Introduction 1. A Usable History 2. The Place(s) of Women in Shakespeare's World: Historical ... more Introduction 1. A Usable History 2. The Place(s) of Women in Shakespeare's World: Historical Fact and Feminist Interpretation 3. Our Canon, Ourselves 4. Boys will be Girls 5. The Lady's Reeking Breath 6. Shakespeare's Timeless Women Suggestions for Further Reading
The only slight criticism I might make concerning this significant and deeply engaging book is th... more The only slight criticism I might make concerning this significant and deeply engaging book is the wish for a longer postscript. Only two pages long, it concludes that the maternal body was “not historically passive . . . but dynamic, active and challenging; not the subject but the agent of history” and that maternities had a “far-reaching impact” on “the disciplines through which we have come to mediate our understanding not only of our origins but of our own human potential” (268–69). These are rousing words, but I am not sure that this optimism is totally earned. As I look at Vesalius’s illustration of a pregnant woman lying on a table in a theater of anatomy, as I think about conceptions of nature based on the woman’s fluid and essentially dehumanized body, as I imagine the unthinking malice directed at the women whose hair was placed in witch bottles, as I remember that Cleopatra was largely defamed rather than admired in this period (except for Shakespeare’s play, Caesar finally won), I don’t share this optimism. Instead, I feel a bit sobered about how the need to master women’s maternal bodies was central to knowledge or disciplines, as Laoutaris has so ably demonstrated. Mastery was not, of course, completely achieved, and early modern history is replete with women who showed imagination and agency. Both imagination and agency are inherent in the daunting task of mothering itself. But the tremendous power attributed to maternal bodies— a power that then required such extreme countermeasures to suppress it—came at a terrible price to women and men alike.
Introduction 1. A Usable History 2. The Place(s) of Women in Shakespeare's World: Historical ... more Introduction 1. A Usable History 2. The Place(s) of Women in Shakespeare's World: Historical Fact and Feminist Interpretation 3. Our Canon, Ourselves 4. Boys will be Girls 5. The Lady's Reeking Breath 6. Shakespeare's Timeless Women Suggestions for Further Reading
Publikationsansicht. 30781163. Poetry without paradox : the limitations of the new criticism of t... more Publikationsansicht. 30781163. Poetry without paradox : the limitations of the new criticism of the lyric / (1962). Rackin, Phyllis. Abstract. Vita.. Microfilm of typescript. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms, 1962. -- 1 reel ; 35 mm.. Thesis--University of Illinois.. ...
Introduction 1. A Usable History 2. The Place(s) of Women in Shakespeare's World: Historical ... more Introduction 1. A Usable History 2. The Place(s) of Women in Shakespeare's World: Historical Fact and Feminist Interpretation 3. Our Canon, Ourselves 4. Boys will be Girls 5. The Lady's Reeking Breath 6. Shakespeare's Timeless Women Suggestions for Further Reading
The only slight criticism I might make concerning this significant and deeply engaging book is th... more The only slight criticism I might make concerning this significant and deeply engaging book is the wish for a longer postscript. Only two pages long, it concludes that the maternal body was “not historically passive . . . but dynamic, active and challenging; not the subject but the agent of history” and that maternities had a “far-reaching impact” on “the disciplines through which we have come to mediate our understanding not only of our origins but of our own human potential” (268–69). These are rousing words, but I am not sure that this optimism is totally earned. As I look at Vesalius’s illustration of a pregnant woman lying on a table in a theater of anatomy, as I think about conceptions of nature based on the woman’s fluid and essentially dehumanized body, as I imagine the unthinking malice directed at the women whose hair was placed in witch bottles, as I remember that Cleopatra was largely defamed rather than admired in this period (except for Shakespeare’s play, Caesar finally won), I don’t share this optimism. Instead, I feel a bit sobered about how the need to master women’s maternal bodies was central to knowledge or disciplines, as Laoutaris has so ably demonstrated. Mastery was not, of course, completely achieved, and early modern history is replete with women who showed imagination and agency. Both imagination and agency are inherent in the daunting task of mothering itself. But the tremendous power attributed to maternal bodies— a power that then required such extreme countermeasures to suppress it—came at a terrible price to women and men alike.
Introduction 1. A Usable History 2. The Place(s) of Women in Shakespeare's World: Historical ... more Introduction 1. A Usable History 2. The Place(s) of Women in Shakespeare's World: Historical Fact and Feminist Interpretation 3. Our Canon, Ourselves 4. Boys will be Girls 5. The Lady's Reeking Breath 6. Shakespeare's Timeless Women Suggestions for Further Reading
Publikationsansicht. 30781163. Poetry without paradox : the limitations of the new criticism of t... more Publikationsansicht. 30781163. Poetry without paradox : the limitations of the new criticism of the lyric / (1962). Rackin, Phyllis. Abstract. Vita.. Microfilm of typescript. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms, 1962. -- 1 reel ; 35 mm.. Thesis--University of Illinois.. ...
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