Women and gender in early modern England.

Abstract

In the afterword to Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: Women’s Alliances in Early Modern England, Jean Howard muses, “I wonder . . . how many historians will read this book and avail themselves of the new knowledge it contains, as compared to the number of literary critics who eagerly devour the lastest historical monographs . . . ? In recent years, the two-way street between literature and history increasingly has felt like a one-way thoroughfare” (p. 309). Leaving aside the question of the relative curiosity and openmindedness of historians and literary critics, Howard’s remark leads one to ponder the benefits and perils of interdisciplinary research and writing: the degree to which researchers in different areas of gender studies have actually succeeded in talking to one another and the degree to which scholars in different fields (or in the same field) have engaged successfully in collaborative research and writing. All of the books reviewed here are in some sense interdisciplinary or collaborative efforts. The two edited books, Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition and Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: Women’s Alliances in Early Modern England, contain essays by literary critics, historians, and political scientists. In Strategies for Showing: Women, Possession, and Representation in English Visual Culture, 1665–1800, Marcia Pointon utilizes the techniques and sources of both the art critic and the social historian, presenting formal analyses of allegorical and religious portraiture alongside accounts of women’s bequests and patterns of consumption. Laura Gowing’s study, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London, combines meticulous social history with analyses of women’s courtroom testimonies that reflect the recent work of literary critics on language