1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910780182603321

Autore

Korda Natasha

Titolo

Shakespeare's domestic economies [[electronic resource] ] : gender and property in early modern England / / Natasha Korda

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia, : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2002

ISBN

1-283-89094-1

9780585436274

0-8122-0251-1

0-585-43627-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (287 p.)

Disciplina

822.3/3

Soggetti

House furnishings in literature

Housekeeping in literature

Property in literature

Sex role in literature

Women in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [213]-262) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Note on Spelling and Editions -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Housekeeping and Household Stuff -- Chapter 2. Household Kates: Domesticating Commodities in The Taming of the Shrew -- Chapter 3. Judicious Oeillades: Supervising Marital Property in The Merry Wives of Windsor -- Chapter 4. The Tragedy of the Handkerchief: Female Paraphernalia and the Properties of Jealousy in Othello -- Chapter 5. Isabellas Rule: Singlewomen and the Properties of Poverty in Measure for Measure -- Conclusion: Household Property/Stage Property -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments

Sommario/riassunto

Shakespeare's Domestic Economies explores representations of female subjectivity in Shakespearean drama from a refreshingly new perspective, situating The Taming of the Shrew, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, and Measure for Measure in relation to early modern England's nascent consumer culture and competing conceptions of property. Drawing evidence from legal documents, economic treatises,



domestic manuals, marriage sermons, household inventories, and wills to explore the realities and dramatic representations of women's domestic roles, Natasha Korda departs from traditional accounts of the commodification of women, which maintain that throughout history women have been "trafficked" as passive objects of exchange between men. In the early modern period, Korda demonstrates, as newly available market goods began to infiltrate households at every level of society, women emerged as never before as the "keepers" of household properties. With the rise of consumer culture, she contends, the housewife's managerial function assumed a new form, becoming increasingly centered around caring for the objects of everyday life-objects she was charged with keeping as if they were her own, in spite of the legal strictures governing women's property rights. Korda deftly shows how their positions in a complex and changing social formation allowed women to exert considerable control within the household domain, and in some areas to thwart the rule of fathers and husbands.