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Article: MARY PIX'S IBRAHIM: THE WOMAN WRITER AS COMMERCIAL PLAYWRIGHT.
- Article from:
- Studies in the Literary Imagination
- Article date:
- September 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Georgia State University, Department of English. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In late 1696, Drury Lane staged The Female Wits, a burlesque that, despite its wholesale ridicule of one woman, became a catchall phrase for the three women playwrights lumped together in its title. From the nineteenth century onwards, these writers, Delarivier Manley, Catharine Trotter, and Mary Pix, have been collectively known as the "female wits," and inevitably considered together in critical studies (including, I must admit, my own). This collective classification has brought three often overlooked playwrights back into critical discussion, a definite boon. It has, however, also had more subtle negative consequences when critics seek to conflate the three writers ...