Women in Modern Drama : : Freud, Feminism, and European Theater at the Turn of the Century / / Gail Finney.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Finney, Gail,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2019]; ©1991
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (248 p.)

An abundance of rich and memorable female roles is one of the most striking features of turn-of-the-century European drama. Gail Finney traces the source of this phenomenon to large-scale upheavals in prevailing contemporary attitudes toward women. She cites two major developments in particular: the culmination in the years 1880–1920 of the first feminist movement; and Freud's formulation of his theories of sexuality, which emphasize differences between the sexes. Taking into account these strong, sometimes conflicting intellectual currents, Women in Modern Drama explores the dynamics of gender identity and family relationships in major plays by European make dramatists, including Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, Wilde, Schnitzler, Synge, Hofmannsthal, Wedekind, and Hauptmann.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: Woman’s Place at the Turn of the Century: Emancipation or Hysterization? -- Part I. Freud's Double? -- 1. Female Sexuality and Schnitzler’s La Ronde -- Part II. Demythologizing the Femme Fatale, or The Daughter's Education -- Introduction -- 2. The (Wo)Man in the Moon: Wilde’s Salome -- 3. Woman as Spectacle and Commodity: Wedekind’s Lulu Plays -- Part III. The Law of the Father -- 4. “I’ve Lost Him Surely’’: Synge’s Playboy of the Western World -- 5. The Dynamics of Sex and Suffering: Hauptmann’s Rose Bernd -- Part IV. Mothers in Spite of Themselves -- Introduction -- 6. Maternity and Hysteria: Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler -- 7. Humanism and Patriarchy: Hofmannsthal’s Woman without a Shadow -- Part V. Motherhood, Power, and Powerlessness -- Introduction -- 8. The New Woman as Madonna; Shaw’s Candida -- 9. The Devil in the House?: Strindberg’s The Father -- Index