A Discovery of Interest

Welcome to the first day of Bloggdom—things only get crazier from here.

The other afternoon I traipsed down to my campus library, or ‘Commons’/Café/ computer lab/ Dorian-inspired building with crazy moving stacks, in order to figure out what I would write my first essay on.  I know two things—I am deeply interested in criminality/degeneration and the general female experience and I know that Restoration drama has a reputation for unabashed sexuality, instances of criminal activity and the emergence of women on the stage and behind the script.  I decided that I would look closely at Aphra Behn’s “The Rover” (1677) and John Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera” (1728) because all of my major interests are addressed within the two pieces and because the pieces are separated by about 50 years and reflect not only the differences in gender perception, but the developments and shifts in social attitude concerning gender and crime issues over the course of time. 

Aphra Behn introduced a new perspective on 18^th century society, particularly the roles of women within the patriarchal system, because she is considered to be the first professional female playwright.  She uses innuendo and comedy to comment on the vulnerability of women and on the limitations of their gender (angel or whore?).  Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera” similarly  depicts different types of  women but particularly addresses crime, the differences between male and female crimes and the social implications and expectations for each.  Both plays engage with similar material—love, virtue and vice, sex, money—but are the themes engaged differently and does the gender of the playwright influence the message of the play?

In order to answer my vast queries I looked for articles and books that would tell me about the Restoration and 18^th Century’s history, in terms of politics, and society, including gender, race, religion, etc, in order to better grasp the context of the theatre of the time.  I found four books hidden in the moving stacks of the common’s basement (I feel like I have stepped into a sci-fi Harry Potter every time I go down there) that will give me a good place to start with period context. I also looked specifically for texts that addressed female sexuality and the different manifestations of it—prostitution, abstinence, etc. and found three articles that deal with female sexuality, rape, and quite honestly, a random one that I am not too sure about.   Since I am interested in the effect of the writer’s gender on the works I looked to literary theory, though am unsure whether theory is entirely appropriate for this paper.

1.      Barthes/ Fish—Authorial intention or reader response?

2.      Spivak—Can women as subaltern have a voice?

3.      Gilbert and Gubar—Anxiety of Authorship. Can 18^th century women ‘author’ their own lives—is the ability to choose virtue or vice, celibacy or prostitution the product of freedom, or the acknowledgement of one’s own subalternity. 

In any case, I am not finished with my questions, nor am I finished with my research, but more than ever I am excited to dig in. 

Live long and prosper J