17-18 ғасырлардағы әйелдер тақырыбындағы трагедиялар

Type of tragedy play focusing on women

The term she tragedy, also known as pathetic tragedy refers to a vogue in the late 17th and early 18th centuries for tragic plays focused on the sufferings of a woman, sometimes innocent and virtuous but often a woman who had committed some sort of sexual sin. Prominent she tragedies include Thomas Otway's The Orphan (1680), John Banks' Virtue Betrayed, or, Anna Bullen (1682), Thomas Southerne's The Fatal Marriage (1694), Mary Pix's Ibrahim, the Thirteenth Emperor of the Turks and Nicholas Rowe's The Fair Penitent (1703) and Lady Jane Grey (1715). Rowe was the first to use the term "she tragedy," in 1714.

When English drama was reborn in 1660 with the re opening of the theatres, the leading tragic style was the male dominated heroic drama which celebrated powerful, aggressively masculine heroes and their pursuit of glory, as rulers and conquerors as well as lovers. In the 1670s and 1680s, a gradual shift occurred from heroic to pathetic tragedy, where the subject was love and domestic concerns, even though the main characters might be public figures. After the phenomenal success of Elizabeth Barry in moving the audience to tears in the role of Monimia in Otway's The Orphan, she tragedy became the dominant form of pathetic tragedy and remained highly popular for nearly half a century. The realm of pathetic tragedy became an exploration of the female experience as the private female sphere, that of the domestic, was put on the stage and publicized. The she tragedies demonstrated the psychology and behavior of women in their private sphere and presented it for public consideration, a new concept that emerged as women began to star in main roles instead of only supporting characters. For the first time, plays were written that had a woman as the main character and that followed her experiences and emotions. She tragedies brought what was once solely internal (emotions and thoughts) out for external display. The rise of pathetic tragedy commodified the female experience and women themselves with the transition from men (dressed as women) playing the female roles to women acting on the stage themselves. Actresses, while not unusual in Continental Europe, were just beginning to be accepted as a novelty by the predominantly male audience. The idea of the woman, occupier of the private sphere, as a public figure was bizarre. As a result, actresses often had a bad moral reputation as before the Restoration, public women were immoral women. However, royal sanction gave actresses more opportunities and opened the way for new dramatic possibilities.

While she tragedies were highly entertaining to the public, playwrights would also use them to voice political opinions. In Rowe's Jane Grey the character Jane represents a symbol of virtue whose desires are second to the political good. During the 1690s the rape in she tragedies leaned towards Whig beliefs and became a symbol for the justification for displacing proper rule. The spectacle of rape within the tragedy was used to convey the belief that the sexual assault on the female victim was a visual representation of assault on the subjects' liberties.

One reason that the Carolinian court was more accepting of the addition of women to the world of theater was the experience of the new monarch, Charles II, before he ascended to the throne. Charles I was executed during the English Civil War, and his son (the future Charles II) went into exile. Charles II spent much of his exile living at the French court and learning French tastes and manners. Although practically unheard of in England, it was not uncommon for women to take part in French and Italian theater, and Charles II would have been exposed to this. As a result, after he returned to England in 1660, Charles II did not have the same qualms as his countrymen when it came to the more public presence of women. In addition, in 1662, a law was passed that women's roles were to be played by women and no longer by men. It is speculated that this change was at least partially due to the influence of the Puritans, who "took offence" at men cross dressing to play women, something that was seen as going against the biblical Book of Deuteronomy (22:5). Ironically, this attempt to reclaim morality in theater led to further scandals as the practice of "breeches roles" developed. These were roles played by woman while wearing men's clothing, either as part of a disguise required by the script or to give the actresses more license to behave as society allowed men to. These roles, while often part of elaborate plots, were sometimes used to exploit the physical aspects of women – as men's clothing did not disguise the body's form as much as the dresses traditionally worn by women.

The new focus on women in tragedy may be linked with a growing political disillusion with the old aristocratic ideology and its traditional masculine ideals (see Staves). Other possible explanations for the great interest in she tragedy are the popularity of Mary II, who often ruled alone in the 1690s while her husband William III was on the Continent, and the publication of The Spectator, the first periodical aimed at women. Elizabeth Howe has argued that the most important explanation for the shift in taste was the emergence of tragic actresses whose popularity made it unavoidable for dramatists to create major roles for them. With the conjunction of the playwright "master of pathos" Thomas Otway and the great tragedienne Elizabeth Barry in The Orphan, the focus shifted decisively from hero to heroine.