Better a Shrew Than a Sheep

by Brown, Pamela Allen

• ISBN13: 9780801488368
• ISBN10: 0801488362
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-01-09
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

In a book that explodes the assumption that early modern comic culture was created by men for men, Pamela Allen Brown shows that jest books, plays, and ballads represented women as laugh-getters and sought out the laughter of ordinary women. Disputing the claim that non-elite women had little access to popular culture because of their low literacy and social marginality, Brown demonstrates that women often bested all comers in the arenas of jesting, gaining a few heady moments of agency. Brown argues that listening for women's laughter can shed light on both the dramas of the street and those of the stage: plays from The Massacre of the Innocents to The Merry Wives of Windsor to The Woman's Prize taught audiences the importance of gossips' alliances as protection against slanderers, lechers, tyrants, and wife-beaters. Other jests, ballads, jigs, and plays show women reveling in tales of female roguery or scoffing at the perverse patience of Griselda. As Brown points out, some women found Griselda types annoying and even foolish: better be a shrew than a sheep. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Pamela Allen Brown is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, Stamford

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction: Sauce for the Gander	1	(32)
Near Neighbors, Women's Wars, and Merry Wives	33	(23)
Ale and Female: Gossips as Players, Alehouse as Theater	56	(27)
Between Women, or All Is Fair at Horn Fair	83	(35)
``O such a rogue would be hang'd!'' Shrews versus Wife Beaters	118	(32)
Scandalous Pleasures: A Coney-Catcher and Her Public	150	(28)
Griselda the Fool	178	(40)
Epilogue: The Problem of Fun	218	(5)
Bibliography	223	(32)
Index	255