Abstract
The previous chapter presented dramatic and polemical texts that offer insight into conceptions of masculinity among early modern men of different social strata. In this chapter, I consider how female duellists were represented in the drama and what we can learn about cultural expectations from the dramatic convention of cross-dressed characters and their frequent use of the sword.1 As Stephen Greenblatt has commented, “a culture’s sexual discourse plays a critical role in the shaping of identity. It does so by helping to implant in each person a system of dispositions and orientations that governs individual improvisations” (SN 75). As a dramatic representation, I would argue, each instance of the cross-dressed duellist in these plays functions as both an individual improvisation and as part of a system of orientations.
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© 2003 Jennifer Low
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Low, J. (2003). When Women Fight. In: Manhood and the Duel: Masculinity in Early Modern Drama and Culture. Early Modern Cultural Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05589-7_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05589-7_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-73109-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-05589-7
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