Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850

Download or read book Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850 written by Dianne Dugaw and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996-01-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masquerading as a man, seeking adventure, going to war or to sea for love and glory, the transvestite heroine flourished in all kinds of literature, especially ballads, from the Renaissance to the Victorian age. Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850 identifies this heroine and her significance as a figure in folklore, and as a representative of popular culture, prompting important reevaluations of gender and sexuality. Dugaw has uncovered a fascination with women cross-dressers in the popular literature of early modern Europe and America. Surveying a wide range of Anglo-American texts from popular ballads and chapbook life histories to the comedies and tragedies of aristocratic literature, she demonstrates the extent to which gender and sexuality are enacted as constructs of history.