Women in Arms: Amazons in 17th Century English Drama

Abstract

This paper investigates the portrayal of Amazons in a variety of seventeenth century English plays. Sword women combining male connoted aggression and female beauty functioned as a female dream of empowerment as well as a misogynist nightmare. Hence the image of such 'masculine' women was mutable and could assume a number of different characteristics: Amazons could be portrayed as chivalrous and cruel, glamorous or denaturalized, chaste or lecherous. Humourous pictures of martial women exist side by side with hostile ones attacking the unruliness and insubordination of women and their lust for men. The fate of Amazons in seventeenth century drama is generally either death on the battlefield or marriage and submission to patriarchal rules. There are a few rare examples of dutiful wives still combining marital and martial virtues, but more often these female warriors only lay down their arms at the end of a play, out of love. Despite their prowess, the women always lose the single combat with a worthy male antagonist – usually the very man they love. In the central, sensual moment of revelation, the woman's helmet falls off and her hair falls loose. In plays featuring women in male disguise, the relationship between the lovers is often charged with homoerotic overtones: the hero is passionately attracted to the supposed boy-soldier. Androgynous figures like the Amazons also raise the question whether femininity and masculinity are inborn qualities or the products of education. As will be shown, 17th century attitudes to the problem are ambiguous.

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