1st Edition

Growing Old in Early Modern Europe Cultural Representations

Edited By Erin J. Campbell Copyright 2006
258 Pages
by Routledge

258 Pages
by Routledge

The goal of the twelve essays in this volume, contributed by scholars in the fields of history, literature, art history, and medicine, is to enrich our understanding of cultural discourses on ageing in early modern Europe. While a number of books examine old age in other eras, and a few touch on the early modern period, this is the first to focus explicitly on representations of ageing in Europe... Read more
Contents: Introduction. Part I Appropriating the Ancients and Representing the Aged: Medical representations of old age and the influence of non-medical texts, Daniel Schäfer; Time's whirligig: images of old age in Coriolanus, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Newton, Nina Taunton; Youth, old age, and male self-fashioning: the appropriation of the anacreontic figure of the old man by Jonson and his 'sons', Stella Achilleos. Part II Aging at Court: The problem of old age in The Book of the Courtier, Maria Teresa Ricci; Aging the Lover: The lyrics of George Gascoigne's Posies, Kevin P. Laam. Part III The Aging Self: 'Should I as yet call you old?' Testing the boundaries of female old age in early modern England, Aki C.L. Beam; Thematic reflections on old age in Titian's late works, Zbynek Smetana. Part IV Power, Fragility, and Anxiety: Visible signs of aging: images of old women in Renaissance Venice, Mary E. Frank; 'Unenduring' beauty: gender and old age in early modern art and aesthetics, Erin J. Campbell; Cosimo's black widow, Allison Levy; Sans wife: sexual anxiety and the old man in Shakespeare's plays, Philip D. Collington. Selected bibliography; Index.

Biography

Erin Campbell is Assistant Professor at the Department of History in Art, University of Victoria, Canada.