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'I Shall Endeavor for Her Aims': Women’s Alliances and Relational Figurations of Freedom

'I Shall Endeavor for Her Aims': Women’s Alliances and Relational Figurations of Freedom

Authors :
Sara Morrison
Source :
Humanities, Vol 7, Iss 4, p 117 (2018)
Publication Year :
2018
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2018.

Abstract

In oppressive cultures that marginalize various identity positions, a woman might find it difficult to imagine herself as autonomous or capable of self-definition. Forging alliances with other women offers opportunities for self-discovery, transformation, and autonomous agency. Considering Queen Elizabeth’s correspondence with Safiye Sultana and Phillip Massinger’s The Renegado, this essay argues that tropes of seeing, achieved either through material images or through vivid discursive descriptions, foster imaginative renderings of the possibilities of self-expression and agency. Both cases, one diplomatic and the other dramatic, demonstrate successful—even though temporary and politically motivated—alliances mediated through both patriarchal constraints and material markers of identity. Drawing on these epistolary and dramatic texts, this essay explores tropes of imaginative seeing, the materiality of identity, and physical spaces that enact women’s alliances invested in questions of women’s freedom across tributaries both political and dramatic.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20760787
Volume :
7
Issue :
4
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Humanities
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.79431d8ac9134bd8aeff01ef9e774594
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/h7040117