Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe

Women in Culture and Society

by Margaret W. Ferguson (Editor), Maureen Quilligan (Editor), Nancy J. Vickers (Editor)

Rewriting The The Discourses Of Sexual Difference In Early Modern Europe

Genres: History, Renaissance, Nonfiction, Gender, Feminism

448 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1986

Reviews

[Kent]

I find the opening essays, describing the dynamic between husband and wife, and the parallels that can be drawn between the nuclear family and the monarchy. There is something in the way a husband's authority is flexible and contingent that I find interesting in light of the more conventional ways that these dynamics play themselves out. The essays that touch solely on female image, or issues of female chastity, didn't feel as compelling to me. However, the essay by Chuck Hulse, reconfiguring the sonnet sequence of Astrophil and Stella as a game of mutual agency and delight changed the way I view that sequence.