{"title":"Shakespeare, Jack Cade, and “Kentish men”: England’s Earliest Working-Class Rebel-Heroes?","authors":"C. Fitter","doi":"10.1353/jem.2020.0031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2020.0031","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:The mass of impoverished commoners in Shakespeare’s period (as opposed to the prosperous middling sort) experienced daily conditions of extraordinary distress. Sketching their miseries, this essay affirms Shakespeare’s surprising degree of sympathy with plebeian suffering. In Kent, many plebeians were indicted for longing for a Spanish invasion, as liberation from “slavery.” Kent had for many centuries a reputation for rebelliousness, and in the later sixteenth century emerged a discourse of “Kentishmen” as oppositional and unsubdued. Shakespeare’s fiery rebel Jack Cade, in Henry VI Part Two, was the culmination of this discourse. Portrayed by Shakespeare as both comically inept and heroic, Cade embodied a radical class anger hidden from sight in medieval rebellions by the “principal parishioners” who strategically managed the face of insurrection, but now visible in risings, as the middling sort rejected risings. Shakespeare’s Cade is thus the inexperienced subaltern as de facto rebel leader: as in the Oxford Rising, and again in the Midlands Revolt. Embodying the insurgence of the leaderless, post-medieval bloc of impoverished commoners created by the secession of the middling sort, the charismatically oppositional “Kentishman,” a term circulating before “Digger” and “Leveller” were coined, was arguably the earliest English signifier for a “working-class” rebel-hero.","PeriodicalId":42614,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"111 - 89"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/jem.2020.0031","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45713248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Slumbery Agitations: Sleep Deprivation in Macbeth","authors":"B. Chalk","doi":"10.1353/jem.2020.0030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2020.0030","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This essay explores how Shakespeare assimilates the confusion among sleeping, dreaming, and waking in key moments in Macbeth as a means of structuring the play and to emphasize sleep’s role in binding together the categories that dissolve over the course of the plot. Early in the play, Lady Macbeth encourages a form of radical wakefulness in her husband common among Shakespeare’s monarchs that enables him to murder the sleeping Duncan and become king himself. Following the murder, however, the restorative sleep both characters long for becomes a curative to which neither has access. The play, in this way, deviates from Shakespeare’s earlier depictions of monarchs afflicted with insomnia by dramatizing the wide-ranging consequences of its effects. The killing of Duncan, this essay suggests, obscures for the Macbeths the boundaries between not only waking and sleeping but also interior and exterior experience. To provide context, this essay consults early modern health manuals that diagnose the deleterious consequences of sleep deprivation that Macbeth manifests as the play progresses.","PeriodicalId":42614,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"62 - 88"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/jem.2020.0030","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48639950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Teaching Social Justice Through Shakespeare: Why Renaissance Literature Matters Now ed. by Hillary Eklund and Wendy Beth Hyman (review)","authors":"J. Kuzner","doi":"10.1353/jem.2020.0026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2020.0026","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42614,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"115 - 120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/jem.2020.0026","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49382234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Infrastructures of Race: Concentration and Biopolitics in Colonial Mexico by Daniel Nemser (review)","authors":"Kelly S. Mcdonough","doi":"10.1353/jem.2020.0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2020.0025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42614,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"113 - 115"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/jem.2020.0025","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44334792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Passing as Morisco: Concealment and Slander in Antonio Mira de Amescua’s El mártir de Madrid","authors":"Melissa Figueroa","doi":"10.1353/jem.2020.0028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2020.0028","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This essay analyzes the notion of “passing” in Antonio Mira de Amescua’s play El mártir de Madrid (1610) and how it unveils the effects of concealment and slander in a hegemonic Christian society dealing with religious, ethnic, and gender anxiety in the aftermath of the expulsion of Moriscos from Spain (1609). Drawing upon contemporary studies on the concept of passing, the essay reflects on what happens when pretending to belong to a religious affiliation, an ethnic group, or the opposite sex yields negative consequences for the character trying to pass. Besides examining different instances of passing related to ethnicity, religion, and gender, the essay pays attention to the historical events that inspired Mira de Amescua’s play; that is, the martyrdom of the Spanish Pedro Navarro in North Africa (1580) after having passed as Muslim and returned to Christianity. In addition, the essay identifies several contemporary sources and puts them into dialogue with the play.","PeriodicalId":42614,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"1 - 33"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43060072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Mislike Me Not for My Complexion”: On Anti-Black Racism and Performative Whiteness in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice","authors":"J. Paris","doi":"10.1353/jem.2020.0029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2020.0029","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This essay provides an anti-racist reading of the way Black and tawny characters are treated by white characters in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (ca 1600). It gives particular attention to the role of racism in the treatment of an unnamed “negro” woman and the Prince of Morocco. The juxtaposition of these two characters allows the essay to address how issues of gender, class, and race impact the way anti-Blackness is performed in the text. This essay is situated within the emerging discourse of premodern critical race studies, and it argues that the anti-Black racism in the play makes the performance of whiteness visible. Whiteness, this essay argues, is performed through acts of anti-Black exclusion and racism designed to protect the property and privilege of whiteness while maintaining the illusion of white innocence. Making whiteness visible is essential if critics are to deconstruct the logic and structural privileges of white supremacy in early modern texts.","PeriodicalId":42614,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"34 - 61"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/jem.2020.0029","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48176889","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shakespeare's First Reader: The Paper Trails of Richard Stonley by Jason Scott-Warren (review)","authors":"Stacie Vos","doi":"10.1353/jem.2021.0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2021.0021","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42614,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies","volume":"21 1","pages":"101 - 98"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43919948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intimate Creations: Margaret Cavendish and the Violent Desires of Fandom","authors":"E. Jones","doi":"10.1353/jem.2021.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2021.0018","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay considers Margaret Cavendish as a pre-modern reader and writer engaged with the concerns of what we have come to call fandom. Cavendish offers an early model of what it looks like to read and write for the sake of intimate affective attachment to texts and characters. A standout among other early modern writers, she draws attention to the emotional, even erotic bonds that may form between readers, writers, and characters; she begins to theorize the creative process of worldbuilding as a complex emotional and ethical act; and she articulates her participation in these practices in ways that anticipate how certain later fans and authors would come to speak about their identities and creations. Notably, these articulations may not mesh with the optimism that characterizes much seminal scholarship on fandom. This essay examines how Cavendish models the formation of fannish identity and desiring subjectivity through her affectively engaged reading and writing, as well as how she participates in the creative, communal act of worldbuilding. It then turns to how these affective engagements are intimately entwined with conflict and violent desire, both internal to Cavendish's constructed worlds and inherent in the relationship between certain writers and their fans in ways that resonate with twenty-first-century fannish controversies.","PeriodicalId":42614,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies","volume":"21 1","pages":"37 - 64"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48888068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stage Devilry: Knowledge, Pleasure, and Antitheatricality on the Eighteenth-Century English Stage","authors":"Daniel Froid","doi":"10.1353/jem.2021.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2021.0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay discusses the figure of the devil in eighteenth-century theatrical works, focusing on two pantomimes based on the Faust legend: John Thurmond's Harlequin Doctor Faustus; with the Grand Masque of the Heathen Deities and John Rich's The Necromancer; or, Harlequin Doctor Faustus. Both pantomimes premiered in 1723 and were among the most successful theatrical works of the century. The devils that appear in these pantomimes embody the fears of antitheatrical discourse, which emphasized the pernicious effects of theatergoers' pleasure-seeking. This essay argues that stage devils serve as a self-reflexive mechanism by which theatrical texts stage the act of seeking theatrical pleasure and, thereby, engage with criticisms of the genre's moral and epistemological possibilities.","PeriodicalId":42614,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies","volume":"21 1","pages":"20 - 36"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45277049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Samson's Lockean Person: Prefigurations of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding in Milton's Samson Agonistes","authors":"Ayelet C. Langer","doi":"10.1353/jem.2021.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2021.0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay proposes that in Samson Agonistes (1671) Milton represents Samson's development of self as a psychological process that is conditioned on Samson's capacity to change his initial Hobbesian idea of self as a spatial construct to an understanding of himself as self-constituted by acts of consciousness. Samson's process of self-constitution is, it is suggested, very similar to Locke's theory of personal identity, published twenty-three years later in the second edition of his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1694). Further, the connection Milton makes between personhood and freedom is strikingly similar to Locke's understanding of the way in which these terms are linked. For Milton, as for Locke, only persons can become full-fledged agents. In Samson Agonistes, Milton offers the reader an opportunity to experience the process by which Samson develops into person, his choice not to respond to divine call, and, consequently, his failure to become a free agent. In Milton's representation, Samson's failure to achieve free agency results in a violent act that destroys both the Philistines and himself.","PeriodicalId":42614,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies","volume":"16 6","pages":"1 - 19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41261992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}