DOI: 10.46726/H.2026.3.4
This article provides a comprehensive analysis of female discourse as a key instrument of social and gender criticism in Hannah Cowley's comedy “The Runaway” (1776). It examines the problem of emancipation expressed by the dramatic conflict, the development of diverse system of female characters entering into gender issues of the patriarchal society in eighteenth-century England. The study investigates how a female playwright transforms the genre of the comedy of manners, utilizing its traditional plot to deconstruct the patriarchal norms of the era. The author does not only add the elements of biting social satire but affirms the value
of active virtuous action and sincere feeling, rising above class prejudices, dating back to sentimental ethics. The aim of the study is to analyze, using the historical and literary method as well as the analysis of characterology of the play, means of artistic representation of such vital social issues of the time as the right to marry for love, the criticism of marriage of convenience, access of women to education and the possibility of their self-realization which Cowley makes relevant in her comedy “The Runaway”.
For citation: Schchekochikhina E.V. Feminine discourse in Hannah Cowley’s comedy “The Runaway”: issues of gender emancipation and means of social criticism, Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2026, iss. 3, pp. 32—40.