Women on the Stage in Early Modern France 1540–1750 Scott Hardback 9780521896757

Women on the Stage in Early Modern France15401750\nAuthor(s): Virginia Scott\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521896757, 978-0521896757\nSynopsis\nFocusing on actresses in France during the early modern period, Virginia Scott examines how the stereotype of the actress has been constructed. The study then moves beyond that stereotype to detail the reality of the personal and artistic lives of women on the French stage, from the almost unknown Marie Ferr - who signed a contract for 12 livres a year in 1545 to perform the 'antiquailles de Rome or other histories, moralities, farces, and acrobatics' in the provinces - to the queens of the eighteenth-century Paris stage, whose 'adventures' have overshadowed their artistic triumphs. The book also investigates the ways in which actresses made invaluable contributions to the development of the French theatre in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,.