Today we are grappling with the consequences of disastrous changes in our farming and food system... more Today we are grappling with the consequences of disastrous changes in our farming and food systems. While the problems we face have reached a crisis point, their roots are deep. Even in the seventeenth century, Frances E. Dolan contends, some writers and thinkers voiced their reservations, both moral and environmental, about a philosophy of improvement that rationalized massive changes in land use, farming methods, and food production. Despite these reservations, the seventeenth century was a watershed in the formation of practices that would lead toward the industrialization of agriculture. But it was also a period of robust and inventive experimentation in what we now think of as alternative agriculture. This book approaches the seventeenth century, in its failed proposals and successful ventures, as a resource for imagining the future of agriculture in fruitful ways. It invites both specialists and non-specialists to see and appreciate the period from the ground up. Building on and connecting histories of food and work, literary criticism of the pastoral and georgic, histories of elite and vernacular science, and histories of reading and writing practices, among other areas of inquiry, Digging the Past offers fine-grained case studies of projects heralded as innovations in the seventeenth century and today: composting and soil amendment, local food, natural wine, and hedgerows. Dolan analyzes the stories seventeenth-century writers told one another in letters, diaries, and notebooks, in huge botanical catalogs and flimsy pamphlets, in plays, poems, and how-to guides, in adages and epics. She digs deeply to assess precisely how and with what effects key terms, figurations, and stories galvanized early modern imaginations and reappear, often unrecognized, on the websites and in the tour scripts of farms and vineyards today.
In this essay, I examine the relationships among blood, sap, and wine in seventeenth-century Engl... more In this essay, I examine the relationships among blood, sap, and wine in seventeenth-century English agricultural treatises. The associations among blood, sap, and wine provoke unease about English reliance on imported wines. If blood and wine are analogous, even fungible, then what does it mean that English people drink “outlandish” wine? Fueled by the association between blood and wine, concerns about strengthening English bloodlines and preserving their purity contributed to the promotion of English (and colonial) grape growing and wine making. In turn, the pre-modern belief in the vitality and dynamism of wine persists in some modern-day celebrations of wine’s spiritual powers and health benefits. This essay ultimately reflects on the practical consequences and material manifestations of figuration, the complex entanglements of past and present, and the complexities of “drinking local.”
As part of an explosion of agricultural experimentation and innovation in seventeenth-century Eng... more As part of an explosion of agricultural experimentation and innovation in seventeenth-century England, many “improvers” turned to composting as both an “ancient practice” and “newly born.” The composting practices they advocated resembled the very particular practices that characterized early modern reading, remembering, and writing. In comparing composting, commonplacing, and composition, amendment and revision, this essay draws attention both to the importance of soil amendment in early modern English agriculture and to the ways it generated writing and modeled what writing might be. Focusing on early modern agricultural treatises, this talk will consider the compost pile as an archive, a commonplace book, an occasion of writing, and a pungent figure for assembling and ripening the past’s leftovers in the service of some future enrichment—that is, for the work of early modernists today.
Many scholars point to Mopsa in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale as
the gullible reader we like to... more Many scholars point to Mopsa in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale as the gullible reader we like to think we are not. But her method might be more like our own than we like to admit. Both early modern consumers, then, and scholars of the period, now, join Mopsa in seeking some truths in ballads and in interrogating what kinds of truths printed broadside ballads might offer. This essay builds toward a case study of one ballad, “The Whipster of Woodstreet,” the forms of evidence it provides to the curious, then and now, and the reading practices it invites and rewards.
Many histories of the civil war and biographies of Margaret Lucas Cavendish recount the story tha... more Many histories of the civil war and biographies of Margaret Lucas Cavendish recount the story that, in 1648, parliamentary soldiers desecrated the Lucas family tomb, scattered the remains of Cavendish's mother and sister, and tore out the corpses' hair to wear in their hats. Tracking down the sources of this widely repeated story, this essay examines the role of textual accounts in producing the effect that bodies precede them. Events and stories, flesh, facts, and fiction, prove to be very difficult to untangle.
Some critics have argued that Middleton and Rowley's play The Changeling depicts a rape. This art... more Some critics have argued that Middleton and Rowley's play The Changeling depicts a rape. This article engages that argument by re-reading the play, first in relation to Janet Halley's proposal that we "take a break" from the feminist project of "carrying a brief for" the feminine; and second in relation to recent historical research that deepens our understanding of the available ways of describing and assessing sexual coercion in seventeenth-century England. Placing particular emphasis on Beatrice-Joanna's strategic, even exploitative, self-assertions, this article argues that the play does not depict rape as defined by statutes. Yet, as this article shows, the play participates in the history of sexual coercion and consent nonetheless. This is a history that motivates feminism. It is also a history from which we cannot take a break, however much we might wish to do so. We can, however, take a break from trying to reach a verdict on Beatrice-Joanna's culpability in order to see how complexly the play depicts her agency.
Marriage is a focus of conflict today, from lamentations about divorce rates to legal contests ov... more Marriage is a focus of conflict today, from lamentations about divorce rates to legal contests over same-sex marriage. It was equally contested in Shakespeare's England, even if the issues at stake were somewhat different. Recent scholarship on the history of marriage has unsettled many of the assumptions that once governed discussions of early modern marriage and its representation on the stage. It is no longer safe to assume we know what early modern marriage meant, how it felt, or what it achieved or required. This essay focuses particularly on new research on rates of marriage in early modern England, on married women's agency, will, and work, and on same-sex attachments. What are the implications of these new approaches for our readings of Shakespeare's plays? Is marriage a happy ending? Is it an ending at all?
In Forms of Nationhood, Richard Helgerson argues that "discursive forms matter, that they have a ... more In Forms of Nationhood, Richard Helgerson argues that "discursive forms matter, that they have a meaning and effect that can sometimes complement but that can also contradict" a given text's "manifest content. Forms in this view are as much agents as they are structures. They make things happen." 1 This essay takes up the idea of forms as agents, emphasizing in particular not only what they make happen, especially when they presume to predict outcomes, but also what possibilities they foreclose. I begin with the observation that some Renaissance tragedies chart the process by which two equal powers fight for dominance and divide the loyalties of subordinates; order can be restored only when one of the two emerges as a victor. According to this logic, equality is not only impossible but chaotic and destructive; collective governance, divided kingdoms, multiple sexual partners, and plural gods inevitably lead to catastrophe. Just as a body can have only one head or one heart, this logic goes, so order requires that collectives must have a single leader and that no man should be asked to serve two masters.
Today we are grappling with the consequences of disastrous changes in our farming and food system... more Today we are grappling with the consequences of disastrous changes in our farming and food systems. While the problems we face have reached a crisis point, their roots are deep. Even in the seventeenth century, Frances E. Dolan contends, some writers and thinkers voiced their reservations, both moral and environmental, about a philosophy of improvement that rationalized massive changes in land use, farming methods, and food production. Despite these reservations, the seventeenth century was a watershed in the formation of practices that would lead toward the industrialization of agriculture. But it was also a period of robust and inventive experimentation in what we now think of as alternative agriculture. This book approaches the seventeenth century, in its failed proposals and successful ventures, as a resource for imagining the future of agriculture in fruitful ways. It invites both specialists and non-specialists to see and appreciate the period from the ground up. Building on and connecting histories of food and work, literary criticism of the pastoral and georgic, histories of elite and vernacular science, and histories of reading and writing practices, among other areas of inquiry, Digging the Past offers fine-grained case studies of projects heralded as innovations in the seventeenth century and today: composting and soil amendment, local food, natural wine, and hedgerows. Dolan analyzes the stories seventeenth-century writers told one another in letters, diaries, and notebooks, in huge botanical catalogs and flimsy pamphlets, in plays, poems, and how-to guides, in adages and epics. She digs deeply to assess precisely how and with what effects key terms, figurations, and stories galvanized early modern imaginations and reappear, often unrecognized, on the websites and in the tour scripts of farms and vineyards today.
In this essay, I examine the relationships among blood, sap, and wine in seventeenth-century Engl... more In this essay, I examine the relationships among blood, sap, and wine in seventeenth-century English agricultural treatises. The associations among blood, sap, and wine provoke unease about English reliance on imported wines. If blood and wine are analogous, even fungible, then what does it mean that English people drink “outlandish” wine? Fueled by the association between blood and wine, concerns about strengthening English bloodlines and preserving their purity contributed to the promotion of English (and colonial) grape growing and wine making. In turn, the pre-modern belief in the vitality and dynamism of wine persists in some modern-day celebrations of wine’s spiritual powers and health benefits. This essay ultimately reflects on the practical consequences and material manifestations of figuration, the complex entanglements of past and present, and the complexities of “drinking local.”
As part of an explosion of agricultural experimentation and innovation in seventeenth-century Eng... more As part of an explosion of agricultural experimentation and innovation in seventeenth-century England, many “improvers” turned to composting as both an “ancient practice” and “newly born.” The composting practices they advocated resembled the very particular practices that characterized early modern reading, remembering, and writing. In comparing composting, commonplacing, and composition, amendment and revision, this essay draws attention both to the importance of soil amendment in early modern English agriculture and to the ways it generated writing and modeled what writing might be. Focusing on early modern agricultural treatises, this talk will consider the compost pile as an archive, a commonplace book, an occasion of writing, and a pungent figure for assembling and ripening the past’s leftovers in the service of some future enrichment—that is, for the work of early modernists today.
Many scholars point to Mopsa in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale as
the gullible reader we like to... more Many scholars point to Mopsa in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale as the gullible reader we like to think we are not. But her method might be more like our own than we like to admit. Both early modern consumers, then, and scholars of the period, now, join Mopsa in seeking some truths in ballads and in interrogating what kinds of truths printed broadside ballads might offer. This essay builds toward a case study of one ballad, “The Whipster of Woodstreet,” the forms of evidence it provides to the curious, then and now, and the reading practices it invites and rewards.
Many histories of the civil war and biographies of Margaret Lucas Cavendish recount the story tha... more Many histories of the civil war and biographies of Margaret Lucas Cavendish recount the story that, in 1648, parliamentary soldiers desecrated the Lucas family tomb, scattered the remains of Cavendish's mother and sister, and tore out the corpses' hair to wear in their hats. Tracking down the sources of this widely repeated story, this essay examines the role of textual accounts in producing the effect that bodies precede them. Events and stories, flesh, facts, and fiction, prove to be very difficult to untangle.
Some critics have argued that Middleton and Rowley's play The Changeling depicts a rape. This art... more Some critics have argued that Middleton and Rowley's play The Changeling depicts a rape. This article engages that argument by re-reading the play, first in relation to Janet Halley's proposal that we "take a break" from the feminist project of "carrying a brief for" the feminine; and second in relation to recent historical research that deepens our understanding of the available ways of describing and assessing sexual coercion in seventeenth-century England. Placing particular emphasis on Beatrice-Joanna's strategic, even exploitative, self-assertions, this article argues that the play does not depict rape as defined by statutes. Yet, as this article shows, the play participates in the history of sexual coercion and consent nonetheless. This is a history that motivates feminism. It is also a history from which we cannot take a break, however much we might wish to do so. We can, however, take a break from trying to reach a verdict on Beatrice-Joanna's culpability in order to see how complexly the play depicts her agency.
Marriage is a focus of conflict today, from lamentations about divorce rates to legal contests ov... more Marriage is a focus of conflict today, from lamentations about divorce rates to legal contests over same-sex marriage. It was equally contested in Shakespeare's England, even if the issues at stake were somewhat different. Recent scholarship on the history of marriage has unsettled many of the assumptions that once governed discussions of early modern marriage and its representation on the stage. It is no longer safe to assume we know what early modern marriage meant, how it felt, or what it achieved or required. This essay focuses particularly on new research on rates of marriage in early modern England, on married women's agency, will, and work, and on same-sex attachments. What are the implications of these new approaches for our readings of Shakespeare's plays? Is marriage a happy ending? Is it an ending at all?
In Forms of Nationhood, Richard Helgerson argues that "discursive forms matter, that they have a ... more In Forms of Nationhood, Richard Helgerson argues that "discursive forms matter, that they have a meaning and effect that can sometimes complement but that can also contradict" a given text's "manifest content. Forms in this view are as much agents as they are structures. They make things happen." 1 This essay takes up the idea of forms as agents, emphasizing in particular not only what they make happen, especially when they presume to predict outcomes, but also what possibilities they foreclose. I begin with the observation that some Renaissance tragedies chart the process by which two equal powers fight for dominance and divide the loyalties of subordinates; order can be restored only when one of the two emerges as a victor. According to this logic, equality is not only impossible but chaotic and destructive; collective governance, divided kingdoms, multiple sexual partners, and plural gods inevitably lead to catastrophe. Just as a body can have only one head or one heart, this logic goes, so order requires that collectives must have a single leader and that no man should be asked to serve two masters.
a er the Reformation, the nun was a stock gure in a surprisingly wide range of representations. S... more a er the Reformation, the nun was a stock gure in a surprisingly wide range of representations. She appears in mischievous ballads; in comedies (where, from the poisoned nuns in e Jew of Malta to the wise abbess in e Comedy of Errors, the nun is either silly or benign rather than a female version of the misguided friars and villainous cardinals of tragedy); in earnest exposés of Catholic corruption; in erotic elaborations of what might happen inside the cloister and inside the confessional; in the occasional biography of a nun by her confessor or abbess; in theological treatises and guides addressed to her; and in the letters and other writings nuns themselves composed. Except for texts produced by and for Catholics, most of these texts provoke laughter at the nun's failed attempts at chastity, her misguided obedience, her superstition, and her presumption to authority. Since nuns were as various as anyone else, and representations of them spanned centuries, appearing in a range of genres and addressed to a great variety of readers, the polemical project of ridiculing the nun needs to be scrutinized rather than taken as given. e laughable nun is exposed to hostile view from the outside. Her exposure is designed in part to secure the alienated position from which one observes and ridicules her. From this viewpoint, she gures that part of Catholicism that is to be dismissed rather than feared: the absurdity of female authority and separatism; the inevitable eruption of repression into license; the mindless submission to corrupt leaders. I would like to thank Vanessa Rapatz for her help researching this essay,
This essay considers biographies of Catholic women written after their deaths, largely by priests... more This essay considers biographies of Catholic women written after their deaths, largely by priests who served as their confessors, and the saints' lives which these biographies took as their models. The purpose of this essay is twofold: to draw attention to a significant body of Catholic writing, and to use this material to shed new light on the one text of this group that has gained considerable critical attention , The Lady Falkland, Her Life , a biography of Elizabeth Cary by one of her daughters, a Benedictine nun. Considering the Life as a participant in a subgenre of Catholic biography reveals the tension between the conventions and precedents available to Cary's biographer, on the one hand, and her intractable subject, on the other. The Life , like other similar biographies, borrows from and verges on hagiography, but is particularly unsuccessful at transforming its subject into a saint. While criticism of Cary and her works continues to dwell on her as eccentric and exceptional, determined by the particularities of her own character and experience, she is as like other female subjects of Catholic biography and hagiography as she is unlike them. This can only be seen by attending to the kinds of texts that Cary and her daughter might well have read, and the parameters they set for writing an eminent Catholic woman's life. These texts figure reading and housework as the chief means by which Catholic women define and sustain their confessional identities in the hostile environment of post-reformation England.
editors' introduction This essay treats the Reformation in England as a contest over space and it... more editors' introduction This essay treats the Reformation in England as a contest over space and its social meanings and uses. Concentrating on how space intersected with gender and religious afªliation, it examines struggles over several sites where these fraught ideologies collided: reformed or vandalized devotional spaces, the court (especially its royal chapels), the scaffold, the bed, the household, and the prison. Although Catholics had to relinquish many devotional, social, and political spaces in the wake of the Reformation, they also developed a tactical and adaptive relation to space that, this essay argues, fostered Catholic survival, but also created new valences for Catholicism and added new twists to misogynist discourses of the day. Catholics' strategic and ºuid deployments of space complicated efforts to control them, and complicate scholars' efforts to place them on material and conceptual maps of early modern England. But, as this essay shows, bringing both gender and religious afªliation into a discussion of urban space not only deepens our understanding of how space is produced, but adds new depth to our understanding of both gender and religious struggles in this period.
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the gullible reader we like to think we are not. But her method might be more like our own than we like to admit. Both early modern consumers, then, and scholars of the period, now, join Mopsa in seeking some truths in ballads and in interrogating what kinds of truths printed broadside ballads might offer. This essay builds toward a case study of one ballad, “The Whipster of Woodstreet,” the forms of evidence it provides to the curious, then and now, and the reading practices it invites and rewards.
the gullible reader we like to think we are not. But her method might be more like our own than we like to admit. Both early modern consumers, then, and scholars of the period, now, join Mopsa in seeking some truths in ballads and in interrogating what kinds of truths printed broadside ballads might offer. This essay builds toward a case study of one ballad, “The Whipster of Woodstreet,” the forms of evidence it provides to the curious, then and now, and the reading practices it invites and rewards.