Abstract
In 1792 actress, playwright, novelist, and later drama critic Elizabeth Inchbald wrote her first and only tragic drama – a violent, bloodthirsty and politically charged composition titled The Massacre. The tragedy was printed in London during the height of revolutionary violence in France, and can be seen to engage heavily with the country's debates regarding female militancy. Between 1791 and 1792, criticisms of the vulnerability imposed upon women as a result of their restricted physical agency were being composed and declared by a number of women in France, eager to grant their sex the right to bear arms. Women including Theroigne de Mericourt, Claire Lacombe, and Pauline Leon, each spoke or wrote in favour of the need for women to be granted military rights, and each made the point that if denied the request, women would be left entirely defenceless against the violent attacks launched by their political, male enemies. Gender-conservative party leaders prohibited women from bearing arms on account of the suggestion that women's involvement in military activism would detract from their familial duties. Yet Inchbald's tragedy contests this notion, by implying that it is not female militancy, but female defencelessness, which is depriving the nation of devoted wives and mothers.
Highlights
As is evident from Godwin’s later diary entries, when the two writers were in one another’s company, the subject matter discussed was often of a political nature: in October 1792, for instance, Godwin called upon Inchbald to discuss the topic of massacres, and two months later the authors engaged in a debate regarding
What are the implications of reading The Massacre as a possible homage to Léon? Drawing attention to The Massacre’s engagement with debates regarding female militancy facilitates a reading of the tragedy as more than a mere historical artefact, of interest only to historians and literary scholars focusing on a specific time period
Williams’s Women and War: Gender Identity and Activism in Times of Conflict (2010) and the compilation of essays published in Women and Wars: Contested Histories, Uncertain Futures (2013), edited by Carol Cohn
Summary
Literature at the University of East Anglia from 2008 - 2011, before completing an MA in Romantic and Sentimental Literature at the University of York in 2012. Sarah’s thesis is titled ‘Female Militancy in British Dramas: 1789-1805’
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
