Aphra Behn, Susannah Centlivre, Hannah Cowley, and Elizabeth Inchbald were the only four female playwrights in England with multiple comic successes from 1670-1800. Behn's interest in the body, Centlivre's fascination with written contracts, Cowley's nationalism, and Inchbald's discussion of divorce emerge in the comic events that are animated by the psychological mechanisms of humor. Attending to the dialogue between these comic events and the plays' more predictable comic endings illuminates the philosophical, political, and legal arguments about women and marriage that fascinated both female playwrights and the theatergoing public.
- ISBN10 0312292759
- ISBN13 9780312292751
- Publish Date 14 May 2014 (first published 28 March 2002)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint St Martin's Press
- Format eBook
- Pages 272
- Language English
- URL http://palgrave.com/products/connect.aspx?is=9780312292751