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Author:

Lay, Jenna, author.

Title:

Beyond the cloister : Catholic Englishwomen and early modern literary culture / Jenna Lay.

Publisher:

University of Pennsylvania Press,

Copyright Date:

2016

Description:

243 pages ; 24 cm

Subject:

English literature--History and criticism.--History and criticism.
English literature--History and criticism.--History and criticism.
English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism.
Religion and literature--England--History--16th century.
Religion and literature--England--History--17th century.
Women and literature--England--History--16th century.
Women and literature--England--History--17th century.
Catholic women authors--England.
Catholic women authors.
English literature--Catholic authors.
English literature--Early modern.
English literature--Women authors.
Religion and literature.
Women and literature.
England.
1500-1700
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-232) and index.

Summary:

Representations of Catholic women appear with surprising frequency in the literature of post-Reformation England. Playwrights and poets from William Shakespeare to Andrew Marvell invoke the figure of the nun to powerful and often perplexing effect, and works that never directly address female Catholicism, such as Christopher Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander', share a discourse with contemporary debates regarding the status of recusant women. Catholic Englishwomen, whether living in convents on the European continent or as recusants in their own country, contributed to these debates, but even as their writings addressed the central religious and political issues of their time, their contributions were effaced and now are largely forgotten. Exploring the writings of Catholic women in conversation with those of Shakespeare, Marvell, Marlowe, Donne, and other canonical authors, Beyond the Cloister shows that nuns and recusants were centrally important to the development of English literature. The defining narratives of early modern England cast nuns as the relics of an unenlightened past and equated Catholic femininity with the dangerous charms of the Whore of Babylon. 0With careful attention to literary figurations of Catholic femininity and to the vibrant manuscript culture in the English convents, Jenna Lay reveals a far more complex reality. Through their use of tropes, figures, generic patterns, and literary allusions, Catholic women produced politically incendiary and rhetorically powerful lyrics, prayers, polemics, and hagiographies. Drawing on the insights of religious studies, historical formalism, and feminist criticism, Beyond the Cloister offers a reassessment of crucial decades in the development of English literary history.

ISBN:

0812248384
9780812248388

OCLC:

(OCoLC)945950073

LCCN:

2016026328

Locations:

USUX851 -- Iowa State University - Parks Library (Ames)

OVUX522 -- University of Iowa Libraries (Iowa City)