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Scent of a Woman: Performing the Politics of Smell in Late Medieval and Early Modern England
- Author(s):
- Holly Dugan (see profile)
- Date:
- 2008
- Subject(s):
- Senses and sensation in literature, Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616, English drama, Sixteenth century, Seventeenth century, Drama, Medieval
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- Twelfth Night, Olfaction, smell, digby Mary Magdalene, Sensory representations in literature, Shakespeare and early modern drama, Medieval drama, Gender and sexualities, Performance
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6XG4V
- Abstract:
- Olfaction has not figured largely in scholarly or popular understanding of early English stages; as stage properties, scents have rarely impacted the critical work on late medieval or early modern material histories of the stage, no doubt due to the assumption that olfaction lacks both a history and an archive. Nonetheless, for late medieval and early modern men and women, olfaction was a key component of theatrical experience. Three examples of late medieval and early modern English drama underscore this point: the Digby Mary Magdalene, and Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra and Twelfth Night. Tracing the use of perfume as a theatrical trope in these plays, I argue that reading late medieval drama's saintly and sinful bodily odors alongside early modern drama's emphasis on gender as a sartorial practice enhances our understanding of how social differences materialized on England's sixteenth-century stages."
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 5 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
jmems382-04_dugan-2.pdf