The Politics of Female Alliance in Early Modern England

Christina Luckyj, Niamh J. O'Leary

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781496201997
• eBook ISBN: 9781496202789
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

2018 Best Collaborative Project from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women In the last thirty yearsscholarship has increasingly engaged the topic of women's alliances in early modern Europe. The Politics of Female Alliance in Early Modern England expands our knowledge of yet another facet of female alliance: the political. Archival discoveries as well as new work on politics and lawhelp shape this work as a timely reevaluation of the nature and extent of women's political alliances.

Grouped into three sections—domestic, court, and kinship alliances—these essays investigate historical documents, drama, and poetry, insisting that female alliances, much like male friendship discourse, had political meaning in early modern England. Offering new perspectives on female authors such as the Cavendish sisters, Anne Clifford, Aemilia Lanyer, and Katherine Philips, as well as on male-authored texts such as Romeo and Juliet, The Winter's Tale, Swetnam the Woman-Hater, and The Maid's Tragedy, the essays bring both familiar and unfamiliar texts into conversation about the political potential of female alliances.

Some contributors are skeptical about allied women's political power, while others suggest that such female communities had considerable potential to contain, maintain, or subvert political hierarchies. A wide variety of approaches to the political are represented in the volumeand thescope will make it appealing to a broad audience.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Editors’ Introduction
• Part 1
• 1. Distaff Power
• 2. Between Women
• 3. The Political Role of the Gossip in Swetnam the Woman-Hater, Arraigned by Women
• 4. Virtual and Actual Female Alliance in The Maid’s Tragedy and The Tamer Tamed
• 5. Failed Alliances and Miserable Marriages in Katherine Philips’s Letters
• Part 2
• 6. Performing Patronage, Crafting Alliances
• 7. Tyrants, Love, and Ladies’ Eyes
• 8. Her Advocate to the Loudest
• 9. Not Sparing Kings
• Part 3
• 10. Shakespeare Revises Juliet, the Nurse, and Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet
• 11. Crossing Generations
• 12. Exilic Inspiration and the Captive Life
• 13. Afterword
• Contributors
• Index
• About Christina Luckyj
• About Niamh J. O’Leary
• Series List