The poetics of dissension: The rise of dissenting voices and marginal identities in Early Modern literature, 1599--1688

What defines the "Early Modern" period in English literature is the presentation of a subjectivity, a discourse of difference, that is theatrically rendered on the public stage or privately transmitted to readers of texts (i.e., in the act of consuming texts). This unique form of subjectivity, which is composed of marginalized identities, emerges between 1599 and 1688 in various texts, including public drama, closet drama, and prose. Authors in this period produced such texts in opposition to the dominant discourses found in governmental policies and religious tracts, giving rise to a dissenting discourse through which marginalized identities gained power. This means that William Shakespeare's Hamlet can be read as a revenge play, but it also can be read as a dissenting discourse of Catholicism, a response to Elizabethan anti-Catholic rhetoric and policies; Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra can be read as plays condemning ambition, but they also can be read as a dissenting discourse of the feminine, an identity upon which a fractured masculine identity depends. Elizabeth Cary's Tragedy of Mariam, while traditionally read as a tragedy of heroic martyrdom, can be read as a dissenting discourse of female identity that transcends and transforms patriarchal structures. Aphra Behn's Oroonoko can be read as an anti-colonial or an anti-slave-trade text, but it also can be read as a dissenting discourse of the African "other" resisting codification. Collectively, these texts represent an emergent "Early Modern" period characterized by a powerful, manifold discursive practice, the discourse of difference .