Playing the whore: performing and contextualising prostitution in The Three Ladies of London
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Date
2015
Authors
Semple, Edel
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Abstract
This essay explores the literary and social contexts of prostitution in Robert Wilson's The Three Ladies of London (1581). Drawing on a diverse range of texts from the sixteenth century (including sermons, moral treatises, educational tracts, and drama), I investigate how Wilson represents prostitution not only as a moral evil, but also as a particularly social and economic failing. By the conclusion of Three Ladies, each of the female characters is identified as sexually transgressive; but how exactly is Lucre identifiable as a whore, why does Conscience turn to brothel-keeping, and how does the newly-married Love degenerate into Lust? Ultimately, I suggest that Wilson drew on and helped to establish a series of interlinked social, linguistic, material, and performative markers to delineate and stage the whore and that Three Ladies thus contributed to the development of the whore as a figure of dramatic interest. This essay was commissioned for and is available on the website for the project "Performance as Research in Early English Theatre Studies: The Three Ladies of London in Context", based in McMasters University, Canada, in 2015. Read more here: https://threeladiesoflondon.humanities.mcmaster.ca/home/index.htm
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Keywords
Early modern drama , Performance as research , Sex workers , Early modern England
Citation
Semple, E. (2015) 'Playing the whore: performing and contextualising prostitution in The Three Ladies of London', Performance as Research in Early English Theatre Studies: The Three Ladies of London in Context, Hamilton, Canada, 23-25 June 2015.
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Copyright
© 2015, the author and Performance as Research in Early English Theatre Studies: The Three Ladies of London in Context post-conference website. Published as: Semple, E. (2015) 'Playing the whore: performing and contextualising prostitution in The Three Ladies of London', Performance as Research in Early English Theatre Studies: The Three Ladies of London in Context, the John Douglas Taylor Conference, McMaster University, Hammilton, Ontario, Canada, 23-25 June 2015.