BETTER A SHREW THAN A SHEEP:

Book number: 93901 Product format: Paperback Author: PAMELA ALLEN BROWN

In stock

Bibliophile price £4.00
Published price £32


Juxtaposing the literature of jest against court records, sermons, and conduct books, Brown employs a witty, entertaining style to propose that non-elite women used jests to test the limits of their subjection. She also shows how women's mocking laughter could function as a means of social control in closely watched neighbourhoods. While official culture beatified the sheep-like wife and disciplined the scold, jesting culture often applauded the satiric shrew, whether her target was priest, cuckold, or rapist. Brown argues that listening for women's laughter can shed light on both the dramas of the street and those of the stage: plays from The Massacre of the Innocents to The Merry Wives of Windsor to The Woman's Prize taught audiences the importance of gossips' alliances as protection against slanderers, lechers, tyrants, and wife-beaters. Other jests, on the ale-house, cuckold jokes, female gossip, cony-catching pamphlets, ballads, jigs, and plays show women revelling in tales of female roguery or scoffing at the perverse patience of Griselda. As Brown points out, some women found Griselda types annoying and even foolish: better be a shrew than a sheep. Medieval line art illus, Cornell University Press 280 page paperback.

Additional product information

ISBN 9780801488368

Customers who bought this product also bought

WHISTLER: A Life for Art's Sake
Book number: 92312 Product format: Paperback Author: DANIEL SUTHERLAND
Bibliophile price £4.50
Published price £14.99
UNDREAMED SHORES
Book number: 92904 Product format: Hardback Author: FRANCES LARSON
Bibliophile price £4.50
Published price £20
BICYCLES, BLOOMERS AND GREAT WAR RATIONING RECIPES
Book number: 93433 Product format: Hardback Author: VICKY STRAKER
Bibliophile price £9.50
Published price £25
NEW WOMEN IN THE OLD WEST: From Settlers to Suffragists
Book number: 93497 Product format: Hardback Author: WINIFRED GALLAGHER
Bibliophile price £5.50
Published price £24.99
UNDISCOVERED ISLANDS: An Archipelago of Myths
Book number: 93427 Product format: Paperback Author: MALACHY TALLACK
Bibliophile price £5.00
Published price $20
NANA
Book number: 94143 Product format: Paperback Author: EMILE ZOLA
Bibliophile price £6.99

Browse these categories as well: Humour, History, Entertainment/Showbiz, Feminism