English 333
Licensing & Licentiousness: British Drama 1660-1737


Professor T. Howe
Washington & Lee University
Fall 2005

Gender Misfits by Alli Foley, Mina Azodi, and Jean Rose Clawater
“Such a degenerate Age do we now live in, that everything seems inverted, even Sexes, whilst Men fall into the Effeminacy and Niceness of Women, and Women take up the Confidence, the Boldness of Men, and this too under the Notion of good Breeding” (Whole Duty of Woman, 23).

The Rake's Ruin and Reform by R. K. Gritter, G. M. Harris, A. C. Johnson, M. T. Laffitte IV
An analysis of the evolving perspective of the rake during the Restoration era. Sometimes the hero, other times a societal menace, the increased sense of morality onstage in the early-18th century forced the ultimate demise of the rake's infallibility in the public's eye.

Theatrical Self-Consciousness in Restoration Drama by Elise Gelinas, Taylor Gibson, Sarah Guy, Katie Waites
This web archive is a collaboration of four final projects for a class on Restoration Drama at Washington & Lee University. While each essay tackles different material, all are related through their reflections on theatrical self-consciousness. The site includes four research essays, a selection of primary and secondary intertextual sources, and a variety of images related to the theater and the Restoration era. On the Site Information page, you can also find links to the individual web archives that inspired this collaboration. [Professor's Pick]

Women during the Restoration: Aphra Behn by Mary Flynn Detlefs, Briana Derr, Kate Lester, Anne Hungerford
The purpose of this collaborative archive is to provide scholarly resources on the role of women during the Restoration period through the modern medium of the world wide web. The essays' themes focus on the authorship of Aphra Behn, her role as a woman playwright and the effects that these texts had on 17th century society. Aphra Behn's play, The Rover, creates a lens through which to investigate the changing roles of women. In selecting these essays, it is interesting to note that each of them is written by a female author. Reading Behn’s work continues to strike a cord within modern women writers like ourselves. Our explorations of Behn have proven that we are indebted to her for creating opportunities for future female writers. ()

** some coding on these sites has been tightened up by the instructor