Ira clark. Comedy, Youth, Manhood in Early Modern England. Pp. 170. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2003. Cloth, £32.00.

Abstract

Ira Clark's interest in the topic of early modern manhood was initially piqued by the widespread presence in seventeenth-century drama of topoi such as the widow hunt, the duel and the ambitious younger brother, all of which are identified with the process of attaining manhood. As a consequence of the prolonged adolescence typical of the period—which may have lasted until about the age of 24—the social role of the young male emphasised rituals of preparation and education, and encouraged a quasi-theatrical ‘playing’ of manhood. This play of manhood was typically manifested in activities (most powerfully, for Clark, the widow hunt) that were demonstrative of martial and sexual virility, and yet somewhat removed from the actual realm of patriarchal male action. It is this innate theatricality, this sense of self in flux and formulation, that lends the theme of attaining manhood its dramatic force. Clark's study also generates a renewed sense of the diverse functioning of marriage in early modern dramatic plotting, in that marriage leads not only to a fulfilment of personal and sexual desire, but also to the legitimation of the young male as the head of a household, member of the commonwealth and potential governor.