Comparative Drama

“. . . and one may say of Eunuchs the same that is usually said of Bastards, that for the most part they are very bad, but that sometimes we may chance to find one that may prove good for something.”

Charles Ancillon, Eunuchism Display’d, 11

Charles Ancillon does not mince words when it comes to “eunuchs,” and in his authoritative treatise on the subject (see figure 1), he insists that castrated males are typically “awkward,” possessed with a “Sourness and Moroseness of Temper,” “impious. . . . always fierce and ill natured,” and “fearful.”¹ Ancillon divides castrated males into three main categories: those who were born that way, those with both penis and testicles removed, and those with only the vein between body and testicles removed. Ancillon is complimentary of none of them, and he has no qualms about generalizing. In fact, if we take Ancillon at his word, disdain for castrated men was quite ubiquitous: “History informs us, that [the public] not only utterly despised and hated, but that they could not abide so much as to see [eunuchs].”² [End Page 1]

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In English theatres, however, the notoriety associated with castrated men was complicated, and sometimes it was even replaced with respect and praise. As this essay shows, in the decades surrounding the turn of the eighteenth century, there emerged a corpus of at least twenty-five productions featuring eunuchs, most of which were set in Turkish, Persian, or Indian royal courts (see table 1 for a list).³ While the sheer frequency of these Orientalist eunuch depictions is notable, even more striking is the versatility and complexity with which dramatists constructed these characters. Unlike some of the other “stock” characters found in these Orientalist productions—like mutes or janissaries who come on stage as icons of execution and war (respectively)—eunuchs were represented quite variously. These plays feature eunuchs who were powerful military generals, spiteful schemers, loyal confidants, pitiful sex objects, and more. This variety in depiction is particularly surprising when compared to popular views of castrated men at the time, which often reduced them to their sexual status and dismissed them as odious or perverse. In the hands of English dramatists, eunuchs proved far more than the medical curiosities and sexual deviants they were represented as being in the pages of Ancillon’s treatise.

Thus, this essay illustrates the remarkable disparity between attitudes toward eunuchs in life versus art, underscoring the degree of complexity, variety, and—at times—respect underlying Orientalist theatrical depictions of eunuchs. Not only were eunuchoid characters represented in strikingly diverse ways in scripts, but these roles were also played by a heterogeneous group of actors and even actresses. And even though responses to these characters sometimes overlapped with and echoed responses to other castrated men in art (most commonly, Italian castrati), these characters were also powerfully shaped and understood in light of their Orientalist settings and contexts. This analysis of eunuchs on the London stage not only underscores how better to interpret this substantial body of plays, but more importantly it calls attention to the unique ways the English public delighted in, understood, and responded to these sexual and geographical Others—when onstage. [End Page 3]