Widows and Suitors in Early Modern English Comedy

Jennifer Panek author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:14th Oct '04

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Widows and Suitors in Early Modern English Comedy cover

Jennifer Panek examines the early modern character of the lusty widow in her cultural context.

The courtship and remarriage of a rich widow was a popular motif in early modern comic theatre. Jennifer Panek brings together a variety of texts, from ballads and jest-books to sermons and court records, to examine the staple widow of comedy in her cultural context.The courtship and remarriage of a rich widow was a popular motif in early modern comic theatre. Jennifer Panek brings together a wide variety of texts, from ballads and jest-books to sermons and court records, to examine the staple widow of comedy in her cultural context and to examine early modern attitudes to remarriage. She persuasively challenges the critical tendency to see the stereotype of the lusty widow as a tactic to dissuade women from second marriages, arguing instead that it was deployed to enable her suitors to regain their masculinity, under threat from the dominant, wealthier widow. The theatre, as demonstrated by Middleton, Dekker, Beaumont and Fletcher and others, was the prime purveyor of a fantasy in which a young man's sexual mastery of a widow allowed him to seize the economic opportunity she offered.

'Panek convincingly demonstrates that widows in sixteenth-century England, unlike their Continental counterparts, were encouraged to remarry for a variety of good social, economic and familial reasons.' The Times Literary Supplement

ISBN: 9780521832717

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 17mm

Weight: 540g

254 pages