From Hooligan to Hero: The Rakish Inheritance in Centlivre’s A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1718)
Play: A Bold Stroke For a Wife
Author: Susanna Centlivre
Year published: 1718
Reading date: Spring 2010
Colonel Fainwell’s status as an evolved rake enables him to become a heroic representation of the new moral values associated with the early eighteenth century while still maintaining the necessary characteristics to thwart the conservative masculine control over female sexuality and to successfully act as an agent and a catalyst to female sexual autonomy.
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