Chasing, Hawking, Baiting: Woman as Animal on the Early Modern Stage Restricted; Files Only

Abstract

Early modern literature overflows with comparisons between women and animals. From deers to tigers, male authors from this time period weaponized animal metaphors to reduce women into archetypes of innocence and villainy in English playhouses. This research explores the relationship between William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and English courtship, Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness and falconry, and Shakespeare’s King Lear and bear baiting. This thesis examines the ways in which these early modern playwrights used terminology from the English hunt to frame the experiences of their female characters and analogize the relationships between men and women and men and animals. In this way, Shakespeare’s and Heywood’s female characters not only become constrained to their obligations to men as faithful mothers, daughters, sisters, but they become subhuman. This research aims to connect these early modern dramatic representations of women as predatory and prey animals in the English hunt with modern-day sexist discrimination and patriarchal predatory power. 

Table of Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................. 1

The Sexual Chase in Hunting and Courtship ................................................. 2

Legislating the Animal World ...................................................................... 5

Chapter I: ‘The hunt is up’: Titus Andronicus and the English Deer Hunt ............ 8

Lavinia’s Poaching .................................................................................... .10

Staging Female Identity ............................................................................. 13

Roman Whiteness, Aaron ‘the Moor’, and ‘hyperwhite’ Goths ........................ 18

Conclusion ................................................................................................ 22

Chapter II: Hawking in A Woman Killed With Kindness .................................... 23

Hawking in Early Modern England .............................................................. 24

Valuing Female Chastity and the ‘Spotted’ Body .......................................... 31

Starvation as Resistance ............................................................................ 37

Conclusion ............................................................................................... 39

Chapter III: Abdication and Bear-Baiting in King Lear .......................................... 42

Bear-Baiting in Early Modern England ............................................................. 44

King Leir and the Absence of Loss in Shakespeare’s Lear ................................... 47

Law in the Natural World ................................................................................ 49

Staging Animality in Lear ............................................................................... 51

Conclusion .................................................................................................... 55

Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 61 

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	English
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Theater Literature, English
Mot-clé	William Shakespeare Early Modern English Drama Thomas Heywood Animal Studies
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Dr. Patricia Cahill, Emory University
Committee Members	Dr. Sean Meighoo, Emory University Dr. Sarah Higinbotham, Emory University

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