Kidnapped Amazonians, Severed Breasts, and Witches

Renaissance Perceptions of the Destructive Nature of the Freakish Female in Spenser's The Bower of Bliss and Shakespeare's Two Noble Kinsmen

Abstract

Freak shows are physical and metaphorical,
demonstrating a cultural perception of what and who is privileged. In Renaissance England, Shakespeare and Spenser both write of deviant women and perpetuate the stereotypes of foreign women, creating literary “freak shows” in their works Two Noble Kinsmen and The Bower of Bliss. Whether these characters are Amazonian women disinterested in heterosexual romance or promiscuous witches, they are set as spectacle in the confines of their respective texts.