George Sand's Gabriel

Gabriel (1839) is a romantic and adventurous play about a woman's struggle for freedom and love. Raised as a Renaissance prince, Gabriel gives up her entitlement and assumes a feminine identity to satisfy the demands of her male lover. A prescient protofeminist dramatic treatment of gender, the play makes a passionate plea for female equality in education and opportunity. Available for the first time in an English translation, the script is supplemented by an introductory essay that examines questions posed by the play with regard to conventional gender representations and how the protagonist contrasts with other cross-dressed heroines, such as Shakespeare's Rosalind in As You Like It. The introduction also recounts George Sand's struggle to get the play accepted for production on the Paris stage, and an appendix examines her 1850s revision, Julia, in which the protagonist's role is greatly diminished. Now available for theatrical production in English, Gabriel, together with the analytical material, also will be of value for women's studies and literary and dramatic courses.