Download or read book Early Modern Autobiography written by Ronald Bedford and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why, and in what ways, did late medieval and early modern English people write about themselves, and what was their understanding of how "selves" were made and discussed? This collection goes to the heart of current debate about literature and autobiography, addressing the contentious issues of what is meant by early modern autobiographical writing, how it was done, and what was understood by self-representation in a society whose groupings were both elaborate and highly regulated. Early Modern Autobiography considers the many ways in which autobiographical selves emerged from the late medieval period through the seventeenth century, with the aim of understanding the interaction between those individuals' lives and their worlds, the ways in which they could be recorded, and the contexts in which they are read. In addressing this historical arc, the volume develops new readings of significant autobiographical works, while also suggesting the importance of texts and contexts that have rarely been analyzed in detail, enabling the contributors to reflect on, and challenge, some prevailing ideas about what it means to write autobiographically and about the development of notions of self-representation. "The idea of the self, as seen from diverse and fascinating perspectives on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century life: this is what readers can expect from Early Modern Autobiography. A beautifully edited collection, genuinely far-reaching and insightful, Early Modern Autobiography makes known to us a great deal about how people saw themselves four hundred years ago." --Derek Cohen, Professor of English, McLaughlin College, York University "Acutely addressing a range of central issues from subjectivity to theatricality to religion, these essays will be of great interest to specialists in early modern studies and students of autobiographical writings from all eras." --Heather Dubrow, Tighe-Evans Professor and John Bascom Professor, Department of English, University of Wisconsin "The essays in this volume show where archival discoveries--memoirs, letters, account books, wills, and marginalia--can take us in understanding early modern mentalities. They document the interdependence of the abstract and the everyday, the social constructedness of self-awareness, local contexts for self-recordation, and impulses that range from legal purpose to imaginative escape. The sixteen chapters open many fascinating new perspectives on identity and personhood in Renaissance England."--Lena Cowen Orlin, Executive Director, The Shakespeare Association of America and Professor of English, University of Maryland Baltimore County Ronald Bedford is Reader in the School of English, Communication and Theatre at the Unversity of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, and author of The Defence of Truth: Herbert of Cherbury and the Seventeenth Century and Dialogues with Convention: Readings in Renaissance Poetry. The late Lloyd Davis was Reader in the School of English at the University of Queensland, and author of Guise and Disguise: Rhetoric and Characterization in the English Renaissance (1993) and editor of Sexuality and Gender in the English Renaissance (1998) and Shakespeare Matters: History, Teaching, Performance (2003). Philippa Kelly is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales, and has published widely in the areas of Shakespeare studies, cultural studies, feminism, and postcolonial studies.
Download or read book Autobiography and Gender in Early Modern Literature written by Sharon Cadman Seelig and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-02 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early modern autobiographies and diaries provide a unique insight into women's lives and how they remembered, interpreted and represented their experiences. Sharon Seelig analyzes the writings of six seventeenth-century women: diaries by Margaret Hoby and Anne Clifford, more extended narratives by Lucy Hutchinson, Ann Fanshawe, and Anne Halkett, and the extraordinarily varied and self-dramatizing publications of Margaret Cavendish. Combining an original account of the development of autobiography with analysis of the texts, Seelig explores the relation between the writers' choices of genre and form and the stories they chose to tell.
Download or read book Autobiography in Early Modern England written by Adam Smyth and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores life-writing forms - almanacs, financial accounts, commonplace books and parish registers - which emerged during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Download or read book Autobiography and Gender in Early Modern Literature written by Sharon Cadman Seelig and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-02 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early modern autobiographies and diaries provide a unique insight into women's lives and how they remembered, interpreted and represented their experiences. Sharon Seelig analyses the writings of six seventeenth-century women: diaries by Margaret Hoby and Anne Clifford, more extended narratives by Lucy Hutchinson, Ann Fanshawe, and Anne Halkett, and the extraordinarily varied and self-dramatising publications of Margaret Cavendish. Combining an account of the development of autobiography with close and attentive reading of the texts, Seelig explores the relation between the writers' choices of genre and form and the stories they chose to tell. She demonstrates how, in the course of the seventeenth century, women writers progressed from quite simple forms based on factual accounts to much more imaginative and persuasive acts of self-presentation. This important contribution to the fields of early modern literary studies and gender studies illuminates the interactions between literature and autobiography.
Download or read book Early Modern English Lives written by Ronald Bedford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did early modern English people write about themselves, and how do we listen to their voices four centuries later? The authors of Early Modern English Lives: Autobiography and Self-Representation 1500-1660 argue that identity is depicted through complex, subtle, and often contradictory social interactions and literary forms. Diaries, letters, daily spiritual reckonings, household journals, travel journals, accounts of warfare, incidental meditations on the nature of time, death and self-reflection, as well as life stories themselves: these are just some of the texts that allow us to address the social and historical conditions that influenced early modern self-writing. The texts explored in Early Modern English Lives do not automatically speak to our familiar patterns of introspection and self-inquiry. Often formal, highly metaphorical and emotionally restrained, they are very different in both tone and purpose from the autobiographies that crowd bookshelves today. Does the lack of emotional description suggest that complex emotions themselves, in all the depth and variety that we now understand (and expect of) them, are a relatively modern phenomenon? This is one of the questions addressed by Early Modern English Lives. The authors bring to our attention the kinds of rhetorical and generic features of early modern self-representation that can help us to appreciate people living four hundred years ago as the complicated, composite figures they were: people whose expression of identity involved an elaborate interplay of roles and discourses, and for whom the notion of privacy itself was a wholly different phenomenon.
Download or read book Early Modern French Autobiography written by Nicolae Alexandru Virastau and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Nicolae Alexandru Virastau offers an enlightening account of the origins of one of Europe’s most influential autobiographical traditions.
Download or read book Autobiography in Early Modern Spain written by Nicholas Spadaccini and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1991-02-01 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autobiography in Early Modern Spain was first published in 1991. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Autobiography in Early Modern Spain Nicholas Spadaccini and Jenaro Talens, Editors Introduction. The Construction of the Self: Notes on Autobiography in Early Modern Spain Nicholas Spadaccini and Jenaro Talens Chapter 1. Narration and Argumentation in Autobiographical Discourse Antonio Gomez-Moriana Chapter 2. A Clown at Court: Francesillo de Zuniga's Cronica burlesca George Mariscal Chapter 3. A Methodological Prolegomenon to a Post-Modernist Reading of Santa Teresa's Autobiography Patrick Dust Chapter 4. Golden Age Autobiography: The Soldiers Margarita Levisi Chapter 5. The Picaresque as Autobiography: Story and History Edward Friedman Chapter 6. The Historical Function of Picaresque Autobiographies: Toward a History of Social Offenders Anthony N. Zahareas Chapter 7. Fortune's Monster and the Monarchy in Las relaciones de Antonio Perez Helen H. Reed Chapter 8. The Woman at the Border: Some Thoughts on Cervantes and Autobiography Ruth El Saffar Chapter 9. Poetry as Autobiography: Theory and Poetic Practice in Cervantes Jenaro Talens Appendix Curriculum vitae Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Download or read book Autobiography of an Aspiring Saint written by Cecilia Ferrazzi and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charged by the Venetian Inquisition with the conscious and cynical feigning of holiness, Cecelia Ferrazzi (1609-1684) requested and obtained the unprecedented opportunity to defend herself through a presentation of her life story. Ferrazzi's unique inquisitorial autobiography and the transcripts of her preceding testimony, expertly transcribed and eloquently translated into English, allow us to enter an unfamiliar sector of the past and hear 'another voice'—that of a humble Venetian woman who had extraordinary experiences and exhibited exceptional courage. Born in 1609 into an artisan family, Cecilia Ferrazzi wanted to become a nun. When her parents' death in the plague of 1630 made it financially impossible for her to enter the convent, she refused to marry and as a single laywoman set out in pursuit of holiness. Eventually she improvised a vocation: running houses of refuge for "girls in danger," young women at risk of being lured into prostitution. Ferrazzi's frequent visions persuaded her, as well as some clerics and acquaintances among the Venetian elite, that she was on the right track. The socially valuable service she was providing enhanced this impresssion. Not everyone, however, was convinced that she was a genuine favorite of God. In 1664 she was denounced to the Inquisition. The Inquisition convicted Ferrazzi of the pretense of sanctity. Yet her autobiographical act permits us to see in vivid detail both the opportunities and the obstacles presented to seventeenth-century women.
Download or read book The Flight of Icarus written by and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1998-08 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring autobiographical texts written by European urban craftsmen from the 15th to the 18th centuries, this book studies memoirs, diaries, family chronicles, travel narratives, and other forms of personal writings from Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and England. In the process, it reveals the significance of written self-expression in early modern popular culture.
Download or read book Women Madness and Sin in Early Modern England written by Katharine Hodgkin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating case study of the complex psychic relationship between religion and madness in early seventeenth-century England, the narrative presented here is a rare, detailed autobiographical account of one woman's experience of mental disorder. The writer, Dionys Fitzherbert, recounts the course of her affliction and recovery and describes various delusions and confusions, concerned with (among other things) her family and her place within it; her relation to religion; and the status of the body, death and immortality. Women, Madness and Sin in Early Modern England presents in modern typography an annotated edition of the author's manuscript of this unusual and compelling text. Also included are prefaces to the narrative written by Fitzherbert and others, and letters written shortly after her mental crisis, which develop her account of the episode. The edition will also give a modernized version of the original text. Katharine Hodgkin supplies a substantial introduction that places this autobiography in the context of current scholarship on early modern women, addressing the overarching issues in the field that this text touches upon. In an appendix to the volume, Hodgkin compares the two versions of the text, considering the grounds for the occasional exclusion or substitution of specific words or passages. Women, Madness and Sin in Early Modern England adds an important new dimension to the field of early modern women studies.
Download or read book Historicizing Life Writing and Egodocuments in Early Modern Europe written by James R. Farr and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-12 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume historicizes the study of life-writing and egodocuments, focusing on early modern European reflections on the self, self-fashioning, and identity. Life-writing and the study of egodocuments currently tend to be viewed as separate fields, yet the individual as a purposive social actor provides significant common ground and offers a vehicle, both theoretical and practical, for a profitable synthesis of the two in a historical context. Echoing scholars from a wide-range of disciplines who recognize the uncertainty of the nature of the self, these essays question the notion of the autonomous self and the attendant idea of continuous identity unfolding in a unified personality. Instead, they suggest that the early modern self was variable and unstable, and can only be grasped by exploring selves situated in specific historical and social/cultural contexts and revealed through the wide range of historical documents considered here. The three sections of the volume consider: first, the theoretical contexts of understanding egodocuments in early modern Europe; then, the practical ways egodocuments from the period may be used for writing life-histories today; and finally, a wider range of historical documents that might be added to what are usually seen as egodocuments.
Download or read book The Evangelical Conversion Narrative written by D. Bruce Hindmarsh and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2007 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, thousands of ordinary women and men experienced evangelical conversion and turned to a certain form of spiritual autobiography to make sense of their lives. This book traces the rise and progress of conversion narrative as a unique form of spiritual autobiography in early modern England. After outlining the emergence of the genre in the seventeenth century and the revival of the form in the journals of the leaders of the Evangelical Revival, the central chapters of the book examine extensive archival sources to show the subtly different forms of narrative identity that appeared among Wesleyan Methodists, Moravians, Anglicans, Baptists, and others. Attentive to the unique voices of pastors and laypeople, women and men, Western and non-Western peoples, the book establishes the cultural conditions under which the genre proliferated.
Download or read book A History of English Autobiography written by Adam Smyth and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-04 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This History explores the genealogy of autobiographical writing in England from the medieval period to the digital era.
Download or read book Autobiography and Gender in Early Modern Literature written by Sharon Cadman Seelig and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early modern autobiographies and diaries provide a unique insight into women's lives and how they represented themselves. Combining a fresh account of the development of autobiography with close reading, this important contribution to the fields of early modern literary studies and gender studies illuminates the interactions between literature and autobiography.
Download or read book The Life of Catalina de Erauso the Lieutenant Nun written by Sonia Pérez-Villanueva and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Life of Catalina de Erauso, the Lieutenant Nun: An Early Modern Autobiography examines Vida y sucesos de la Monja Alférez as a form of autobiography through a comparative study with early-modern secular life narratives: the picaresque novels La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, y de sus fortunas y adversidades (anonymous), La pícara Justina by Francisco López de Úbeda, the chronicle Relación que dio Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca de lo acaescido en las Indias en la armada donde yva por governador Pánfilo de Narváez desde el año de veynte y siete hasta el año de treinta y seis que bolvió a Sevilla con tres de su compañía by Cabeza de Vaca and the soldier’s narrative Vida, nacimiento, padres, y crianza del Capitán Alonso de Contreras natural de Madrid Cavallero del orden de San Juan Comendador de una de sus encomiendas en Castilla, escrita por el mismo by Alonso de Contreras. Two questions are addressed: How is Vida y sucesos similar to or different from picaresque novels, chronicles of the New World, and soldiers’ narratives? How are the similarities and differences between Vida y sucesos and these forms of writing related to theoretical parameters for an autobiography? In order to conduct this comparative analysis, four theoretical parameters are established for assessing autobiographical texts. These parameters (coincidence of narrator and protagonist, historical referentiality, whether the subjective narration has a plausible basis in the experience and belief structure of the narrator and the intention of the narrator to tell an autobiographical truth) are based upon the critical approach of hybridity and intersubjectivity, but also draw upon related theoretical work. This book argues that Vida y sucesos should be considered as a form of autobiography, with the understanding that autobiography is an intersubjective and hybrid form or a forma fronteriza.
Download or read book Her Own Life written by Helen Wilcox and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During a period when writing was often the only form of self-expression for women, Her Own Life contains extracts from the autobiographical texts of twelve seventeenth-century women addressing a wide range of issues central to their lives.
Download or read book The Lieutenant Nun written by Sherry Velasco and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is an exciting, well-organized overview of the evolution of a cultural icon: the nun-ensign Catalina de Erauso. . . . It will be of interest not only to Hispanists, but also to students of gender, theater, and film." -Anne J. Cruz, Professor of Spanish, University of Illinois, Chicago Catalina de Erauso (1592-1650) was a Basque noblewoman who, just before taking final vows to become a nun, escaped from the convent at San Sebastián, dressed as a man, and, in her own words, "went hither and thither, embarked, went into port, took to roving, slew, wounded, embezzled, and roamed about." Her long service fighting for the Spanish empire in Peru and Chile won her a soldier's pension and a papal dispensation to continue dressing in men's clothing. This theoretically informed study analyzes the many ways in which the "Lieutenant Nun" has been constructed, interpreted, marketed, and consumed by both the dominant and divergent cultures in Europe, Latin America, and the United States from the seventeenth century to the present. Sherry Velasco argues that the ways in which literary, theatrical, iconographic, and cinematic productions have transformed Erauso's life experience into a public spectacle show how transgender narratives expose and manipulate spectators' fears and desires. Her book thus reveals what happens when the private experience of a transgenderist is shifted to the public sphere and thereby marketed as a hybrid spectacle for the curious gaze of the general audience.
