Women, food exchange, and governance in early modern England / Madeline Bassnett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bassnett, Madeline, author.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

Early modern literature in history (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm))

Early modern literature in history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism.

English literature.

English literature--Women authors--History and criticism.

English literature--Women authors.

Food in literature.

Food--England--History--Sources.

Food.

English literature--Early modern.

History.

England.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Sources.

Physical Description:

ix, 248 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, [2016]

Summary:

This book is about the relationship of food and food practices to discourses and depictions of domestic and political governance in early modern women's writing. It examines the texts of four elite women spanning approximately forty years: the Psalmes of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; the maternal nursing pamphlet of Elizabeth Clinton, Dowager Countess of Lincoln; the diary of Margaret, Lady Hoby; and Mary Sidney, Lady Wroth's prose romance, Urania. It argues that we cannot gain a full picture of what food meant to the early modern English without looking at the works of women, who were the primary managers of household foodways. In examining food practices such as hospitality, gift exchange, and charity, this monograph demonstrates that women, no less than men, engaged with vital social, cultural and political processes.

Contents:

Providential gifts and agricultural plenty: the Psalmes of Mary Sidney Herbert

The milk of wholesome government: Elizabeth Clinton's The Covntesse of Lincolnes Nvrserie

Prayerful dining: the diary of Margaret Hoby

The quintessence of good governance: humanist hospitality in Mary Wroth's Urania

Shaping the body politic: mobile food and transnational exchange in Urania.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-236) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9783319408675

3319408674

OCLC:

950954438