Travel and Travail: Early Modern Women, English Drama, and the Wider World (Early Modern Cultural Studies)

by Bernadette Andrea (Editor), Bernadette Andrea (Editor), Mary C. Fuller (Afterword), Patricia Akhimie (Editor)

New
Illustrated
2019
$47.43

Popular English travel guides from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries asserted that women who wandered too far afield were invariably suspicious, dishonest, and unchaste. As the essays in Travel and Travail reveal, however, early modern women did travel, and often quite extensively, with no diminution of their moral fiber. Female travelers were also frequently represented on the English stage and in other creative works, both as a reproach to the ban on female travel and as a reflection of historical women's travel, whether intentional or not.

Travel and Travail conclusively refutes the notion of female travel in the early modern era as an absent presence. The first part of the volume offers analyses of female travelers (often recently widowed or accompanied by their husbands), the practicalities of female travel, and how women were thought to experience foreign places. The second part turns to literature, including discussions of roving women in Shakespeare, Margaret Cavendish, and Thomas Heywood. Whether historical actors or fictional characters, women figured in the wider world of the global Renaissance, not simply in the hearth and home.

Synopsis

Popular English travel guides from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries asserted that women who wandered too far afield were invariably suspicious, dishonest, and unchaste. As the essays in Travel and Travail reveal, however, early modern women did travel, and often quite extensively, with no diminution of their moral fiber. Female travelers were also frequently represented on the English stage and in other creative works, both as a reproach to the ban on female travel and as a reflection of historical women's travel, whether intentional or not.

Travel and Travail conclusively refutes the notion of female travel in the early modern era as an absent presence. The first part of the volume offers analyses of female travelers (often recently widowed or accompanied by their husbands), the practicalities of female travel, and how women were thought to experience foreign places. The second part turns to literature, including discussions of roving women in Shakespeare, Margaret Cavendish, and Thomas Heywood. Whether historical actors or fictional characters, women figured in the wider world of the global Renaissance, not simply in the hearth and home.

$47.43

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 384
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 01 Jan 2019
ISBN 10: 1496202260
ISBN 13: 9781496202260

Media Reviews

Packed with fascinating case studies, this collection reveals overlooked evidence of Early-Modern women traveling between England, Persia, India, and the Americas, alongside illuminating accounts of how dramatists characterized traveling women. Essential reading for students and scholars of travel writing. -Gerald MacLean, professor emeritus of English literature, University of Exeter -- Gerald MacLean
By focusing on women, this book compellingly changes the way scholars will understand the nature and scope of travel in the Early Modern period. While offering impressive re-readings of fictional representations of women travelers, Travel and Travail is also rich in archival discoveries, unearthing surprising accounts of seventeenth-century women who traveled within and far beyond the British Isles. Akhimie and Andrea have orchestrated an original and important contribution to Early Modern studies. -Jean E. Howard, George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University -- Jean E. Howard
An important collection for the field of travel writing and Early Modern women's and gender studies more broadly. The collection seeks to establish a canon of women travelers in the period, and through the reoccurrence of certain key figures across the volume, both historical and fictional, it goes a long way towards doing so. -Julia Schleck, associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln -- Julia Schleck

Author Bio

Patricia Akhimie is an assistant professor in the English Department at Rutgers University, Newark. She is the author of Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference: Race and Conduct in the Early Modern World. Bernadette Andrea is a professor in the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of Women and Islam in Early Modern English Literature and The Lives of Girls and Women from the Islamic World in Early Modern British Literature and Culture.