Gender, Interpretation, and Political Rule in Sidney's Arcadia [Paperback]

Touching on a daunting array of issues about early modern women as readers and writers of romance, DeZur focuses on depictions of royal women as targetsand occasionally agents ofverbal seduction, not only in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia (as her title suggests) but also in some of its literary progeny. Four chapters treating the individual works follow a pair of background chapters on women as rulers and as readers. These works include Sidney's original manuscript version of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia; the radically revised version published in 1593 under the auspices of the countess herself, Philip's sister Mary; The Countess of Montgomery's Urania (1621) written by his niece, Lady Mary Wroth; and Anna Weamys's A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia (1651). DeZur's linking of queenship to discourses about housewifery, and discussion of the lesser-known Weamys, will particularly interest scholars. Summing Up: Recommended. For comprehensive collections serving graduate students and researchers.This book examines debates regarding gendered interpretation of persuasive rhetoric in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. The book traces ideological changes concerning womens positions in early modern English romances written and inspired by Sir Philip Sidney, and it analyzes these texts in light of contemporary political discourse.Gender, Interpretation, and Political Rule in Sidneys Arcadia studies cultural ideologies regarding gender and monarchy in early modern England by examining transformations of a single text, Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia, in their historical contexts. It reveals changing tensions in the ideological struggles over queenship, especially with respect to cultural debates focused on anxieties about gendered reception and interpretation of persuasive rhetoric. The cultural shift between about 1550 and 1650 regarding gendered interpretation and political rulea shift that was by no means complete or homogenousreflects the changing l3î