Warning, Familiarity and Ridicule
This work traces the theatrical representation of the witch on the Early Modern English stage. I examine the ways in which the witch was constructed as a binary opposite against which dominant society could define itself. This work provides close readings of three representative plays from the era: Macbeth, The Witch of Edmonton, and The Witches of Lancashire. I also investigate the significance of the personal involvement of King James I in real-life witch trials. This work breaks the progression of the witch into three stages - fear, familiarity, and ridicule - each of which served to allay the anxieties of dominant culture. Situating the texts within the specific historical cosmology of their original productions, I suggest one possible mapping of the intersections of the intersections of gender, class, nation, politics, and economics which they depict.