Using Le Tartuffe as a paradigm, Cashman (French, Temple U.) defines a new type of metadrama and then explores the complex relationships that metadrama maintains in social and political orders. She examines the three aspects of the social order with which classical playwrights associate the play-within-a-play: family and class structures, gender, and the political structure. She concludes with a discussion of female characters' relationship to the political order in the performance-in-a-play structure in tragedy. The volume has no index. Annotation 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
