It seems that pseudo castration as a form of disguise is a recurring motif in William Wycherley’s The Country Wife – or, at least, there are two remarkably similar cases in the play. In my last blog post, where I briefly reflected on how Margery Pinchwife’s cross-dressing can be regarded as an instance of “female…
What can it possibly mean within the context of a seventeenth-century English drama? This was my very first reaction when I came across the phrase “female castration” while looking through some material on William Wycherley’s The Country Wife. Although in my first post I promised to focus on the notion of writing and deception, the…
Hungarian Wikipedia is far behind its western counterparts, especially the English Wikipedia. Its articles are still few, often too short, and badly written, especially those written on topics, which are not directly linked to Hungarian culture, not to mention the numerous gaps in this nexus, the inexistent articles about topics that should be dealt with.It…
Mythologies of three women, usually with some magical properties, come in all shapes and sizes. One only has to think of the various manifestations of the myth in literature, such as the Weird Sisters in Macbeth, or classical divinities, such as the Fates or the Three Graces. What it usually common is that the three…
Sensing the look of either a stranger or of a friend at us may trigger questions and suspicion within ourselves concerning our own subject, while it may also raise fear of exposure and “possessedness”. Gazing admiringly at someone out of affection may seem acceptable as far as social and interpersonal behavioural norms are concerned. One…
“Our wives, like their writings, [are] never safe but in our closets under lock and key,” claims Pinchwife, my favourite source of quotes when it comes to William Wycherley’s Restoration comedy, The Country Wife. The association of women and writing, which is a recurring motif in this comedy, casts light upon a serious contemporary…
“Childhood memories are sometimes covered and obscured beneath the things that come later, like childhood toys forgotten at the bottom of a crammed adult closet, but they are never lost for good.” (The Ocean at the End of the Lane) One of the things which might lead us to mistake Neil Gaiman’s novel for…