Department
Theatre and Performance Studies
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-2019
Embargo Period
5-23-2024
Abstract
This paper considers Thomas Dekker and Philip Massinger’s play The Virgin Martyr (1622) in light of scientific notions of the female body circulating during the period to illustrate how the performance of martyrdom manifested a performance of gender virtuosity, elevating it to the status of the supernatural or divine. Like well-known female martyrs from the period, such as Anne Askew, the protagonist, Dorothea, takes on characteristically male attributes: she assumes the role of the soldier and defies scientific understanding of the female gender by sealing her phlegmatic “leaky” body and exuding divine heat that defies her cold, wet “nature." The theatricality of genderreversals in the play, from Dorothea and other characters, illustrates how the act of martyrdom could be interpreted not only as a miraculous performance, a “witness” to the divine, but one built on sensational, seemingly impossible performances of gender.
Journal Title
Religions
Journal ISSN
2077-1444
Volume
10
First Page
121
Last Page
134
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.3390/rel10110629
Included in
Christianity Commons, Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons, Performance Studies Commons, Renaissance Studies Commons
Comments
Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Religions, MDPI Publications, Basel Switzerland, 2021.