Better a shrew than a sheep : women, drama, and the culture of jest in early modern England / Pamela Allen Brown.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brown, Pamela Allen.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English drama--Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600--History and criticism.

English drama.

Women and literature--England--History--16th century.

Women and literature.

Jestbooks, English.

History.

England.

Women and literature--England--History--17th century.

English drama--17th century--History and criticism.

English drama (Comedy)--History and criticism.

English drama (Comedy).

English wit and humor--History and criticism.

English wit and humor.

Jestbooks, English--History.

Comic, The, in literature.

Sex role in literature.

Women in literature.

Physical Description:

xi, 263 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2003.

Summary:

In a book that explodes the assumption that early modern comic culture was created by men for men, Pamela Allen Brown shows that jest books, plays, and ballads represented women as laugh-getters and sought out the laughter of ordinary women. Disputing the claim that non-elite women had little access to popular culture because of their low literacy and social marginality, Brown demonstrates that women often bested all comers in the arenas of jesting, gaining a few heady moments of agency. Brown argues that listening for women's laughter can shed light on both the dramas of the street and those of the stage: plays from The Massacre of the Innocents to The Merry Wives of Windsor to The Woman's Prize taught audiences the importance of gossips' alliances as protection against slanderers, lechers, tyrants, and wife-beaters. Other jests, ballads, jigs, and plays show women reveling in tales of female roguery or scoffing at the perverse patience of Griselda. As Brown points out, some women found Griselda types annoying and even foolish: better be a shrew than a sheep.

Contents:

Introduction : sauce for the gander

Near neighbors, women's wars, and Merry wives

Ale and female : gossips as players, alehouse as theater

Between women, or all is fair at horn fair

"O such a rogue would be hang'd!" : shrews versus wife beaters

Scandalous pleasures : a coney-catcher and her public

Griselda the fool

Epilogue : the problem of fun.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [223]-253) and index.

ISBN:

0801440246

0801488362

OCLC:

50279913