Talk:Venice Preserv'd
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Interpretation not Preserv'd
[edit]I know it's tempting to interpret the play, but we should avoid doing so. In fact, if we are going to offer any at all, we should report interpretations that are well attested. As for the women's issues, it's important to remember that the play was perceived by female theater-goers as a favorite. She-tragedy really picked up after that, where the virtues of suffering women contrast with the business of men. Several critics have talked about the social and private spaces of men vs. women in the Restoration, but there are different codes of honor. Honor matters to all of them, and, although we don't "get it," contemporary audiences not only "got" the references to living politicians, but they also understood the pressures of honor as being equal to those of love. Geogre 11:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
inaccurate context
[edit]As the play was first staged in 1682, it is rather unlikely that the first audiences would have seen any similarity to the Monmouth Rebellion which took place in 1685. A more likely contextual reference for the initial audience would have been the Popish Plots, 1678-1681. One of the appeals of the play was its ability to evoke many political contexts without alluding to any one specifically. In fact, the play was welcomed by both Whigs and Tories, each party seeing in the play a critique of the other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Byb73 (talk • contribs) 01:04, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me rather more than "unlikely" that the play refers to the Monmouth Rebellion. I don't see why that hasn't been edited out.
I'd also wonder why the link to the text is to the Gutenberg version, which not only "revises" the play in trivial ways, but totally elminates Antonio.Rhunt08 (talk) 14:55, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
"Feminist Issues" subsection of "Context" is excessively tendentious and unsourced.
[edit]Critical perspectives on the work should not be included unless some variety and balance in scholarly viewpoints is allowed. Section as written makes issues of feminist criticism paramount, and yet cites no sources, is highly speculative and impressionistic. Delete?
Some example problems:
Venice Preserv'd also has several feminist issues. As the play was written in the Restoration period, when the legal protections for women were few, the emotional heart of the play is the vulnerability of women. [This does not logically follow and is extraordinarily subjective]
Aquillina, the play's courtesan, is shown very little regard by the men in the play. [She utterly dominates Antonio, and operates in many regards operates with greater personal and moral freedom than the men in the play--and is, moreover, one of the few survivors of the action]
Her lover, Pierre, refuses to reveal the plot against the Senate to her, suggesting that women shouldn't talk out of bed [In fact he does not refuse to, but rather simply does not tell her, a reasonable enough policy granted that she is a courtesan sleeping with his avowed enemy on the side]
Antonio never calls her by her name, but refers to her only as his "little Nacky" (a slang term for a woman's genitalia) [Antonio derives the nickname "Nacky" from "Aquilina"; we see him do this. There is no reliable source for "Nacky" as an exclusive term for genitals, female or otherwise; after much searching I have seen only one similarly unsourced reference in a footnote in the Broadview Anthology of Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century Drama. "Nicky-nacky" was like "thingamajig." It could thus in certain circumstances mean genitals, but could also mean almost anything else depending on context.]
Jaffeir's honour takes precedence over Belvidera, and the tension over love and honour is the male characters' crisis. At the end of the play, Jaffeir chooses his devotion to his friend over his devotion to his wife [Jaffeir reveals the conspiracy because of his regard for Belvidera]
and the two men die honourably, whereas Belvidera is left to die an inglorious death resulting from her madness. [Nothing notably "dishonorable" about Belvidera's death, nor honorable about Jaffeir's--by the standards of the day it is his honor rather than hers that is in the end left open to question.]