Product Description

An annotated edition of an important Jacobean comedy, which is currently receiving greater attention from critics and on stage because the leading character is based on a famous personality of the time, Moll Cutpurse. The history of Moll Cutpurse and its subsequent influence on the women's movement and feminist concerns make this book relevant to women's study courses and this is edition incorporates variant readings found in only one copy of the quarto.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #820405 in Books
• Published on: 1990-03-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Disappointing play about Mad Moll
Moll Cutpurse is a fascinating figure of Jacobean London, a female transvestite who transgressed social and gender boundaries. She swaggered around London in trousers, drank in taverns, swung her sword around and generally acted like a boorish male gallant. Her life is proof that there was a lot more to Jacobean women than the 'chaste, slient and obedient' role model put forward by the establishment.

Sadly, though, Middleton and Dekker's play - important though it is to gender historians - is not actually very good. Most of it is a stillborn city comedy, with the usual cuckolds, gallants and gulls going through their their usual, predictable motions. Moll Cutpurse turns up in a few scenes, and there is some interesting material as she chastises various men for their wickedness. She swings her sword, wears trousers, and calls herself Mad Moll a lot, which is all fine and dandy. But although Moll wears trousers she remains virtuous and thoroughly decent. The play concludes with a conventional marriage scene, and although Moll doesn't marry, she seems completely supportive of the status quo. It's all a bit of a damp squib. We want a Moll who is genuinely transgressive, but, whatever the real Moll was like, Middleton and Dekker prevent her from being truly threatening, and the play is sorely lacking in entertainment value.