1st Edition
The Culture of Cloth in Early Modern England Textual Constructions of a National Identity
By Roze Hentschell
Copyright 2008
220 Pages
by
Routledge
217 Pages
by
Routledge
217 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Through its exploration of the intersections between the culture of the wool broadcloth industry and the literature of the early modern period, this study contributes to the expanding field of material studies in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. The author argues that it is impossible to comprehend the development of emerging English nationalism during that time period, without... Read more
Contents: Introduction: ancient, famous and decayed: the culture of cloth in early modern England; Part 1 Resistance in the Flock: Labor Rebellion in Pastoral Poetry and Prose Romance: Pasture and pastoral: sheep, anti-enclosure literature, and Sidney's seditious peasants; Clothworkers and social protest: the case of Thomas Deloney. Part 2 The Circulation of Subjectivity in the Cloth Trade: 'Vente for our English clothes': promoting early New World expansion; Treasonous textiles: foreign cloth and the construction of Englishness. Part 3 Staging the Cloth Crisis: The fleecing of England, or the drama of corrupt drapers: Thomas Middleton's Michaelmas Term; Politics on parade: the Cockayne project and Anthony Munday's civic pageants for the Drapers; Bibliography; Index.
Biography
Roze Hentschell is Associate Professor of English at Colorado State University, USA.
’... an intelligent and interesting book.’ Parergon '... for anyone with an interest in early modern national identity or the ways in which cloth and clothing may bear and reproduce social meaning, this is important reading.' Renaissance Studies 'The Culture of Cloth is thoroughly researched and ably demonstrates its central premise: the wool broadcloth industry was central to early modern England's self-definition as a nation. It is a significant strength that this book treats not only a number of areas of the cloth trade but also the various crises that plagued them... an important study well worth reading by those engaged in early modern English studies or in the study of nationalism in general.' Sixteenth Century Journal
