The Roles of Women in Early English Folk Drama

Abstract

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to explore the ways in which women are portrayed in folk drama. The thesis divides into two main sections. In the first, the English mummer's plays of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are analyzed on an anthropological model in order to determine the symbolic functions of the man-dressed-as-woman. In the second, the historical development of the Maid Marian character of the Robin Hood legend highlights the differences between folk drama and the legitimate stage. The ideas of Mikhail Bahktin provide the link in these materials.</p>