| This dissertation focuses on the inability of women's voices to succeed in attaining justice in Seventeenth-century European tragicomedy, no matter how effectively they speak, nor how much 'the law' is on their side.;The Introduction examines how the static Petrarchan image of women is reconsidered in English and Spanish Renaissance literature. Using the concept of Justice embodied in the goddess Astraea and fictionalized by poets such as Spenser and Calderon de la Barca, the author shows that assertive women are to be found in plays such as Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, and Calderon's La vida es sueno (Life Is A Dream); a chapter is devoted to each of these plays. Nevertheless, these vocal women are shown to be powerless to act within the confines of the patriarchy.;By exploring the nature of tragicomedy, as defined by Giambattista Guarini, the author concludes that this form of drama provides an arena for women to be as assertive as the women in the comedies, while simultaneously rendering them just as helpless, if not doomed, as those women in Shakespearean or Spanish Honor tragedies. |
