Impact of Feminism in English Renaissance Studies

PAMELA ALLEN BROWN Assistant Professor, University of Connecticut, USA KATE CHEDGZOY Professor of Renaissance Literature, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK KIMBERLEY ANNE COLES Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, USA FRANCES E. DOLAN Professor of English, University of California, Davis, USA JONATHAN GIL HARRIS Professor of English, George Washington University, USA HEATHER HIRSCHFELD Associate Professor of English, University of Tennessee, USA JEAN HOWARD Professor of English, Columbia University, USA GRACE IOPPOLO Department of English, University of Reading, UK NATASHA KORDA Assistant Professor of English, Wesleyan University, USA JENNIFER PANEK Associate Professor of English, University of Ottawa, Canada PATRICIA PARKER Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Stanford University, USA GAIL KERN PASTER Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, USA SASHA ROBERTS sometime Lecturer in English, Universit y of Kent, UK R.S. WHITE Professor of English, Communications and Cultural Studies, University of Western Australia, Australia DEANNE WILLIAMS Associate Professor in English, York University, Canada.

• List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Introduction; D.Callaghan PART I: THEORIES Cleopatran Affinities: Hélène Cixous, Margaret Cavendish and the Writing of Dialogic Matter; J.Gil Harris Confessing Mothers: The Maternal Penitent in Early Modern Revenge Tragedy; H.Hirschfeld Feminist Criticism and the New Formalism: Early Modern Women and Literary Engagement; S.Roberts Ophelia's Sisters; R.S.White PART II: WOMEN Sex and the Early Modern City: Staging the Bawdy Houses of London; J.Howard Women, Gender, and the Politics of Location; K.Chedgzoy 'The 'diffrence . . . in degree': Social Rank and Gendered Expression'; K.A.Coles A New Fable of the Belly: Vulgar Curiosity and the Persian Lady's Loose Bodies; P.Allen Brown Construing Gender: Mastering Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew; P.Parker PART III: HISTORIES Hermione's Ghost: Catholicism, the Feminine, and the Undead; F.E.Dolan No Man's Elizabeth: Frances Yates and the History of History; D.Williams Women's Informal Commerce and theAll-Male Stage; N.Korda Why did Widows Remarry? Remarriage, Male Authority, and Feminist Criticism; J.Panek 'I desire to be helde in your memory': Reading Penelope Rich Through Her Letters; G.Ioppolo Hormonal Conclusions; G.Kern Paster Index

'The essays in this volume are original, well-wrought, and delightfully diverse, together manifesting the richness and flexibility of feminist thought as it intersects with a variety of critical approaches to the early modern period. As a detailed and comprehensive map of the debates and discoveries in the field, the book will prove an essential tool for teachers and scholars. This is required reading for all interested in the period, whatever their perspective on feminism or gender studies.' - Celia R. Daileader, Professor of English, Florida State University, USA