‘[N]or bear I in this breast / So much cold spirit to be called a woman’: The Queerness of Female Revenge in The Maid’s Tragedy

Graham, K.M. 2018. ‘[N]or bear I in this breast / So much cold spirit to be called a woman’: The Queerness of Female Revenge in The Maid’s Tragedy. Early Theatre. 21 (1), pp. 107-126. https://doi.org/10.12745/et.21.1.3257

Title‘[N]or bear I in this breast / So much cold spirit to be called a woman’: The Queerness of Female Revenge in The Maid’s Tragedy
TypeJournal article
AuthorsGraham, K.M.
Abstract

In Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Maid’s Tragedy, we find Evadne, a female revenger who violently acts, avenging herself and the men around her. In this article, I offer a consideration of Evadne which argues that the representational strategies of the play trouble our understanding of her gender, showing it as constructed via a nexus of sometimes contradictory fixations, fixations which are articulated through a rhetoric of bodies. Throughout this consideration, I connect this nexus to her proximity to, and enacting of, revenge.

KeywordsThe Maid's Tragedy; Revenge; Early Modern Revenge Tragedy; Queer
JournalEarly Theatre
Journal citation21 (1), pp. 107-126
ISSN1206-9078
Year2018
PublisherEarly Theatre
Accepted author manuscript
Publisher's version
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.12745/et.21.1.3257
Publication dates
Published22 Jan 2018

Related outputs

‘You mean some strange revenge’: The Jacobean Intersections of Revenge and the Strange
Graham, K.M. 2022. ‘You mean some strange revenge’: The Jacobean Intersections of Revenge and the Strange. Critical Survey. 34 (2), pp. 39-51. https://doi.org/10.3167/cs.2022.340204

Objects and Gender: The Revenger's Tragedy in Performance and on Film
Graham, K. 2017. Objects and Gender: The Revenger's Tragedy in Performance and on Film. in: Crawforth, H., Scott-Baumann, E. and Whitehead, C. (ed.) The Revenger's Tragedy: The State of Play London Bloomsbury Academic.

Queer Temporalities, Queer Londons
Graham, K.M. 2016. Queer Temporalities, Queer Londons. in: Avery, S. and Graham, K.M. (ed.) Sex, Time and Place: Queer Histories of London, c.1850 to the Present London Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 23-39

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