Synopses & Reviews
The Usurer's Daughter provides an entirely new approach to Renaissance literature, covering a wide range of classical and continental as well as English texts, including Shakespeare. Original scholarship and critical sophistication combine to reveal links between the complex legal and economic workings of sixteenth-century culture and the representation of women in the period literature. The Usurer's Daughter makes an outstanding contribution to its field and is a must-read for those interested in feminist and materialist approaches to the Renaissance. Contents: Acknowledgements, Notes on transcriptions, references and abbreviations; Introduction: The Signs of Friendship Part I: Mental husbandry 1. The Housewife and the Humanists 2. Economies of Friendships: The Textuality of Amicitia Part II: Anxieties of Textual Access 3. From Errant Knight to Prudent Captain: Masculinity and Romantic Fiction 4. Usurers' Daughter and Prodigal Sons: The Gendered Plot ofAauthorship in the 1570s Part III: The Theatre of Clandestine Marriage 5. Household Stuff: Terence in the Reformation, 6. Why do Shakespeare's women have characters?: Error, Credit and Sex in The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew Conclusion: Shylock: Why This Usurer Has a Daughter; Notes; Primary Sources; Secondary Sources; Index.
Synopsis
Original scholarship and critical sophistication combine in this book to reveal links between the complex legal and economic workings of sixteenth-century culture and the representation of women in the literature of this period. The book focuses on the importance of the humanist redefinition of male friendship in terms of textuality. Covering a wide range of classical and continental as well as English texts, The Usurer's Daughter reveals the crucial centrality of women's representation to the project of sixteenth-century humanism.
Synopsis
In a bold and brilliantly persuasive series of moves, Lorna Hutson draws upon new historicist and feminist theories to examine closely Renaissance literature and the cultural impact of the humanist project.
The Usurer's Daughter
* provides startling new readings of Shakespeare
* takes an entirely new approach to classical scholarship
* focuses attention on the central importance of the history of the representation of women
* illuminates how social relations between men were textualised during the early modern period.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 274-288) and index.