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Though recent scholarship has focused both on motherhood and on
romance literature in early modern England, until now, no full
length volume has addressed the notable intersections between the
two topics. This collection contributes to the scholarly
investigation of maternity in early modern England by scrutinizing
romance narratives in various forms, considering motherhood not as
it was actually lived, but as it was figured in the fantasy world
of romance by authors ranging from Edmund Spenser to Margaret
Cavendish. Contributors explore the traditional association between
romance and women, both as readers of fiction and as tellers of
'old wives' tales,' as well as the tendency of romance plots, with
their emphasis on the family and its reproduction, to foreground
matters of maternity. Collectively, the essays in this volume
invite reflection on the uses to which Renaissance culture put
maternal stereotypes (the virgin mother, the cruel step-dame), as
well as the powerful fears and desires that mothers evoke, assuage
and sometimes express in the fantasy world of romance.
Proposing a fresh approach to scholarship on the topic, this volume
explores the cultural meanings, especially the gendered meanings,
of material associated with oral traditions. The collection is
divided into three sections. Part One investigates the evocations
of the 'old nurse' as storyteller so prominent in early modern
fictions. The essays in Part Two investigate women's fashioning of
oral traditions to serve their own purposes. The third section
disturbs the exclusive associations between the feminine and oral
traditions to discover implications for masculinity, as well.
Contributors explore the plays of Shakespeare and writings of
Spenser, Sidney, Wroth and the Cavendishes, as well as works by
less well known or even unknown authors. Framed by an introduction
by Mary Ellen Lamb and an afterword by Pamela Allen Brown, these
essays make several important interventions in scholarship in the
field. They demonstrate the continuing cultural importance of an
oral tradition of tales and ballads, even if sometimes circulated
in manuscript and printed forms. Rather than in its mode of
transmission, contributors posit that the continuing significance
of this oral tradition lies instead in the mode of consumption (the
immediacy of the interaction of the participants). Oral Traditions
and Gender in Early Modern Literary Texts confirms the power of
oral traditions to shape and also to unsettle concepts of the
masculine as well as of the feminine. This collection usefully
complicates any easy assumptions about associations of oral
traditions with gender.
Proposing a fresh approach to scholarship on the topic, this volume
explores the cultural meanings, especially the gendered meanings,
of material associated with oral traditions. The collection is
divided into three sections. Part One investigates the evocations
of the 'old nurse' as storyteller so prominent in early modern
fictions. The essays in Part Two investigate women's fashioning of
oral traditions to serve their own purposes. The third section
disturbs the exclusive associations between the feminine and oral
traditions to discover implications for masculinity, as well.
Contributors explore the plays of Shakespeare and writings of
Spenser, Sidney, Wroth and the Cavendishes, as well as works by
less well known or even unknown authors. Framed by an introduction
by Mary Ellen Lamb and an afterword by Pamela Allen Brown, these
essays make several important interventions in scholarship in the
field. They demonstrate the continuing cultural importance of an
oral tradition of tales and ballads, even if sometimes circulated
in manuscript and printed forms. Rather than in its mode of
transmission, contributors posit that the continuing significance
of this oral tradition lies instead in the mode of consumption (the
immediacy of the interaction of the participants). Oral Traditions
and Gender in Early Modern Literary Texts confirms the power of
oral traditions to shape and also to unsettle concepts of the
masculine as well as of the feminine. This collection usefully
complicates any easy assumptions about associations of oral
traditions with gender.
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Discovery Miles 3 300
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