Women, Food Exchange, and Governance in Early Modern England
Authors: Bassnett, Madeline
Free Preview- Provides a unique approach to the current scholarly interest in women’s negotiations of informal power structures and their engagement with public and political lifeSuggests that we cannot gain a full picture of what food meant to the early modern English without looking at the works of women, who were the primary managers of household foodwaysDraws on a wide range of source material such as husbandry and housewifery manuals and dietaries
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- About this book
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This book is about the relationship of food and food practices to discourses and depictions of domestic and political governance in early modern women’s writing. It examines the texts of four elite women spanning approximately forty years: the Psalmes of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; the maternal nursing pamphlet of Elizabeth Clinton, Dowager Countess of Lincoln; the diary of Margaret, Lady Hoby; and Mary Sidney, Lady Wroth’s prose romance, Urania. It argues that we cannot gain a full picture of what food meant to the early modern English without looking at the works of women, who were the primary managers of household foodways. In examining food practices such as hospitality, gift exchange, and charity, this monograph demonstrates that women, no less than men, engaged with vital social, cultural and political processes.
- About the authors
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Madeline Bassnett is Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Writing Studies at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. She has published numerous articles on the topics of food and early modern women’s writing. Her work has appeared in Modern Philology, The Seventeenth Century, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 and Early English Studies.
- Reviews
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“Women, Food Exchange, and Governance is strikingly original in bringing together aspects of food history not normally treated in conjunction. Bassnett discusses hospitality, fasting, feasting, and kitchen management alongside agricultural production and breastfeeding, pushing early modern food studies to think more expansively about where we direct our attention.” (Andrea Crow, Modern Philology, Vol. 116 (4), 2019)
“The book is written in an admirably clear and straightforward style. It takes generous account of prior critics, summarizing complex arguments and relying where relevant upon the groundbreaking work of other scholars.” (David B. Goldstein, Renaissance and Reformation, Vol. 41 (4), 2018)
- Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Introduction
Pages 1-22
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Providential Gifts and Agricultural Plenty: The Psalmes of Mary Sidney Herbert
Pages 23-64
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The Milk of Wholesome Government: Elizabeth Clinton’s The Covntesse of Lincolnes Nvrserie
Pages 65-101
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Prayerful Dining: The Diary of Margaret Hoby
Pages 103-138
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The Quintessence of Good Governance: Humanist Hospitality in Mary Wroth’s Urania
Pages 139-175
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Women, Food Exchange, and Governance in Early Modern England
- Authors
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- Madeline Bassnett
- Series Title
- Early Modern Literature in History
- Copyright
- 2016
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-319-40868-2
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-319-40868-2
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-319-40867-5
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-3-319-82205-1
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- IX, 248
- Topics
