Delarivier Manley’in The Royal Mischief Oyununda Erkek Bakışının Yeniden Şekillendirilmesi ve Cinsiyet Rollerinin Tersine Çevrilmesi

Abstract

Women’s professional involvement in drama dates back to the restoration period in England, during which female dramatists emerged in English drama both as playwrights and actresses. The plays written by the female dramatists included mostly domestic issues, modesty, obedience, and chastity in the early restoration period, following the traits of the patriarchal authors depicting women within the limits of female virtue. Aphra Behn emerged as one of the most important and well-known dramatists of her period, who later encouraged a group of female dramatists, including Delarivier Manley, Catherine Trotter, and Mary Pix. These dramatists demonstrated female solidarity and contributed to each other’s writing, giving way to the rise of the early feminist drama in England through their plays on the question of women and their conditions in the society, challenging the patriarchal discourse. They also adopted a more radical voice sometimes by subverting the established gender roles and male gaze at times. Furthermore, these female dramatists mostly parodied and subverted traditional male libertinism as appeared in many of the restoration comedies and tragedies. Delarivier Manley, in this respect, wrote a series of plays in the direction of “proto-feminist” discourse and reversed the gender roles by giving voice to the female protagonists in her plays, especially in The Royal Mischief.