Private Matters and Public Culture in Post-Reformation England / Lena Cowen Orlin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Orlin, Lena Cowen, Author.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (336 p.) : 13 b&w illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

According to Holinshed's Chronicles, Thomas Arden was murdered by his wife, her lover, and a number of accomplices in 1551. Holinshed apologizes for including in his state history what seems to be "but a private matter," although at the same time he asserts that the "horribleness" of the crime justifies public retelling. Alice Arden's crime was popularized in Arden of Feversham ( 1592), a play which initiated the genre of domestic tragedy and thatthrust private conflict onto the stage of public discourse.Weaving a complex tapestry out of intellectual history and literary analysis, Lena Cowen Orlin examines how the private issues of contentious marital relations and household governance became public—through conduct manuals, sermons, political tracts, and philosophical treatises, as well as domestic tragedies—in the culture of post-Reformation England. Orlin first draws on rich archival evidence in telling the story of the Ardens. Although Arden of Feversham fulfilled the conservative project of confirming patriarchal authority in the home at a time of social upheaval, Orlin finds that later domestic tragedies such as A Woman Killed with Kindness and Othello were less predictable in their aims. And while other forms of public literature provided blueprints for ordering the household, domestic tragedies continued to reveal the tensions lying under the surface there: inconsistencies in the prescribed role of women, contradictions within patriarchal ideology, conflicts between political and economic interests in the household, inadequacies in the old ideals of friendship and benefice, and anxieties about the control of material possessions.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A NOTE ON DOCUMENTATION AND EDITORIAL PRACTICE

ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Chapter One. THE PLACE OF THE PRIVATE

Coda One. Alyce Ardern’s Rapes

Chapter Two. PATRIARCHALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS

Coda Two. Patriarchalism in Practice

Chapter Three. VIRTUE AND DOMESTIC INTEREST

Coda Three. The Key and the Cogito

Chapter Four. DOMESTIC ABDICATIONS

Coda Four. Impertinent Tragedies

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PUBLISHED SOURCES

INDEX

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 15. Sep 2020)

ISBN:

1-5017-3738-4

OCLC:

1198931414