration)therefore, grew into our first real dramatic production. There gradually ieveloped along two dis- tinctly different lines the tragedy and the comedy. An inter- mediate development, more tragic than com1c, but given to relieve the tension of the audienoe, also grew up, which was called· the satyr drama. It is not mw desire to take up in detail the development of the drama, but merely to give a skeleton of that development on whicll to hang the meat of the plays and to show that from the beginning women were not oonsidered as suitable for work on the stage. The roles of women in the early Greek drama were taken by young boys whose voioes had not taken on the deep masculine ton~s sufficient to enable them to play the male parts. It is not particularlyludiorous for us to imagine that the young and beautiful maidens who played the parts of the sea nymphs. danoing as they did in and about the crags where Jrometheus lay bound to the rock in Prometheus Bound. were not girls at all but young boys. It is not ludicrous because the Greek boy of that time was as lithe and graceful as out door life, Olympic games, and dances oould make him. He was equally as nimble as his fair sister in his movements. In the early times when the Indian peoples still possessed the virile qualities or their ancestors, there arose the nucleus of the great Indian epic poem, )(a.ha.-Barata, or the wars of the Barata, which closely res~led Homer's Iliad. Perhaps H~himself had come in contact with the peoples of ancient' India. At any rate the W'OlIlen characters in this great Indian epic '!"Jre given a prominent place. The charaotercof Drupadi. the daughter of Panchala and wife of A.yuna., and the character of Pritha, the mother. were perhaps the first women definitely defined in a poem ot this type. From the first book of the lfaha-Barata, Kalidasa the great Indian playwright, took his theme of his drama Shakun­ tala. In criticising the work of the great Iniian play­ wright, of whom so little is known, we must remember that our tastes, ideals and standards of morality are extremely differ­ ent from those of early India. Kalidasa, like iopho61es and Aesc~lus, was the author of seven writings, of which one is a eulogy, three are epics, and three, dramas. The greatest of his dramatic works is Shakuntala. This play is filled with natural beauty and human emotions. It is interesting to note in connection with the title of this thesis that the leading character of the earliest Indian drama was a woman. Taking into consideration the difference in morals, we find the character of Skakuntala amazingly modern. She is a girl who loves a man abovaher in social position, just as any modern girl might do. To h~ she gives all, believing that she is to be married to him. He forgets her. It.is the age old plot which modern dramatists have brought down to modern times and which we are prone to think of as a strictly modern theme. Critics differ as to whether or not the part of the beauti.tt1l daughter of the hermitage was originally played by a woman. If the role was portrayed by a female, it is the one exception to the genera~ rule that women did not appear en the early stage. The passage in Act 111 where the King makes love to Shakuntala is exquisitely poetic and beautiful in its romantic sentiment. It is more satisfying for us to believe with those critics who say that a woman played the woman's part. lor instanoe, it is more natural for us t. imagine that the King speaks the following lines to a woman -5- instead of to some untemperamenta1 boy in his 'teens: "Her sweetly trembling lip With virgin invitation Provokes ~ soul to sip Delightful fascination". And again: It ought to be enough for me To hover 'round your fragrant face Is not the lotus-hunting bee Content with perfume and with grace?· From the branch of the Al-yan family whioh settled in the Italian peninsular ~ no react dramas were developed in ~cient times. The character of women~ MeverJ was distinctly prominent in the great epic poems. Take for instance the Queen of Carthage in Virgil's Aeneid. Again we see a woman loved and giving her love. When she is left by Aeneis in a moment of weakness J she kills herselt. With the later development ot the drama in the E1iz­ abethean period in England, we find that about tifty peroent ot Shakespeare's leading characters are women. We must not lose sight of the fact that women were never cast tor the female parts on the E1izabethean stage.