Gender and Desire in Thomas Lovell Beddoes' The Brides' Tragedy and Death's Jest-Book

Thomas Lovell Beddoes' female dramatic characters are, for the most part, objectified and static, but these passive women perform a crucial narrative and thematic function in the plays. Alongside the destructive activity of the male characters, they dramatize masculine-feminine unions as idealized and contrived and, thus, unstable. Desire, power and influence, as well as the constrictive aspects of physicality, all become gendered concepts in Beddoes' plays, and socially normative relationships between men and women, including heterosexual courtship and marriage, are scrutinized and found wanting. In The Brides' Tragedy, Floribel and Olivia, the eponymous brides, represent archetypes of innocence, purity, and Romantic nature. Their bridegroom, Hesperus, embodies Romantic masculinity, desiring the feminine and aspiring to androgyny, but ultimately unable to relinquish masculine power. The consequences of Hesperus' attempts to unite with the feminine other are the destruction of that other and of himself, with no hope for the spiritual union in death that the Romantic Hesperus espouses as his ultimate desire. Death's Jest-Book expands upon the theme of male-female incompatibility, presenting heterosexual relationships in the context of triangulated desire. The erotic triangles created by Melveric, Sibylla, and Wolfram and Athulf, Amala, and Adalmar are inherently unstable, because they depend upon the rivalries between the males. Once those rivalries end, with the deaths of Wolfram and Athulf, respectively, Sibylla and Amala fade into nothing, their function as conduits for male homosocial relations at an end. In effect, these failed heterosexual triangles function as a backdrop for the idealized relationship between Melveric and Wolfram, whose desire for each other is mediated through their common pursuit of Sibylla, as well as through their blood-brotherhood. Once Wolfram's physical masculinity is deferred through death, the mixing of his ashes with those of Melveric's dead wife, and reanimation, Melveric and Wolfram descend into the tomb together, united for eternity.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of North Texas

Year dc:date

2002

Author dc:creator

• Rees, Shelley S.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Simpkins, Scott, 1958-
• Holdeman, David
• Stevens, L. Robert

• Beddoes, Thomas Lovell, 1803-1849. Brides' tragedy.
• Man-woman relationships in literature.
• Beddoes, Thomas Lovell, 1803-1849. Death's jest-book.
• relationships
• masculinity
• gender
• desire
• British
• drama

Statement dc:rights

• Use restricted to UNT Community
• Copyright
• Rees, Shelley S.
• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

oclc: 52822806
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc3078/
ark: ark:/67531/metadc3078

OAI identifier oai:identifier

info:ark/67531/metadc3078