Facial Hair and the Performance of Early Modern Masculinity - 9781138578203

Taylor & Francis

Facial Hair and the Performance of Early Modern MasculinityAuthor(s): Eleanor Rycroft\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: Routledge\nISBN-13: 9781138578203, 978-1138578203\nSynopsis\nFacial Hair and the Performance of Early Modern Masculinity is the first full-length critical study to analyse the importance of beards in terms of the theatrical performance of masculinity.\n\nAccording to medical, cultural, and literary discourses of early modern era in England, facial hair marked adult manliness while beardlessness indicated boyhood. Beards were therefore a passport to cultural prerogatives. This book explores this in relation to the early modern stage, a space in which the processes of gender formation in early modern society were writ large, and how the uses of facial hair in the theatre illuminate the operations of power and politics in society more widely.\n\nWritten for scholars of Early Modern Theatre and Theatre History, this volume .