Early American Women Dramatists, 1780-1860

Noting that the variation between the playwrights can be as great as between men and women, and acknowledging that her subjects are limited to a narrow class and race population, Detsi-Diamanti the cultural and historical specificity of women playwrights of the period and the interrelationship between their dramatic efforts and the formation of an American national and literary identity. Her major themes are metaphors of freedom, industrial capitalism, and gender perspective and ideology.