unexpected coolness
Nov. 22nd, 2009 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
toujours_nigelSo I'm reading Clare McManus' Women on the Renaissance Stage: Anna of Denmark and Female Masquing in the Stuart Court (1590-1619) and it is indisputably freaking awesome.
It is, however, fucking ever so subtly with my brain. See, I have a Ren Drama (excluding Shakespeare) course, and a Macbeth course, and as obvious, one of the main themes (in Macbeth, The Maid's Tragedy, The Duchhess of Malfi, The Changeling) is the depiction of aristocratic women, their honour, and how it is entangled with family status, marriage, sexual policies, etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Women must not be seen in less than yards of brocade and perfect hair, woman as fortress, blahblahblah.
And then there's this. And slightly-naked (as in, yards of brocade/silk/velvet/taffeta/what-have-you, but nearly-bare breasts) depictions, even of Anna of Denmark herself, who was pregnant at the time of the Masque of Blackness (costume for which is the link above), in which she performed.
So, yes, slightly mind-fucked, in the entirely good way. Because even these depictions don't actually hand agency over to the women, except, y'know, when they do, seeing as Anna planned and instigated at least some of these masques (she performed in six) herself.
It is, however, fucking ever so subtly with my brain. See, I have a Ren Drama (excluding Shakespeare) course, and a Macbeth course, and as obvious, one of the main themes (in Macbeth, The Maid's Tragedy, The Duchhess of Malfi, The Changeling) is the depiction of aristocratic women, their honour, and how it is entangled with family status, marriage, sexual policies, etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Women must not be seen in less than yards of brocade and perfect hair, woman as fortress, blahblahblah.
And then there's this. And slightly-naked (as in, yards of brocade/silk/velvet/taffeta/what-have-you, but nearly-bare breasts) depictions, even of Anna of Denmark herself, who was pregnant at the time of the Masque of Blackness (costume for which is the link above), in which she performed.
So, yes, slightly mind-fucked, in the entirely good way. Because even these depictions don't actually hand agency over to the women, except, y'know, when they do, seeing as Anna planned and instigated at least some of these masques (she performed in six) herself.
