Gossip, Reputation and Theatre:The Public Sphere in Witch Plays

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Many of early modern English witch plays are dramatizations of witchcraft cases at the time. A remarkable feature of this genre is its gossip‐like nature. Witch plays characteristically combine domestic matters and shocking scandals, which is a significant sign of patriarchal crises. This paper, focusing on three plays, Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome's The Witches of Lancashire, William Rowley, Thomas Dekker and John Ford's The Witch of Edmonton, and Thomas Middleton's The Witch, analyzes how the deeply‐seated patriarchal mindset is working in the interplay between sensationalism and domesticity. Then, the problem of gossip is discussed in the light of its theatrical function as a medium that connects the public and private spheres.