Reviews for Plays of Gods and Men

The average rating for Plays of Gods and Men based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-06-25 00:00:00 Berry Eisen Breitenberg returns to, and deepens, our understanding of early modern masculinity through a study of selected texts. His thesis is that 'masculinity is inherently anxious' in the period precisely because of the gendered inequality upon which patriarchal social and institutional structures are built. His readings are subtle enough to uncover not just the contradictions of patriarchy (which is, after all, intrinsically illogical) but also the way in which gendered discourse works to smooth over those contradictions, to render them monologic and artificially authoritative. The book recognises that early modern gender anxiety is primarily a 'social rather than psychic phenomenon' and so deals with the performative nature of gendered identity. The essay on Othello, sexual jealousy, and the idea of women as texts is particularly well-conceived. The selected texts are primarily from the latter part of the sixteenth-century and early part of the seventeenth, and the book overall is placed in relation to our own debates over gender representations and gendered discourse, dated to the mid-1990s when the book was published. Overall this is a nuanced and nicely self-conscious intervention into academic enquiries into the way in which gender might be put to work.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-02-05 00:00:00 Nancy L. Droge According to the introduction in this edition of the play, The Recruiting Officer is something of a transitional play between Restoration comedy proper and 18th century drama (which was much more limited, less interesting, and less entertaining). I haven't read widely enough in either Restoration or 18th century drama--though I've read more Restoration comedy--to really be able to identify a clear dividing line in themes or styles. However, I think Farquhar's play is an interesting divergence from the typical Restoration comedy of manners style, because it focuses a lot of attention on common people and it is set entirely in the country, whereas most Restoration comedies centered around the court and the amorous dalliances of the aristocracy--the dramatic equivalent of rococco painting. In addition to Fraquhar's experiences as a recruiting officer in western England, which directly inform the play, I wonder if these thematic/stylistic divergences come from his own position as an Anglo-Irishman living outside Ireland. I wonder if the displacement he felt translated into a unique approach to the dramatic material that was then prevalent on the stage.