Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Works

Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Works PDF Author: Vanessa L. Rapatz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501513346
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Works attends to the religious, social, and material changes in England during the century following the Reformation, specifically examining how the English came to terms with the meanings of convents and novices even after they disappeared from the physical and social landscape. In five chapters, it traces convents and novices across a range of dramatic texts that refuse easy generic classification: problem plays such as Shakespeare's Measure for Measure; Marlowe's comic tragedy The Jew of Malta; Margaret Cavendish's closet dramas The Convent of Pleasure and The Religious; Aphra Behn's Restoration comedy The Rover; and seventeenth-century dialogues that include both a Catholic treatise promoting women's entrance into European convents and a proto-pornographic exposé of such convents. Convents, novices, and problem plays emerge as parallel sites of ambiguity that reflect the social, political, and religious uncertainties England faced after the Reformation.

Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Works

Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Works PDF Author: Vanessa L. Rapatz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501513346
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Works attends to the religious, social, and material changes in England during the century following the Reformation, specifically examining how the English came to terms with the meanings of convents and novices even after they disappeared from the physical and social landscape. In five chapters, it traces convents and novices across a range of dramatic texts that refuse easy generic classification: problem plays such as Shakespeare's Measure for Measure; Marlowe's comic tragedy The Jew of Malta; Margaret Cavendish's closet dramas The Convent of Pleasure and The Religious; Aphra Behn's Restoration comedy The Rover; and seventeenth-century dialogues that include both a Catholic treatise promoting women's entrance into European convents and a proto-pornographic exposé of such convents. Convents, novices, and problem plays emerge as parallel sites of ambiguity that reflect the social, political, and religious uncertainties England faced after the Reformation.

Neither this Nor that

Neither this Nor that PDF Author: Vanessa Lynn Rapatz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781267029287
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The Reformation in England brought about massive upheavals that altered the religious landscape of the country, including the dissolution of the country's convents. Either razed or repurposed, convents disappeared from England; only those with the resources and determination to enter convents on the Continent could still become nuns. Yet, at the level of representation, the convent continued to stand as an alternative to marriage. In countless texts, I show, we find a novice poised between these two options. The novice, for the sake of this project, is both a woman about to enter a convent and an ingénue; she has yet to take on an adult identity and can be classified neither as nun nor wife. Neither this nor that, she is both an ambiguous figure and a surprisingly common one in post-reformation texts. This dissertation examines the afterlives of convents and novices in early modern English dramatic texts, including staged plays, dialogues, and closet dramas. In five chapters, it traces convents and novices across a range of dramatic texts that refuse easy generic classification: problem plays such as Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Marlowe's comic tragedy The Jew of Malta, Margaret Cavendish's closet dramas The Convent of Pleasure and The Religious, Aphra Behn's Restoration comedy The Rover, and seventeenth-century dialogues that include both a Catholic treatise promoting women's entrance into European convents and a proto-pornographic exposé of such convents. The texts slide between comedy and tragedy, romance and debate, drama and narrative. Each of these dramatic texts incorporates convent features such as grates, turnstiles, and fortified walls that paradoxically invite and repel outsiders' interest. Simultaneously depicted as fortifications and vulnerabilities, these devices, built into both buildings and plots, structurally enable the novice's agency, which is always measured by her ability to imagine alternatives to marriage. Convents, novices, and problem plays emerge as parallel sites of ambiguity that reflect the social, political, and religious uncertainties England faced after the Reformation. The novice, positioned between the choices of convent and marriage, becomes a figure in whom audience members and readers might have recognized their own ambiguous affiliations and longing for alternatives.

Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Works

Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Works PDF Author: Vanessa L. Rapatz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501513141
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Works attends to the religious, social, and material changes in England during the century following the Reformation, specifically examining how the English came to terms with the meanings of convents and novices even after they disappeared from the physical and social landscape. In five chapters, it traces convents and novices across a range of dramatic texts that refuse easy generic classification: problem plays such as Shakespeare's Measure for Measure; Marlowe's comic tragedy The Jew of Malta; Margaret Cavendish's closet dramas The Convent of Pleasure and The Religious; Aphra Behn's Restoration comedy The Rover; and seventeenth-century dialogues that include both a Catholic treatise promoting women's entrance into European convents and a proto-pornographic exposé of such convents. Convents, novices, and problem plays emerge as parallel sites of ambiguity that reflect the social, political, and religious uncertainties England faced after the Reformation.

Florentine Drama for Convent and Festival

Florentine Drama for Convent and Festival PDF Author: Antonia Pulci
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226685187
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
A talented poet and a gifted dramatist, Antonia Pulci (1452-1501) pursued two vocations, first as a wife and later as founder of an Augustinian order. During and after her marriage, Pulci authored several sacre rappresentazioni—one-act plays on Christian subjects. Often written to be performed by nuns for female audiences, Pulci's plays focus closely on the concerns of women. Exploring the choice that Renaissance women had between marriage, the convent, or uncloistered religious life, Pulci's female characters do not merely glorify the religious life at the expense of the secular. Rather, these women consider and deal with the unwanted advances of men, negligent and abusive husbands and suitors, the dangers of childbearing, and the disappointments of child rearing. They manage households and kingdoms successfully. Pulci's heroines are thoughtful; their capacity for analysis and action regularly resolve the moral, filial, and religious crises of their husbands and admirers. Available in English for the first time, this volume recovers the long muted voice of an early and important female Italian poet and playwright.

The English Convents in Exile, 1600?1800

The English Convents in Exile, 1600?1800 PDF Author: James E. Kelly
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781032921778
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The Convent of Pleasure" and Other Plays

The Convent of Pleasure Author: Margaret Cavendish Duchess of Newcastle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673), until recently remembered more as a flamboyant eccentric than as a serious writer, was in fact the most prolific, thought-provoking, and original woman writer of the Restoration. Cavendish is the author of many poems, short stories, biographies, memoirs, letters, philosophical and scientific works (including The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing World, the first work of science fiction by a woman), and nineteen plays. "The Convent of Pleasure" and Other Plays collects four of Cavendish's dramatic works that are among the most revealing of her attitudes toward marriage and her desire for fame. Loves Adventures (1662) centers on a woman succeeding in war and diplomacy by passing as a man. Similarly, the heroine of Bell in Campo (1662) rescues her husband at the head of an army of women in this tale of a marriage of near equals. The Convent of Pleasure (1668) proposes a separatist community of women and has received attention for its suggestion of lesbian sexuality. The Bridals (1662), a more typical restoration comedy satirizing marriage, rounds out the collection. Edited with notes and annotation by Anne Shaver, "The Convent of Pleasure" and Other Plays also contains a timeline, biography and bibliography of the Duchess, an appreciation of Cavendish's life and work, and a bibliography of critical essays. Also included are all of Cavendish's epistles To the Reader as well as Other Preliminary Matter from Playes (1662), and Cavendish's original preface to Plays Never Before Printed (1668). A valuable collection from an extraordinary writer, "The Convent of Pleasure" and Other Plays raises important issues about women and gender.

Shakespearean Criticism

Shakespearean Criticism PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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The Convent of Pleasure

The Convent of Pleasure PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Gendering the Portuguese-speaking World

Gendering the Portuguese-speaking World PDF Author: Francisco Bethencourt
Publisher: European Expansion and Indigen
ISBN: 9789004456723
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
"In this book, 14 scholars from Belgium, Canada, Mozambique, Portugal, the US, and the UK examine the long-term cultural and social environment of sex definition in different continents. The study of medieval and early modern Portugal shows limited rights of women and patriarchal constraints. The impact on gender definition of Portuguese expansion in Africa, Asia, and the New World is analysed with the inclusion of local agency informing indigenous responses. Unstable constructions of masculinity, femininity, queer, homosexual, bisexual, and transgender identities and behaviours are placed in historical context. The use of language and literary representation are part of this research. Contributors are: Darlene Abreu-Ferreira, Vanda Anastácio, Francisco Bethencourt, Dorothée Boulanger, Rosa Maria dos Santos Capelão, Maria Judite Mário Chipenembe, Gily Coene, Philip J. Havik, Ben James, Anna M. Klobucka, Chia Longman, Amélia Polónia, Ana Maria S. Rodrigues, Isabel dos Guimarães Sá, Ana Cristina Santos, and João Silvestre"--

Book for the Hour of Recreation

Book for the Hour of Recreation PDF Author: María de San José Salazar
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226734625
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
María de San José Salazar (1548-1603) took the veil as a Discalced ("barefoot") Carmelite nun in 1571, becoming one of Teresa of Avila's most important collaborators in religious reform and serving as prioress of the Seville and Lisbon convents. Within the parameters of the strict Catholic Reformation in Spain, María fiercely defended women's rights to define their own spiritual experience and to teach, inspire, and lead other women in reforming their church. María wrote this book as a defense of the Discalced practice of setting aside two hours each day for conversation, music, and staging of religious plays. Casting the book in the form of a dialogue, María demonstrates through fictional conversations among a group of nuns during their hours of recreation how women could serve as very effective spiritual teachers for each other. The book includes one of the first biographical portraits of Teresa and Maria's personal account of the troubled founding of the Discalced convent at Seville, as well as her tribulations as an Inquisitional suspect. Rich in allusions to women's affective relationships in the early modern convent, Book for the Hour of Recreation also serves as an example of how a woman might write when relatively free of clerical censorship and expectations. A detailed introduction and notes by Alison Weber provide historical and biographical context for Amanda Powell's fluid translation.