Revolution of Sweden: A Tragedy
Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia No. 143
By Catharine Trotter
August 2012
Uppsala University
ISBN: 9789155482602
143 pages
$57.50 Paper original
Having experienced two revolutions in the preceding century, England in the early seventeen hundreds was again in a state of political and moral unrest. In her herotic drama The Revolution of Sweden (performed at the Queen's Threatre in London in 1706), dealing with an important event in the history of what was at this time one of the great powers of Europe, Catharine Trotter indirectly comments on contemporary political and religious affairs, and puts forward in her portrait of the liberator of his country, and future king of Sweden, Gustavus Vasa, her view of an ideal monarch.
At the same time in the tradition of her mentor John Locke she treats the current prevailing theme of national and private freedom, and, as an early representative of enlightenment feminism, demonstrates how the tyranny that Sweden suffers under Danish rule has its counterpart in the domestic oppression that his Dalecarlian protectress, the historical Barbro Peterson Stigsdotter, in the play called Christina, endures in her marriage.