Come and Experience
"As You Like It"
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anonymous. Arden of Faversham. London: Printed by E. Allde for Edward White,
1633.
A play based on the true story of a woman who orchestrated the murder of her
husband by her lover and two rather incomptent hitmen. The play complicates
marriage and love and the woman's position in these, as well as complicating
what was understood to be the circumstances of the murder. In previous
accounts, Arden had been held up to be the kind, accomodating husband, even
while aware of his wife's infidelity, who is murdered without any provocation
but his wife's malice. Here, Arden is portrayed as a greedy, perhaps
underhanded man in his dealings with landowners and suspects Alice of adultery,
not knowing for sure, but either way is rather demeaning and spiteful toward
her, giving plenty of people reason to hate him; first staged in 1592.
Bevington, David. "Introduction to As
You Like It." The Complete Works of
Shakespeare. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004.
This introduction to the play offers much insight into the role and symbolism
of
the Forest of Arden, drawing parallels to Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest,
the
Garden of Eden, and Arcadia - the ancient pastoral landscape of the Greeks.
It
also offers an explanation of the significance of the name Ganymede for
Rosalind.
Bristol, Michael. "Everyday Custom and
Popular Culture." A Companion to Renaissance Drama. Ed.
Arthur F. Kinney. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
This essay provides perspective on the everyday social practices of the
common folk in renaissance England. From notions of the household to festive
misrule, Bristol gives an effective overiew of what popular culture was
during the period.
Brown, Michael. "Why the Photographer
Doesn't See: Lacan, the Objet Petit a and the Gaze in Antonioni's
Blow-up." The Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis and
the San Francisco Society for Lacanian Studies. www.lacan.org/brown.htm
An official website for Lacan information, scholarship, and studies. Also
contains essays. This particular essays draws Lacanian and Freudian conclusions
(through psychoanalysis) about Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow-Up;
has in-depth discussion of Lacanian principles, such as the gaze.
Burke, Peter. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. New York: New York University Press, 1978.
This book addresses the variances within English popular culture and discusses the different means by which culture was spread. Concerning religion, the book analyzes the various reform movements and the shift in religious iconography in order to appeal to wider audiences.
Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare Without
Women: Representing Gender and Race on the Renaissance Stage. London:
Routledge, 2000.
This book consists of essays on Shakespeare's relationship to women, both
as characters and as (male) bodies on stage. Essays cover topics such
as body politics, female impersonation, castration, nationalism and race.
Chedgzoy, Kate. Voicing Women: Gender
and Sexuality in Early Modern Writing. Keele, Staffordshire: Keele
University Press, 1996. Duke University Libraries, Durham, NC. 16 Mar.
2006. <http://www.netlibrary.com>.
This book is comprised of various feminist
writings concerning women in early British literature.
Crawford, Patricia. Women and Religion in England
1500-1720. New York: Routledge, 1993.
This book discusses how religion influences/creates society’s gender
roles. It also analyzes the Protestant social teachings and how it was
constructed in opposition to the cults of the Virgin Mary and the Virgin
Queen.
Deloney, Thomas. (Jack of Newbury) An Anthology of
Elizabethan Prose Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
A compilation of works by authors as varied as Robert Greene, Thomas Deloney,
and John Lyly.
Erickson, Amy. “Women and Property in Early Modern England.”
Reviewed by Frances E. Dolan. Renaissance Quarterly. Vol.51.
No.1. p.282-286.
The review examines the ways in which Erickson uses common law and property
to complicate the position of women in early modern English society.
Ewart, Andrew. The Great Lovers. New York: Hart Publishing Company, Inc., 1967.
This book offers biographies and histories of some of the great romantic couples, including Antony and Cleopatra, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, and Charles II and Nell Gwynne. It also includes images of the lovers and the settings in which they lived.
Findlay, Alison and Stephanie Hodgson-Wright, with Gweno
Williams. Women and Dramatic Production 1550-1700. Harlow, England:
Pearson Education Limited, 2000.
A book of essays concerned with the history and position of women and
the theater in the Renaissance. Topics discussed include beauty, cross-dressing,
the appearance of women on stage, and female playwrights.
Gouge, William. Of Domesticall Duties: Eight Treatises. London:
Printed by John Haviland for William Bladen, 1622.
This document consists of eight treatises outlining the specific household
duties for husbands, wives, children, servants, parents, and masters.
It also establishes rules for determining marriage between a man and a
woman according to the Bible.
Hackett, Helen. Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen.
New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc., 1995.
The author addresses the historical and political context
surrounding the phenomenon known as the cult of Elizabeth I, which paralleled
the cult of the Virgin Mary.
Hanawalt, Barbara A. “Women and the Household Economy in the Preindustrial Period: An Assessment of Women, Work, and Family.” Journal of Women’s History. Vol.11. No.3. p.10-16. 2003.
This essay explains how women undermined the constructed gender roles that were in place during the English Renaissance period. Hanawalt uses the various types of labor that women engaged in to describe how they established agency within the household. She takes us through various stages of a woman’s life (daughter, wife, mother, widow) and illustrates how each has its own tactics and strategies of gaining economic independence and using it to determine social equality.
Harman, Thomas. “A Caveat for Common Cursitors.” Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars. Ed. Arthur F. Kinney. Massachusetts: Imprint Society, 1973.
This expose was originally published in 1566 by William Gryffith as a broadside. Harman produces a directory of the different types of begging and stealing homeless travelers that exist in the underworld. He lists and describes them, attributing a rank based upon their level of roguishness. This piece is considered an early look at sociology or social history as Harman’s research is based upon his personal encounters with the subjects as they pass by his home outside of the city.
Harris, Tim. Popular Culture in England, c. 1500-1850. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
This book analyzes the misconceptions surrounding popular culture and explains the complexities within English society. Nine scholars contributed to the work amounting to essays concerning topics such as regional variations in popular culture, literacy and literatures’ respective roles within society, health, and gendering popular culture.
Harrison, William. The Description of England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968.
First published in 1577 this work dedicates chapters to subjects as varied as the Church of England, venomous beasts, inns and thoroughfares, and the languages spoken in England.
"In Search of Shakespeare." Public Broadcasting System.
http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/theshow/index.html#play
The official website companion to the PBS four-part miniseries by the same name.
Includes information on Shakespeare's life, family, works, and the historical
climate. Originally aired Feb 4-25 2004.
Kastan, David Scott and Peter Stallybrass, eds. Staging the Renaisssance:
Reinterpretations of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama. New York: Routledge, 1991.
--Belsey, Catherine. "Alice Arden's Crime."
--Garber, Marjorie. "The Logic of the Transvestite: The Roaring Girl (1608)."
--Howard, Jean E. "Women as Spectators, Spectacles, and Paying Customers."
--Jardine, Lisa. "Boy Actors, Female Roles, and Elizabethan Eroticism."
This book of essays looks at Renaissance theater from several more modern perspectives, including looking at issues of gender, power, censorship, xenophobia, transgression, and others. Several of the essays take one specific play as their primary text. Some of the texts included are: The Spanish Tragedy (Kyd, 1587), The Shoemaker's Holiday (Dekker, 1599), Bartholomew Fair (Jonson, 1614), Arden of Faversham (Anon., c. 1590), and The Roaring Girl (Dekker and Middleton, 1608).
Jonson, Ben. Bartholmew fayre. London: Printed
by I.B. for Robert Allot,1631.
Bartholmew fayre (Bartholomew Fair) is a play that was first performed
in 1614 at Court and the Hope Theatre. It satirizes religion, the justice
system, the politics of the time, and even popular writers. It is considered
one of Jonson’s best plays and uses the fairgrounds as a setting
to explore themes such as festivity and excess in English culture.
Knox, John. The First Blast of the Trumpet against
the Monstruous Regiment of Women. Printed in Geneva: By J. Poullain
and A. Rebul, 1558.
The most famous writing by Protestant reformer John Knox
arguing against women as leaders. This text was a direct attack to Mary
Tudor's Catholic reign.
Marvell, Andrew. Miscellaneous
poems by Andrew Marvell, Esq. London:
Printed for Robert Boulter, at the Turks-Head in Cornhill, 1681.
A collection
of poems published after the author's death.
Middleton, Thomas. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. Ed.
Alan Brissenden. London: A & C Black, 2002. Originally printed in
London: printed for Francis Constable, 1630.
A play satirizing the household, marriage, and lineage. It is a citizen
comedy, and therefore deals with cross-class marriages and the politics
of social status; first staged at the Swan Theater in 1613.
Monette, Sarah. "Speaking and Silent Women in Upon
Appleton House." Houston: Rice University, 2002.
The author offers an analysis of the various women within
the poem and how their respective voices bespeak of women's roles within
society.
Oxford English Dictionary Online. www.oed.com
The authoritative dictionary, online version. Entries include definitions,
pronunciations, etymologies and quotations.
Paster, Gail Kern. The Body Embarrassed: Drama and
the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1993.
This book analyzes how shame and its representations on
the body were portrayed in Early Modern England.
Rainolds, John. Th' overthrow Of Stage-Playes. Middleburgh: Published
by
Richard Schilders, 1599.
A Puritan rant against the evils of theaters and theater-going. Also contains
an admonition of "The Printer to the Reader," and correspondance
between
Rainolds, William Gager, and Alberico Gentili. The piece takes (Puritanical)
moral and ethical issue with the act of performing on the stage, particularly
with the portrayal of female roles, and imbricates the audience as well.
Salgado, Gamini. The Elizabethan Underworld.
London: J.M. Dent, 1977.
This book gives a good overview of the Elizabethan underworld with entire
sections dedicated to prostitution and prisons.
Sharpe, J.A. Early Modern England: A Social History 1550-1760.
Baltimore: Edward Arnold Ltd., 1987.
This book is broken into three basic sections: Family, Community, and
Nation; The Social Hierarchy and Social Change; and The Spiritual and
Mental World. When analyzing religion, it argues that religion manifests
itself in three ways: the personal, the social, and “the extension
of social relations beyond the frontiers of purely human society.”
The book also discusses topics such as women’s roles in witchcraft
trials, sexual conduct, education, and mortality.
Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. London: Printed in the First Folio, 1623.
A comedy in which the female leads must disguise themselves and escape into the
forest after they have been exiled; the romantic couple, Rosalind and Orlando,
find each other in the forest, but due to the disguise, cannot be with each
other until the rest of the conflicts (and there are many) have been resolved.
The layering of identities in this play are multiple and complex, but in the
end, all the characters reveal themselves to their lovers and families and,
presumably, live happily ever after; first staged in 1600.
Stallybrass, Peter. "Transvestism and the 'body beneath': speculating on the boy actor." Erotic Politics: Desire on the Renaissance stage, ed. Susan Zimmerman. London: Routledge, 1992.
This essay explores the issue with the boy actor playing female roles, specifically regards to body issues, such as dealing with undressing on stage, Freudian perspectives, and the fetishization of the male body on stage.
Traube, Valerie. "The Homoerotics of Shakespearean Comedy." Shakespeare, Feminism and Gender, ed. Kate Chedgzoy. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
This essay explores the problematization of desire created by Shakespeare's cross-dressing heroines in Twelfth Night and As You Like It. It pays specific attention to Rosalind's choosing of "Ganymede" as her pseudonym and the intrinsic meanings of that choice to a Renaissance audience.
Wilson, John Dover. Life in Shakespeare’s England. London: Cambridge University Press, 1911.
This book examines English society during Shakespeare’s life by discussing themes like government, education, and popular culture. Wilson has organized some of the best essays on various aspects of social life from some of the best renaissance writers and critics. Perfect for an overview of life in the English Renaissance, examining specific topics such as the countryside, superstition, education, city life (London), books, the theatre, households, the royal court, rogues and vagabonds, and the sea.
Woodbridge, Linda. “Jest Books, the Literature of Roguery, and the Vagrant Poor in Renaissance England.” English Literary Renaissance. Vol.33. Iss.2. p.201-210. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
This essay is a critique of the comic and rogue aspects of renaissance popular culture. It focuses on popular literature as a form of social history and analyzes the specific context in which these works were written. Woodbridge explores the biases displayed by writers such as Thomas Harman, who characterize the lower classes from an elite perspective. She claims that renaissance writers of rogue literature are too easily credited as being deft historians when there are elements of imagination and creativity present in their descriptions of rogues and the vagrant poor.
Wrightson, Keith. English Society 1580-1680. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1982.
This book analyzes a century in England’s history and is divided into two sections, English society and social change. The first section describes the family structure, society’s stratification, and community relationships while the second section documents social change.
Click on an image below to experience life in the English household, theater or church
