The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe

Front Cover
Anne J. Cruz, Mihoko Suzuki
University of Illinois Press, 2009 - Biography & Autobiography - 224 pages
This collection brings a transcultural and transnational perspective to the study of early modern women rulers and female sovereignty, a topic that has until now been examined through the lens of a single nation. Contributors to the volume juxtapose rulers from different countries, including well-known sovereigns such as Isabel of Castile and Elizabeth Tudor, as well as other less widely studied figures Isabeau of Bavaria, Jeanne d'Albret, Isabel Clara Eugenia, Juana of Austria, and Catherine of Brandenburg. Several essays also focus on the representations of foreign rulers such as Catherine de' Medici in England and Elizabeth I in France.

Drawing on early modern literature and historical documents, this study investigates the various political, discursive, and symbolic measures employed to negotiate and support female sovereignty by both early modern writers and the rulers themselves. The detailed analysis of the women's responses--or inability to respond--to these strictures underscores the relationship between early modern authors and sovereigns and the complex and vexed situation of European women rulers.

Contributors are Tracy Adams, Anne J. Cruz, Éva Deák, Mary C. Ekman, Catherine L. Howey, Elizabeth Ketner, Carole Levin, Sandra Logan, Magdalena S. Sánchez, Mihoko Suzuki, and Barbara F. Weissberger.

 

Contents

intro
1
chapter 1
13
bibliography
205
index
217
back cover
231
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About the author (2009)

Anne J. Cruz is professor of Spanish and Cooper Fellow at the University of Miami. Her publications range from studies on Spanish Petrarchism, Cervantes, and the comedia to women's writings and the picaresque novel. She is a member of the Bibliografía de Escritoras Españolas (Bieses) Research Team, coeditor of Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and editor of the Ashgate series New Hispanisms: Cultural and Literary Studies. She has recently been named corresponding member of Spain's Royal Academy of History.

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