Author: Yael Manes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317094034
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 159
Book Description
Exploring individual and collective formation of gender identities, this book contributes to current scholarly discourses by examining plays in the genre of 'erudite comedy' (commedia erudita), which was extremely popular among sixteenth-century Italians from the elite classes. Author Yael Manes investigates five erudite comedies-Ludovico Ariosto's I suppositi (1509), Niccolò Machiavelli's La Mandragola (1518) and Clizia (1525), Antonio Landi's Il commodo (1539), and Giovan Maria Cecchi's La stiava (1546)-to consider how erudite comedies functioned as ideological battlefields where the gender system of patriarchy was examined, negotiated, and critiqued. These plays reflect the patriarchal order of their elite social milieu, but they also offer a unique critical vantage point on the paradoxical formation of patriarchal masculinity. On the one hand, patriarchal ideology rejects the mother and forbids her as an object of desire; on the other hand, patriarchal male identity revolves around representations of motherhood. Ultimately, the comedies reflect the desire of the Italian Renaissance male elite for women who will provide children to their husbands but not actively assume the role of a mother. In sum, Manes reveals a wide cultural understanding that motherhood-as an activity that women undertake, not simply a relational position they occupy-challenges patriarchy because it bestows women with agency, power, and authority. Manes here recovers the complexity of Renaissance Italian discourse on gender and identity formation by approaching erudite comedies not only as mirrors of their audiences but also as vehicles for contemporary audiences' ideological, psychological, and emotional expressions.
Motherhood and Patriarchal Masculinities in Sixteenth-Century Italian Comedy
Author: Yael Manes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317094034
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 159
Book Description
Exploring individual and collective formation of gender identities, this book contributes to current scholarly discourses by examining plays in the genre of 'erudite comedy' (commedia erudita), which was extremely popular among sixteenth-century Italians from the elite classes. Author Yael Manes investigates five erudite comedies-Ludovico Ariosto's I suppositi (1509), Niccolò Machiavelli's La Mandragola (1518) and Clizia (1525), Antonio Landi's Il commodo (1539), and Giovan Maria Cecchi's La stiava (1546)-to consider how erudite comedies functioned as ideological battlefields where the gender system of patriarchy was examined, negotiated, and critiqued. These plays reflect the patriarchal order of their elite social milieu, but they also offer a unique critical vantage point on the paradoxical formation of patriarchal masculinity. On the one hand, patriarchal ideology rejects the mother and forbids her as an object of desire; on the other hand, patriarchal male identity revolves around representations of motherhood. Ultimately, the comedies reflect the desire of the Italian Renaissance male elite for women who will provide children to their husbands but not actively assume the role of a mother. In sum, Manes reveals a wide cultural understanding that motherhood-as an activity that women undertake, not simply a relational position they occupy-challenges patriarchy because it bestows women with agency, power, and authority. Manes here recovers the complexity of Renaissance Italian discourse on gender and identity formation by approaching erudite comedies not only as mirrors of their audiences but also as vehicles for contemporary audiences' ideological, psychological, and emotional expressions.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317094034
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 159
Book Description
Exploring individual and collective formation of gender identities, this book contributes to current scholarly discourses by examining plays in the genre of 'erudite comedy' (commedia erudita), which was extremely popular among sixteenth-century Italians from the elite classes. Author Yael Manes investigates five erudite comedies-Ludovico Ariosto's I suppositi (1509), Niccolò Machiavelli's La Mandragola (1518) and Clizia (1525), Antonio Landi's Il commodo (1539), and Giovan Maria Cecchi's La stiava (1546)-to consider how erudite comedies functioned as ideological battlefields where the gender system of patriarchy was examined, negotiated, and critiqued. These plays reflect the patriarchal order of their elite social milieu, but they also offer a unique critical vantage point on the paradoxical formation of patriarchal masculinity. On the one hand, patriarchal ideology rejects the mother and forbids her as an object of desire; on the other hand, patriarchal male identity revolves around representations of motherhood. Ultimately, the comedies reflect the desire of the Italian Renaissance male elite for women who will provide children to their husbands but not actively assume the role of a mother. In sum, Manes reveals a wide cultural understanding that motherhood-as an activity that women undertake, not simply a relational position they occupy-challenges patriarchy because it bestows women with agency, power, and authority. Manes here recovers the complexity of Renaissance Italian discourse on gender and identity formation by approaching erudite comedies not only as mirrors of their audiences but also as vehicles for contemporary audiences' ideological, psychological, and emotional expressions.
Motherhood and Patriarchal Masculinities in Sixteenth-century Italian Comedy
Author: Yael Manes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781315596105
Category : Italian drama
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781315596105
Category : Italian drama
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
Motherhood and Patriarchal Masculinities in Sixteenth-Century Italian Comedy
Author: Dr Yael Manes
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409479110
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 159
Book Description
Exploring individual and collective formation of gender identities, this book contributes to current scholarly discourses by examining plays in the genre of 'erudite comedy' (commedia erudita), which was extremely popular among sixteenth-century Italians from the elite classes. Author Yael Manes investigates five erudite comedies-Ludovico Ariosto's I suppositi (1509), Niccolò Machiavelli's La Mandragola (1518) and Clizia (1525), Antonio Landi's Il commodo (1539), and Giovan Maria Cecchi's La stiava (1546)–to consider how erudite comedies functioned as ideological battlefields where the gender system of patriarchy was examined, negotiated, and critiqued. These plays reflect the patriarchal order of their elite social milieu, but they also offer a unique critical vantage point on the paradoxical formation of patriarchal masculinity. On the one hand, patriarchal ideology rejects the mother and forbids her as an object of desire; on the other hand, patriarchal male identity revolves around representations of motherhood. Ultimately, the comedies reflect the desire of the Italian Renaissance male elite for women who will provide children to their husbands but not actively assume the role of a mother. In sum, Manes reveals a wide cultural understanding that motherhood–as an activity that women undertake, not simply a relational position they occupy–challenges patriarchy because it bestows women with agency, power, and authority. Manes here recovers the complexity of Renaissance Italian discourse on gender and identity formation by approaching erudite comedies not only as mirrors of their audiences but also as vehicles for contemporary audiences' ideological, psychological, and emotional expressions.
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409479110
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 159
Book Description
Exploring individual and collective formation of gender identities, this book contributes to current scholarly discourses by examining plays in the genre of 'erudite comedy' (commedia erudita), which was extremely popular among sixteenth-century Italians from the elite classes. Author Yael Manes investigates five erudite comedies-Ludovico Ariosto's I suppositi (1509), Niccolò Machiavelli's La Mandragola (1518) and Clizia (1525), Antonio Landi's Il commodo (1539), and Giovan Maria Cecchi's La stiava (1546)–to consider how erudite comedies functioned as ideological battlefields where the gender system of patriarchy was examined, negotiated, and critiqued. These plays reflect the patriarchal order of their elite social milieu, but they also offer a unique critical vantage point on the paradoxical formation of patriarchal masculinity. On the one hand, patriarchal ideology rejects the mother and forbids her as an object of desire; on the other hand, patriarchal male identity revolves around representations of motherhood. Ultimately, the comedies reflect the desire of the Italian Renaissance male elite for women who will provide children to their husbands but not actively assume the role of a mother. In sum, Manes reveals a wide cultural understanding that motherhood–as an activity that women undertake, not simply a relational position they occupy–challenges patriarchy because it bestows women with agency, power, and authority. Manes here recovers the complexity of Renaissance Italian discourse on gender and identity formation by approaching erudite comedies not only as mirrors of their audiences but also as vehicles for contemporary audiences' ideological, psychological, and emotional expressions.
The Poetics of Imitation in the Italian Theatre of the Renaissance
Author: Salvatore Di Maria
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442647124
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
The theatre of the Italian Renaissance was directly inspired by the classical stage of Greece and Rome, and many have argued that the former imitated the latter without developing a new theatre tradition. In this book, Salvatore DiMaria investigates aspects of innovation that made Italian Renaissance stage a modern, original theatre in its own right. He provides important evidence for creative imitation at work by comparing sources and imitations incuding Machiavelli's Mandragola and Clizia, Cecchi's Assiuolo, Groto's Emilia, and Dolce's Marianna and highlighting source elements that these playwrights chose to adopt, modify, or omit entirely. DiMaria delves into how playwrights not only brought inventive new dramaturgical methods to the genre, but also incorporated significant aspects of the morals and aesthetic preferences familiar to contemporary spectators into their works. By proposing the theatre of the Italian Renaissance as a poetic window into the living realities of sixteenth-century Italy, he provides a fresh approach to reading the works of this period.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442647124
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
The theatre of the Italian Renaissance was directly inspired by the classical stage of Greece and Rome, and many have argued that the former imitated the latter without developing a new theatre tradition. In this book, Salvatore DiMaria investigates aspects of innovation that made Italian Renaissance stage a modern, original theatre in its own right. He provides important evidence for creative imitation at work by comparing sources and imitations incuding Machiavelli's Mandragola and Clizia, Cecchi's Assiuolo, Groto's Emilia, and Dolce's Marianna and highlighting source elements that these playwrights chose to adopt, modify, or omit entirely. DiMaria delves into how playwrights not only brought inventive new dramaturgical methods to the genre, but also incorporated significant aspects of the morals and aesthetic preferences familiar to contemporary spectators into their works. By proposing the theatre of the Italian Renaissance as a poetic window into the living realities of sixteenth-century Italy, he provides a fresh approach to reading the works of this period.
Women, Rhetoric, and Drama in Early Modern Italy
Author: Alexandra Coller
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1134780109
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Women, Rhetoric, and Drama in Early Modern Italy -- PART I: Women as Protagonists in Male-Authored Drama: Comedy and tragedy -- 1 Fathers, Daughters, Crossdressing, and Names: Women, Rhetoric, and Education in Commedia Erudita -- Coda: "Margherita Costa's Li buffoni (1641): The First (Extant) Female-Authored Scripted Comedy"--2 Fashioning a Genealogy: The Rhetoric of Friendship and Female Virtue in Italian Renaissance tragedy -- Coda: Valeria Miani's Celinda (1611) among Fin de Siècle Italian Tragedies -- PART II: Women as Authors/Women as Protagonists: Pastoral Tragicomedy -- 3 Women Writers and the Canon: Satyr Scenes and Female-Authored Pastoral Drama -- 4 Isabetta Coreglia's Dori (1634): Writing Pastoral Drama Against the Backdrop of the Male Canon and an Incipient Female-Authored Tradition -- 5 Isabetta Coreglia's Erindo il fido (1650) and Isabella Andreini's Mirtilla (1588): Using a Female-Authored Classic as Paradigm -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1134780109
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Women, Rhetoric, and Drama in Early Modern Italy -- PART I: Women as Protagonists in Male-Authored Drama: Comedy and tragedy -- 1 Fathers, Daughters, Crossdressing, and Names: Women, Rhetoric, and Education in Commedia Erudita -- Coda: "Margherita Costa's Li buffoni (1641): The First (Extant) Female-Authored Scripted Comedy"--2 Fashioning a Genealogy: The Rhetoric of Friendship and Female Virtue in Italian Renaissance tragedy -- Coda: Valeria Miani's Celinda (1611) among Fin de Siècle Italian Tragedies -- PART II: Women as Authors/Women as Protagonists: Pastoral Tragicomedy -- 3 Women Writers and the Canon: Satyr Scenes and Female-Authored Pastoral Drama -- 4 Isabetta Coreglia's Dori (1634): Writing Pastoral Drama Against the Backdrop of the Male Canon and an Incipient Female-Authored Tradition -- 5 Isabetta Coreglia's Erindo il fido (1650) and Isabella Andreini's Mirtilla (1588): Using a Female-Authored Classic as Paradigm -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index
The Routledge Research Companion to Anglo-Italian Renaissance Literature and Culture
Author: Michele Marrapodi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317044169
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 678
Book Description
The aim of this Companion volume is to provide scholars and advanced graduate students with a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of current research work on Anglo-Italian Renaissance studies. Written by a team of international scholars and experts in the field, the chapters are grouped into two large areas of influence and intertextuality, corresponding to the dual way in which early modern England looked upon the Italian world from the English perspective – Part 1: "Italian literature and culture" and Part 2: "Appropriations and ideologies". In the first part, prominent Italian authors, artists, and thinkers are examined as a direct source of inspiration, imitation, and divergence. The variegated English response to the cultural, ideological, and political implications of pervasive Italian intertextuality, in interrelated aspects of artistic and generic production, is dealt with in the second part. Constructed on the basis of a largely interdisciplinary approach, the volume offers an in-depth and wide-ranging treatment of the multifaceted ways in which Italy’s material world and its iconologies are represented, appropriated, and exploited in the literary and cultural domain of early modern England. For this reason, contributors were asked to write essays that not only reflect current thinking but also point to directions for future research and scholarship, while a purposefully conceived bibliography of primary and secondary sources and a detailed index round off the volume.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317044169
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 678
Book Description
The aim of this Companion volume is to provide scholars and advanced graduate students with a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of current research work on Anglo-Italian Renaissance studies. Written by a team of international scholars and experts in the field, the chapters are grouped into two large areas of influence and intertextuality, corresponding to the dual way in which early modern England looked upon the Italian world from the English perspective – Part 1: "Italian literature and culture" and Part 2: "Appropriations and ideologies". In the first part, prominent Italian authors, artists, and thinkers are examined as a direct source of inspiration, imitation, and divergence. The variegated English response to the cultural, ideological, and political implications of pervasive Italian intertextuality, in interrelated aspects of artistic and generic production, is dealt with in the second part. Constructed on the basis of a largely interdisciplinary approach, the volume offers an in-depth and wide-ranging treatment of the multifaceted ways in which Italy’s material world and its iconologies are represented, appropriated, and exploited in the literary and cultural domain of early modern England. For this reason, contributors were asked to write essays that not only reflect current thinking but also point to directions for future research and scholarship, while a purposefully conceived bibliography of primary and secondary sources and a detailed index round off the volume.
Thicker Than Water
Author: Lauren Weindling
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817361014
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
"The proverb goes that "blood is thicker than water." But do common bloodlines in fact demand special duties or prescribe affections? Does this maxim presume that we can or should only love others biologically similar to ourselves? Are we nobler if we do, or somehow defective if we don't? "Thicker than Water" examines the roots of this belief by studying the omnipresent discourse of bloodlines and kindred relations in the literature of early modern Europe, specifically its role in the creation and maintenance of oppressive social structures. Lauren Weindling examines how drama from England, France, and Italy tests these assumptions about blood and love, exposing their underlying political function. Among the key texts that Weindling studies are Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice, Pierre Corneille's Le Cid, Giambattista della Porta's La Sorella and its English analog, Thomas Middleton's No Wit/Help Like a Woman's, John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, and Machiavelli's La Mandragola. Each of these plays in some way offers an extreme limit case for these beliefs in plots of love, courtship, and marriage (e.g., blood feuds or incest). They also illustrate that blood functions not as a biological basis for affinities, but discursively. Moreover, they feature the voices of marginalized groups, unprivileged by this ideology, which present significant counterpoints to this bloody worldview. Those outsiders reveal that finding alternative vocabularies to the bloody discourse of elite groups is both extremely difficult and often ineffectual, further evidenced by their persistence today. Much critical work on blood has examined this discourse as it manifests onstage: as evidence of guilt, the product of violence, or in bleeding figures. This book, instead, examines the work that blood does unseen in its connection to discourses of love and kinship-arbitrating social and emotional connections between persons, and thus underwriting our deepest forms of social organization"--
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817361014
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
"The proverb goes that "blood is thicker than water." But do common bloodlines in fact demand special duties or prescribe affections? Does this maxim presume that we can or should only love others biologically similar to ourselves? Are we nobler if we do, or somehow defective if we don't? "Thicker than Water" examines the roots of this belief by studying the omnipresent discourse of bloodlines and kindred relations in the literature of early modern Europe, specifically its role in the creation and maintenance of oppressive social structures. Lauren Weindling examines how drama from England, France, and Italy tests these assumptions about blood and love, exposing their underlying political function. Among the key texts that Weindling studies are Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice, Pierre Corneille's Le Cid, Giambattista della Porta's La Sorella and its English analog, Thomas Middleton's No Wit/Help Like a Woman's, John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, and Machiavelli's La Mandragola. Each of these plays in some way offers an extreme limit case for these beliefs in plots of love, courtship, and marriage (e.g., blood feuds or incest). They also illustrate that blood functions not as a biological basis for affinities, but discursively. Moreover, they feature the voices of marginalized groups, unprivileged by this ideology, which present significant counterpoints to this bloody worldview. Those outsiders reveal that finding alternative vocabularies to the bloody discourse of elite groups is both extremely difficult and often ineffectual, further evidenced by their persistence today. Much critical work on blood has examined this discourse as it manifests onstage: as evidence of guilt, the product of violence, or in bleeding figures. This book, instead, examines the work that blood does unseen in its connection to discourses of love and kinship-arbitrating social and emotional connections between persons, and thus underwriting our deepest forms of social organization"--
Ireland and the Reception of the Bible
Author: Bradford A. Anderson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567680770
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
Drawing on the work of leading figures in biblical, religious, historical, and cultural studies in Ireland and beyond, this volume explores the reception of the Bible in Ireland, focusing on the social and cultural dimensions of such use of the Bible. This includes the transmission of the Bible, the Bible and identity formation, engagement beyond Ireland, and cultural and artistic appropriation of the Bible. The chapters collected here are particularly useful and insightful for those researching the use and reception of the Bible, as well as those with broader interests in social and cultural dimensions of Irish history and Irish studies. The chapters challenge the perception in the minds of many that the Bible is a static book with a fixed place in the world that can be relegated to ecclesial contexts and perhaps academic study. Rather, as this book shows, the role of the Bible in the world is much more complex. Nowhere is this clearer than in Ireland, with its rich and complex religious, cultural, and social history. This volume examines these very issues, highlighting the varied ways in which the Bible has impacted Irish life and society, as well as the ways in which the cultural specificity of Ireland has impacted the use and development of the Bible both in Ireland and further afield.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567680770
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
Drawing on the work of leading figures in biblical, religious, historical, and cultural studies in Ireland and beyond, this volume explores the reception of the Bible in Ireland, focusing on the social and cultural dimensions of such use of the Bible. This includes the transmission of the Bible, the Bible and identity formation, engagement beyond Ireland, and cultural and artistic appropriation of the Bible. The chapters collected here are particularly useful and insightful for those researching the use and reception of the Bible, as well as those with broader interests in social and cultural dimensions of Irish history and Irish studies. The chapters challenge the perception in the minds of many that the Bible is a static book with a fixed place in the world that can be relegated to ecclesial contexts and perhaps academic study. Rather, as this book shows, the role of the Bible in the world is much more complex. Nowhere is this clearer than in Ireland, with its rich and complex religious, cultural, and social history. This volume examines these very issues, highlighting the varied ways in which the Bible has impacted Irish life and society, as well as the ways in which the cultural specificity of Ireland has impacted the use and development of the Bible both in Ireland and further afield.
White Gold
Author: Susan Falls
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496202694
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
Women have shared breast milk for eons, but in White Gold, Susan Falls shows how the meanings of capitalism, technology, motherhood, and risk can be understood against the backdrop of an emerging practice in which donors and recipients of breast milk are connected through social media in the southern United States. Drawing on her own experience as a participant, Falls describes the sharing community. She also presents narratives from donors, doulas, medical professionals, and recipients to provide a holistic ethnographic account. Situating her subject within cross-cultural comparisons of historically shifting attitudes about breast milk, Falls shows how sharing "white gold"--seen as a scarce, valuable, even mysterious substance--is a mode of enacting parenthood, gender, and political values. Though breast milk is increasingly being commodified, Falls argues that sharing is a powerful and empowering practice. Far from uniform, participants may be like-minded about parenting but not other issues, so their acquaintanceships add new textures to the body politic. In this interdisciplinary account, White Gold shows how sharing simultaneously reproduces the capitalist values that it disrupts while encouraging community-making between strangers.
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496202694
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
Women have shared breast milk for eons, but in White Gold, Susan Falls shows how the meanings of capitalism, technology, motherhood, and risk can be understood against the backdrop of an emerging practice in which donors and recipients of breast milk are connected through social media in the southern United States. Drawing on her own experience as a participant, Falls describes the sharing community. She also presents narratives from donors, doulas, medical professionals, and recipients to provide a holistic ethnographic account. Situating her subject within cross-cultural comparisons of historically shifting attitudes about breast milk, Falls shows how sharing "white gold"--seen as a scarce, valuable, even mysterious substance--is a mode of enacting parenthood, gender, and political values. Though breast milk is increasingly being commodified, Falls argues that sharing is a powerful and empowering practice. Far from uniform, participants may be like-minded about parenting but not other issues, so their acquaintanceships add new textures to the body politic. In this interdisciplinary account, White Gold shows how sharing simultaneously reproduces the capitalist values that it disrupts while encouraging community-making between strangers.
Imagining Early Modern Histories
Author: Dr Elizabeth Ketner
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1472465199
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 460
Book Description
Interpreting textual mediations of history in early modernity, this volume adds nuance to our understanding of the contributions fiction and fictionalizing make to the shape and texture of versions of and debates about history during that period. Geographically, the scope of the essays extends beyond Europe and England to include Asia and Africa. Contributors take a number of different approaches to understand the relationship between history, fiction, and broader themes in early modern culture. They analyze the ways fiction writers use historical sources, fictional texts translate ideas about the past into a vernacular accessible to broad audiences, fictional depictions and interpretations shape historical action, and the ways in which nonfictional texts and accounts were given fictional histories of their own, intentionally or not, through transmission and interpretation. By combining the already contested idea of fiction with performance, action, and ideas/ideology, this collection provides a more thorough consideration of fictional histories in the early modern period. It also covers more than two centuries of primary material, providing a longer perspective on the changing and complex role of history in forming early modern national, gendered, and cultural identities.
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1472465199
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 460
Book Description
Interpreting textual mediations of history in early modernity, this volume adds nuance to our understanding of the contributions fiction and fictionalizing make to the shape and texture of versions of and debates about history during that period. Geographically, the scope of the essays extends beyond Europe and England to include Asia and Africa. Contributors take a number of different approaches to understand the relationship between history, fiction, and broader themes in early modern culture. They analyze the ways fiction writers use historical sources, fictional texts translate ideas about the past into a vernacular accessible to broad audiences, fictional depictions and interpretations shape historical action, and the ways in which nonfictional texts and accounts were given fictional histories of their own, intentionally or not, through transmission and interpretation. By combining the already contested idea of fiction with performance, action, and ideas/ideology, this collection provides a more thorough consideration of fictional histories in the early modern period. It also covers more than two centuries of primary material, providing a longer perspective on the changing and complex role of history in forming early modern national, gendered, and cultural identities.