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The Matter of Virtue : Women's Ethical Action from Chaucer to Shakespeare / Holly A. Crocker.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2019]Copyright date: ©2019Description: 1 online resource (360 p.) : 11 illusContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780812296273
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 821/.2099287 23
LOC classification:
  • PR311
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction. Virtues That Matter -- PART I. PRESCRIPTIVE FAILURES -- Chapter 1. The Fragility of Virtue, from Chaucer to Lydgate -- Chapter 2. The Matter of Virtue, from Henryson to Shakespeare -- PART II. GRACE, ENACTED: ROMANCE AND MATERIAL VIRTUE -- Chapter 3. Virtue’s Grace: Custance and Other Daughters -- Chapter 4. Virtue’s Knowledge in Lodge and Spenser -- PART III. HOMELY VIRTUES -- Chapter 5. Shrewish Virtue, from Chaucer to Shakespeare -- Conclusion. Legends of Good Women -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments
Summary: If material bodies have inherent, animating powers—or virtues, in the premodern sense—then those bodies typically and most insistently associated in the premodern period with matter—namely, women—cannot be inert and therefore incapable of ethical action, Holly Crocker contends. In The Matter of Virtue, Crocker argues that one idea of what it means to be human—a conception of humanity that includes vulnerability, endurance, and openness to others—emerges when we consider virtue in relation to modes of ethical action available to premodern women. While a misogynistic tradition of virtue ethics, from antiquity to the early modern period, largely cast a skeptical or dismissive eye on women, Crocker seeks to explore what happened when poets thought about the material body not as a tool of an empowered agent whose cultural supremacy was guaranteed by prevailing social structures but rather as something fragile and open, subject but also connected to others.After an introduction that analyzes Hamlet to establish a premodern tradition of material virtue, Part I investigates how retellings of the demise of the title female character in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Lydgate's Troy Book, Henryson's Testament of Cresseid, and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida among other texts structure a poetic debate over the potential for women's ethical action in a world dominated by masculine violence. Part II turns to narratives of female sanctity and feminine perfection, including ones by Chaucer, Bokenham, and Capgrave, to investigate grace, beauty, and intelligence as sources of women's ethical action. In Part III, Crocker examines a tension between women's virtues and household structures, paying particular attention to English Griselda- and shrew-literatures, including Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. She concludes by looking at Chaucer's Legend of Good Women to consider alternative forms of virtuous behavior for women as well as men.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780812296273

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction. Virtues That Matter -- PART I. PRESCRIPTIVE FAILURES -- Chapter 1. The Fragility of Virtue, from Chaucer to Lydgate -- Chapter 2. The Matter of Virtue, from Henryson to Shakespeare -- PART II. GRACE, ENACTED: ROMANCE AND MATERIAL VIRTUE -- Chapter 3. Virtue’s Grace: Custance and Other Daughters -- Chapter 4. Virtue’s Knowledge in Lodge and Spenser -- PART III. HOMELY VIRTUES -- Chapter 5. Shrewish Virtue, from Chaucer to Shakespeare -- Conclusion. Legends of Good Women -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

If material bodies have inherent, animating powers—or virtues, in the premodern sense—then those bodies typically and most insistently associated in the premodern period with matter—namely, women—cannot be inert and therefore incapable of ethical action, Holly Crocker contends. In The Matter of Virtue, Crocker argues that one idea of what it means to be human—a conception of humanity that includes vulnerability, endurance, and openness to others—emerges when we consider virtue in relation to modes of ethical action available to premodern women. While a misogynistic tradition of virtue ethics, from antiquity to the early modern period, largely cast a skeptical or dismissive eye on women, Crocker seeks to explore what happened when poets thought about the material body not as a tool of an empowered agent whose cultural supremacy was guaranteed by prevailing social structures but rather as something fragile and open, subject but also connected to others.After an introduction that analyzes Hamlet to establish a premodern tradition of material virtue, Part I investigates how retellings of the demise of the title female character in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Lydgate's Troy Book, Henryson's Testament of Cresseid, and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida among other texts structure a poetic debate over the potential for women's ethical action in a world dominated by masculine violence. Part II turns to narratives of female sanctity and feminine perfection, including ones by Chaucer, Bokenham, and Capgrave, to investigate grace, beauty, and intelligence as sources of women's ethical action. In Part III, Crocker examines a tension between women's virtues and household structures, paying particular attention to English Griselda- and shrew-literatures, including Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. She concludes by looking at Chaucer's Legend of Good Women to consider alternative forms of virtuous behavior for women as well as men.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Jun 2024)