Rape and the Rise of the Author: Gendering Intention in Early Modern England (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World) - Hardcover

Greenstadt, Amy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0754662748 ISBN 13: 9780754662747

Publisher: Routledge, 2009

Synopsis

Contending that early modern fictional portrayals of sexual violence identify the position of the author with that of the chaste woman threatened with rape, Amy Greenstadt challenges the prevalent scholarly view that this period's concept of 'The Author' was inherently masculine. Instead, she argues, the analogy between rape and writing centrally informed ideas of literary intention that emerged during the English Renaissance. Analyzing works by Milton, Sidney, Shakespeare and Cavendish, Greenstadt shows how the figure of 'The Author' - and by extension ideas of the modern individual--derived from a paradigm of female virtue and vulnerability. This volume supplements the growing body of studies that address the relationship between early modern textual representation and notions of gender and sexuality; it also adds a new dimension in considering the wider origins of modern concepts of selfhood and individual rights.

About this title

About the Author

Amy Greenstadt is Associate Professor of English at Portland State University, where she writes and teaches about the cultural history of gender, sexuality, and other forms of human identity and difference.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0754662748
• ISBN 13: 9780754662747
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 204