Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850

Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850
ISBN-10
0226169162
ISBN-13
9780226169163
Category
History
Pages
233
Language
English
Published
1996-01-15
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Author
Dianne Dugaw

Description

Masquerading as a man, seeking adventure, going to war or to sea for love and glory, the transvestite heroine flourished in all kinds of literature, especially ballads, from the Renaissance to the Victorian age. Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850 identifies this heroine and her significance as a figure in folklore, and as a representative of popular culture, prompting important reevaluations of gender and sexuality. Dugaw has uncovered a fascination with women cross-dressers in the popular literature of early modern Europe and America. Surveying a wide range of Anglo-American texts from popular ballads and chapbook life histories to the comedies and tragedies of aristocratic literature, she demonstrates the extent to which gender and sexuality are enacted as constructs of history.

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