Feminine virtue in Shakespeare's England: The power of submission in Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, and Leigh

Martha J Craig, Purdue University

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the dimensions of feminine virtue in early modern England, and to explore the gap between ideology and reality, between theory and practice, in this period when moral value was primarily described and defined by male authorities in the church, government, science, and the arts. A long tradition of negativism towards women in these institutions had led to an oppressive moral ideology whose prescriptions for virtue involved silencing women and forcing their submission to men. Philip Sidney's and Edmund Spenser's assertions that poetry at its best inspired men to virtuous action identified one of the central issues gender differentiation had raised for the subject of virtue: Active virtue was a concept associated with masculinity. Feminine virtue was linked to self-suppression and self-erasure. However, in the literature of Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, and Leigh there are virtuous heroines who are also active, assertive, and even, by some definitions, unruly, and male heroes who submit to situations that feminize in order to insure or redeem their virtuous reputation. This dissertation endeavors to show that in this literature, implied or performed submission enables action to be virtuous; it also blurs gender distinctions. Whereas the feminine virtues of chastity, silence, and obedience had conventionally been associated with female submission to men, and male submission to sovereign and God implied a more active and public process, the Timias episodes of The Faerie Queene and segments of Sidney's Arcadia suggest that the rewards of "feminine submission" were tangible regardless of gender. Lack of submission restricted male as well as female freedom and reputation. Feminine virtue in this literature, therefore, emerges not only as a quality that could not be contained by the standard social and religious gender theory of the day, but as an entity defined by gender but not bound by gender, rather expedient to both sexes in certain circumstances.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Ross, Purdue University.

Subject Area

British and Irish literature|Theater

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