04685nam 2200805Ia 450 991078752300332120211217013130.00-8122-0427-110.9783/9780812204278(CKB)2670000000418345(EBL)3442227(SSID)ssj0000981049(PQKBManifestationID)11618475(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000981049(PQKBWorkID)10968982(PQKB)11619866(OCoLC)859161675(MdBmJHUP)muse29106(DE-B1597)449732(OCoLC)979578139(DE-B1597)9780812204278(Au-PeEL)EBL3442227(CaPaEBR)ebr10748807(MiAaPQ)EBC3442227(EXLCZ)99267000000041834520010703d2002 uy 0engurnn#---|u||utxtccrImaginary betrayals[electronic resource] subjectivity and the discourses of treason in early Modern England /Karen CunninghamPhiladelphia University of Pennsylvania Press20021 online resource (224 p.)The Middle Ages seriesDescription based upon print version of record.0-8122-3640-8 Includes bibliographical references and index.Front matter --Contents --Introduction --1. "Fugitive Forms": Imagining the Realm --2. Female Fidelities on Trial --3. Masculinity, Aflliation, and Rootlessness --4. Secrecy and the Epistolary Self --Conclusion --Notes --Works Cited --Index --AcknowledgmentsIn 1352 King Edward III had expanded the legal definition of treason to include the act of imagining the death of the king, opening up the category of "constructive" treason, in which even a subject's thoughts might become the basis for prosecution. By the sixteenth century, treason was perceived as an increasingly serious threat and policed with a new urgency. Referring to the extensive early modern literature on the subject of treason, Imaginary Betrayals reveals how and to what extent ideas of proof and grounds for conviction were subject to prosecutorial construction during the Tudor period. Karen Cunningham looks at contemporary records of three prominent cases in order to demonstrate the degree to which the imagination was used to prove treason: the 1542 attainder of Katherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, charged with having had sexual relations with two men before her marriage; the 1586 case of Anthony Babington and twelve confederates, accused of plotting with the Spanish to invade England and assassinate Elizabeth; and the prosecution in the same year of Mary, Queen of Scots, indicted for conspiring with Babington to engineer her own accession to the throne. Linking the inventiveness of the accusations and decisions in these cases to the production of contemporary playtexts by Udall, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Kyd, Imaginary Betrayals demonstrates how the emerging, flexible discourses of treason participate in defining both individual subjectivity and the legitimate Tudor state. Concerned with competing representations of self and nationhood, Imaginary Betrayals explores the implications of legal and literary representations in which female sexuality, male friendship, or private letters are converted into the signs of treacherous imaginations.Sex role in literatureEnglish dramaEarly modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600History and criticismLaw in literatureBetrayal in literatureTreason in literatureTrials (Treason)EnglandHistory16th centuryEnglish drama17th centuryHistory and criticismSubjectivity in literatureLaw and literatureHistory16th centuryLaw.Literature.Medieval and Renaissance Studies.Sex role in literature.English dramaHistory and criticism.Law in literature.Betrayal in literature.Treason in literature.Trials (Treason)HistoryEnglish dramaHistory and criticism.Subjectivity in literature.Law and literatureHistory822/.309358Cunningham Karen1480463MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910787523003321Imaginary betrayals3697120UNINA