Alice is constantly going back on her word, always lying quickly and easily to Arden. She even goes so far as to manipulate the man into thinking her public misconduct with Mosby is meaningless and that it is Arden's own insecurities that are coloring his perception of the situation.
In this time period (1590's), traditions are collapsing and social institutions are redefining themselves. The Catholic Church is no longer the only church. Questions about the power and identity of women surface when Queen Elizabeth takes the throne. Common lands become private property. The rise of the middle class creates more complicated ideas and fears about social status. Public, social institutions like marriage undergo change as well. The value of one's word is less binding.
But why is this change so feared? Maybe people believed that once an overarching dominant power structure was broken, people could not function, people would go crazy. Wives would constantly plot the untimely demise of their husbands.
I had a professor once who discussed a trip he took to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He was looking at an exhibit that chronicled the history of art in the western world. He said it was fascinating that one could clearly see the dominating power/ideal/thought or thing that most people aspired to during that time period, demonstrated through the painting. At one point all the paintings were extremely religious. At another it was all about Victorian decadence and lavishness. At another it was all war propaganda. Until he got to the present day, "modern art" section. This section was full of abstract art with a "disembodied feel" that, when placed next to its clear and understandable predecessors, was just difficult to make any sense of.
In an increasingly globalized world that also glorifies individuality, the lines between culture and race and social status and job title are becoming increasingly complex and difficult to compare. Catholicism and monarchy no longer dominate the world powers. Marriage is no longer a public institution. The definitions of what and who make a family have changed. Could the disjointed-ness and lack of coherency that my professor mentioned in modern art be reflecting the sense of groundless-ness of our modern time? Could our current society be what those who lived in 1592 have feared most? Do people go crazy without a clear hierarchy and established role within a family, social community, and work guild? This is a difficult question to answer.
We've brought up in class the point that although we tend to think of earlier time periods as more barbaric than our modern day, perhaps we are not so different. Although public executions are much more rare now than they were in 1592, our weapons of mass destruction are a monster that those living in the Renaissance couldn't even imagine.
Although we value our individuality and freedom of choice, could the lack of a dominating tradition/religion take away from our sense of community and connectedness? And if so, could this be correlated to a rise in mental illness and violent crime ( like murdering your husband)?
Are people less violent in a secular democracy than in a feudal society?
Is hierarchy part of the human condition?
Arden of Faversham is a play that highlights the actions of people prompted by fear and prompted by the uprooting of tradition. It's critical focus on human folly forces the audience to examine the social constructs that forged much of their identity, the dismantling of these constructs and its effects on identity, and, on an existential note, what, if anything, was ever a steadfast part of their identity?
Overview of Topic
Hello all, and welcome to my blog. I’ve really enjoyed being able to study Renaissance texts this semester, and I’ve particularly enjoyed being able to focus on gender roles within the texts we have read. The first insight I want to share with you is how, by taking this course and reflecting on the texts, I have begun to feel connected to a time period that I used to feel some disdain towards. I had an impression about the early modern era that it was full of witch hunts and oppressed women and vicious hierarchy. Although it did have all these things, what I’ve come to understand is that I come from this tradition.
Modern feminism and western individualism has come from the people who lived in the early modern era and their ancestors. And if you look closely at the period, indicators are everywhere that presage modern feminism, capitalism, secularism, and individualism. I’ve also found a new literary hero – the Duchess in The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster. My interest in her voice had to do with how self-assertive she was. She died for her self-assertion, but did not suffer defeat. I’ve chosen to primarily explore self-assertion in the early modern period on this blog.
As I mentioned before, I held an incorrect preconception about women of this era – that they accepted the boundaries given to them and had not yet begun to question. This is far from the truth. As pamphlet literature became accessible to all, misogynistic ideas reached more and more people. In response to this, women began to speak out and publish about themselves in a way that had never been done before. But, women still needed to be careful in their outspokenness. The Jacobean period was a conservative one, and King James was not known for being sympathetic to a shift from the traditional role of women. This led to women putting disclaimers and apologies within the texts they published. Furthermore, most of the texts published were in defense of the status quo of women. Most of the pamphlets did not argue for a radical shift I gender role, but rather for a halt to the demonization of women and praise for their role in society.
Women also felt more comfortable publishing their more radical views about gender if they justified in in the common cause of godly endeavor. Invoking divine right to further push the boundaries of what they could do (specifically as jobs or hobbies) was harder for others to condemn. Although, defending women in the name of religion is a tricky thing to do. Religious bias for female inferiority was perhaps the greatest hurdle to overcome for feminism in the Renaissance.
There were many pamphlets published by both men and women which embraced women as the inherently inferior sex, oftentimes citing numerous biblical passages. Despite difficulties in getting their voices heard, women found a middle ground and created room for self-expression amidst a rigid patriarchy by tempering their radicalism with perhaps feigned feminine modesty, and invoking divine right. Self-assertive women of the period were not modern feminists, but as stated previously, they helped build that foundation.
Pamphlets that attacked women had the habit of moving from the specific to the general. That is, one pamphlet might be discussing the story about a woman who murdered her husband, but would quickly move on to the nasty, murderous tendencies of all women. This made it easy to dehumanize the entire female sex. Other literature reversed this tendency. John Webster’s, The Duchess of Malfi, provides an intimate look into the life of a woman killed for going after simple human desires. The audience can’t help but feel sympathy with the woman and question the own rigid systems within their society that kept women from achieving individual identity.
I invite you to explore the texts and websites I have listed here. I urge you to pay special attention to the primary texts – as they’ll allow you to get to know the brave, intelligent women that began the fight for the freedoms women enjoy today.
Works Cited
Anger, Jane. “Jane Anger, her Protection for Women.” c. 1589 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 171-88. Print.
Bartels, Emily C. "Strategies Of Submission: Desdemona, The Duchess, And The Assertion Of Desire." Studies In English Literature (Rice) 36.2 (1996): 417. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Felch, Susan M. "Noble Gentlewomen Famous For Their Learning": The London Circle Of Anne Vaughan Lock." Anq 16.2 (2003): 14-19. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Hannay, Margaret P. "Constructing A City Of Ladies." Shakespeare Studies 25.(1997): 77. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Henderson, Katherine U., and Barbara F. McManus. Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. Print.
Swetnam, Joseph. “The Arraignment of Lewd, idle, forward, and unconstant women or the vanity of them, choose you whether.” c. 1615 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 189-216. Print.
Taylor, John. “A Juniper Lecture, With the description of all sorts of women, good and bad: From the modest to the maddest, from the most Civil to the scold Rampant, their praise and dispraise compendiously related.” c. 1639 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 290-304. Print.
Woods, Susanne. "Shifting Centers And Self Assertions: The Study Of Early Modern Women." Shakespeare Studies 25.(1997): 67.Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment