Labors lost : women's work and the early modern English stage / Natasha Korda.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Korda, Natasha.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women in the theater--England--History--16th century.

Women in the theater.

Women in the theater--England--History--17th century.

Women--Employment--England--History--16th century.

Women.

Women--Employment--England--History--17th century.

Theater--England--History--16th century.

Theater.

Theater--England--History--17th century.

English drama--Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600--History and criticism.

English drama.

English drama--17th century--History and criticism.

Theater and society--England--History--16th century.

Theater and society.

Theater and society--England--History--17th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (345 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Labors Lost offers a fascinating and wide-ranging account of working women's behind-the-scenes and hitherto unacknowledged contributions to theatrical production in Shakespeare's time. Natasha Korda reveals that the purportedly all-male professional stage relied on the labor, wares, ingenuity, and capital of women of all stripes, including ordinary crafts- and tradeswomen who supplied costumes, props, and comestibles; wealthy heiresses and widows who provided much-needed capital and credit; wives, daughters, and widows of theater people who worked actively alongside their male kin; and immigrant women who fueled the fashion-driven stage with a range of newfangled skills and commodities. Combining archival research on these and other women who worked in and around the playhouses with revisionist readings of canonical and lesser-known plays, Labors Lost retrieves this lost history by detailing the diverse ways women participated in the work of playing, and the ways male players and playwrights in turn helped to shape the cultural meanings of women's work. Far from a marginal phenomenon, the gendered division of theatrical labor was crucial to the rise of the commercial theaters in London and had an influence on the material culture of the stage and the dramatic works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1. Labors Lost

Chapter 2. Dame Usury

Chapter 3. Froes and Rebatos

Chapter 4. Cries and Oysterwives

Chapter 5. False Wares

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [269]-311) and index.

ISBN:

9781283896511

1283896516

9780812204315

081220431X

OCLC:

823825420