Masculinity, Corporality and the English Stage 1580–1635

Combining analysis of early modern anatomical science, social phenomena such as cross dressing, examples of proto-feminist cultural agency and close readings of English professional theatre texts, the author presents an original investigation into shifting dramatic representations of the sexed and gendered body, together with the ways in which early modern English professional playwrights used carefully-constructed versions of human corporality to inflect their interventions into the gender politics of the period.