Practising Shame: Female Honour in Later Medieval England (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781526110060)

Practicing shame investigates how the literature of medieval England encouraged women to safeguard their honour by cultivating hypervigilance against the possibility of sexual shame. A combination of inward reflection and outward comportment, this practice of 'shamefastness' was believed to reinforce women's chastity of mind and body, and to communicate that chastity to others by means of conventional gestures. The book uncovers the paradoxes and complications that emerged from these emotional practices, as well as the ways in which they were satirised and reappropriated by male authors. Working at the intersection of literary studies, gender studies and the history of emotions, it transforms our understanding of the ethical construction of femininity in the past and provides a new framework for thinking about honourable womanhood now and in the years to come.

Author: Mary C. Flannery
ISBN-10: 1526110067
ISBN-13: 9781526110060
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Language: English
Published: 11/01/2019
Pages: 232
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.50w x 0.80d