Women and Dramatic Form

Abstract

Dekker and Heywood’s prentice plays and city pageants created a dramatic form in which the relations between commercial and civic virtues are negotiated by men; women appear only as the icons of virtue (Lady Ramsey, Mercy, Justice and so on) on whose behalf and in whose name the negotiations take place. The history plays, too, dealt with the public, male world of politics and rebellion but the presence of the queens extended the action to the world of women and, as we have seen, turned politics into emotion through their sympathy with Elizabeth’s feminine appeal. A significant number of Dekker’s and Heywood’s plays similarly focus on women and their role in these narratives, together with the way in which they are represented, create new possibilities for the style and emotional appeal of the drama. These plays significantly shaped the genres of the popular stage and explicitly addressed an audience which included, and came to be defined, by the inclusion of women.