Presenting Gender: Changing Sex in Early-Modern Culture by Chris Mounsey (review)

Abstract

MLRy 98.1, 2003 183 could have been deduced from its use in Rover II, n. 1. A phantom 'blurring of generic boundaries' arises in this epilogue when Behn's aspiration to 'Sacred Poetrie' is seen as an ambition to write specifically 'religious poetry', rather than poetry in general (p. 152). The importance of feminine gentleness in this period is underestimated : Valeria, in The Basset Table, is admittedly an ambiguous figure, but if she were intended to be as attractive as Kreis-Schinck claims, Centlivre would not have given such dramatic prominence to her penchant for dissection (see p. 216). Most of these corrected readings, however, reinforce the author's basic thesis that women writers must take account of male obsession with women's bodies and sexuality. Kreis-Schinck is at her best looking round the edges of her material, especially when identifying the topics avoided by writers of early modern comedy. She raises fresh, challenging questions, culminating in why Behn and Centlivre never allowed their comedies to represent anything like themselves: pondering the answers should occupy feminist scholarship for years. University of Reading Carolyn D. Williams Presenting Gender: Changing Sex in Early-Modern Culture. Ed. by Chris Mounsey. (Bucknell Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture) Cranbury, NJ: Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses. 2001. 301pp. ?40. ISBN 0-8387-5477-5. This collection often diverse essays opens with a well placed piece by Conrad Brunstrom , examining ideas of masculinity and nationalism in the eighteenth century. Brunstrom explores the debate between men of letters as to the nature of masculinity, underpinning this by reference to the contemporary scientific understanding of sex and gender. The conclusion that he is able to draw, that it was believed that there was 'only a finitequantity of masculinity to go around' during this period, provides a useful starting point for an understanding of the later essays. Carolyn D. Williams's contribution to the work shows how little early modern society appeared to be disturbed by the actions of cross-dressing women. Williams argues that such transvestism, often undertaken as a practical solution to economic or social challenges, was depicted as neither undermining masculinity nor radically altering femininity. Her lively and informative article is supported by a plethora of fictional and historical references. Karma Williamson makes a convincing argument in her essay for more research to be carried out on the Augustan verse epistle and, in particular, its relationship to notions of gender. Williamson gives the readers a valuable overview of a fascinating genre but is then, inevitably, curtailed by space, and has to focus upon a narrow range of poems from the genre. Thomas A. King's essay is a densely packed study of theatrical practices and theo? ries in the period and the ways in which these related to constructions of masculinity. He also links the decline in boy players for female parts in dramatic performances with a perceived political maturing of masculinity. He enlivens his text with several illustrations. The next essay reverts to the issue of female transvestism, principally in Mary Robinson's Walsingham. Julie Shaffer is able to achieve much in a relatively short space: she grounds Walsingham in the gender anxiety of its time, and the resultant reduction in female cross-dressing and a waning of enthusiasm for such practices in popular literature. The political section of the book opens with David Michael Robinson's engaging piece on the continuitiesand connections between homosexualityand ideas of gender 184 Reviews in the ancient world, in early modern England, and in modern society. The essay is well focused, and perceptive in its reading both of its source material and ofthe mores of society. Ruth Herman has chosen a fascinating subject for her contribution: 'Enigmatic Gender in Delarivier Manley's New Atlantis'. Although her analysis is of necessity complex and at times speculative, she handles the subject matter with confidence, and her assertion of deliberate fictive gender reversal will encourage readers to reassess the material with which she is concerned. The following two essays, by Elizabeth Kubek and Rachel K. Carnell, focus upon the work of Eliza Haywood. Kubek figures Haywood as a proto-feminist figure, immersed in the politics of her...