Includes bibliographical references (p. [239]-241) and index.
Contents:
Embodied and enacted : performances of maternity in early modern England / Kathryn M. Moncrief & Kathryn R. McPherson -- 'So troubled with the mother' : the politics of pregnancy in The Duchess of Malfi / Sid Ray -- 'Show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to' : pregnancy, paternity and the problem of evidence in All's well that ends well / Kathryn M. Moncrief -- Hermione's suspicious body : adultery and superfetation in The winter's tale / Michelle Ephraim -- False fruit : deceptive maternities and the failure of new comedy in Middleton's A mad world, my masters / Robert Bell -- Maternity in A woman killed with kindness / Lisa Hopkins -- 'Smock-secrets' : birth and women's mysteries on the early modern stage / Janelle Jenstad -- Disciplining the mother in seventeenth-century English Puritanism / Christina Luckyj -- Male mothering and The tempest / Suzanne Penuel -- Dramatizing deliverance and devotion : churching in early modern England / Kathryn R. McPherson -- Speaking stones : memory and maternity in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra / Chris Laoutaris -- Maternity and child loss in Stuart women's diaries / Avra Kouffman -- Nursing and influence in Pandosto and The winter's tale / Donna C. Woodford -- Murder as birth in Macbeth / Gloria Olchowy -- Tamburlaine's domestic threat / Mary Stripling -- 'I'll mar the young clerk's pen' : sodomy, paternity and circumcision in The merchant of Venice / Douglas A. Brooks.
Summary:
The essays here share a common concern with exploring maternity's cultural representation, performative aspects and practical consequences in the period from 1540-1690. They look at how early modern texts depict fertility, conception, delivery and gendered constructions of maternity.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.