TY - JOUR

T1 - Feminism in the French Theatre

T2 - A Turn-of-the-Century Perspective

AU - Aston, Elaine

PY - 1986/8/31

Y1 - 1986/8/31

N2 - Even to sympathetic theatrical observers, ‘feminism’ in France at the turn of the century was often regarded as merely incidental to the larger concerns of the ‘social’ drama; and dramatic debate tended to focus on the issue of a woman's assertion of ‘freedom’ versus her presumably ‘natural’ functions as wife and mother. In this article, Elaine Aston illuminates such attitudes, utilizing both the texts of contemporary plays and discussion in journals current at the time. But she also detects early theatrical evidence of a slow shift towards a questioning of prevailing assumptions - and a belief (which today strikes her as enviable) in the power of theatre to effect social change.

AB - Even to sympathetic theatrical observers, ‘feminism’ in France at the turn of the century was often regarded as merely incidental to the larger concerns of the ‘social’ drama; and dramatic debate tended to focus on the issue of a woman's assertion of ‘freedom’ versus her presumably ‘natural’ functions as wife and mother. In this article, Elaine Aston illuminates such attitudes, utilizing both the texts of contemporary plays and discussion in journals current at the time. But she also detects early theatrical evidence of a slow shift towards a questioning of prevailing assumptions - and a belief (which today strikes her as enviable) in the power of theatre to effect social change.

U2 - 10.1017/S0266464X00002207

DO - 10.1017/S0266464X00002207

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:84974047682

VL - 2

SP - 237

EP - 242

JO - New Theatre Quarterly

JF - New Theatre Quarterly

SN - 0266-464X

IS - 7

ER -