British Women Playwrights: Censorship and Self-censorship in the Romantic period

Building on ground-breaking studies on Romantic-period women playwrights, this chapter delves into a pivotal cultural dynamic characterising the period spanning from the 1770s to the 1820s. On the one hand, numerous women playwrights utilized the stage as a public arena to challenge the tension between public ethics and domestic ideology. On the other hand, constrained by gender-biased societal norms, these writers were aware of the need to employ cautionary strategies and resort to forms of moral and political revision. These adaptive measures included the subtle incorporation of socio-political issues veiled in the language of sentiment, the adoption of pseudonyms or anonymity, the exploration of genre hybridity. and the strategic use of paratexts to cloak audacity beneath self-justificatory and apologetic tones. After an overview of key critical debates in the field, the chapter will provide examples of (self)-censorship in the female theatrical production between the 1770s to the 1820s. By shedding light on the indirect forms of self-censorship employed by female playwrights, the essay underscores the necessity of revisiting censorship history, considering both the silencing of the female dramatic voice and the abiding erasure of female dramatic history from official records.