Overview

This book is about the relationship of food and food practices to discourses and depictions of domestic and political governance in early modern women’s writing. It examines the texts of four elite women spanning approximately forty years: the Psalmes of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; the maternal nursing pamphlet of Elizabeth Clinton, Dowager Countess of Lincoln; the diary of Margaret, Lady Hoby; and Mary Sidney, Lady Wroth’s prose romance, Urania. It argues that we cannot gain a full picture of what food meant to the early modern English without looking at the works of women, who were the primary managers of household foodways. In examining food practices such as hospitality, gift exchange, and charity, this monograph demonstrates that women, no less than men, engaged with vital social, cultural and political processes.

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9783319408675

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Women, Food Exchange, and Governance is strikingly original in bringing together aspects of food history not normally treated in conjunction. Bassnett discusses hospitality, fasting, feasting, and kitchen management alongside agricultural production and breastfeeding, pushing early modern food studies to think more expansively about where we direct our attention. (Andrea Crow, Modern Philology, Vol. 116 (4), 2019) The book is written in an admirably clear and straightforward style. It takes generous account of prior critics, summarizing complex arguments and relying where relevant upon the groundbreaking work of other scholars. (David B. Goldstein, Renaissance and Reformation, Vol. 41 (4), 2018)

Women, Food Exchange, and Governance is strikingly original in bringing together aspects of food history not normally treated in conjunction. Bassnett discusses hospitality, fasting, feasting, and kitchen management alongside agricultural production and breastfeeding, pushing early modern food studies to think more expansively about where we direct our attention. (Andrea Crow, Modern Philology, Vol. 116 (4), 2019)

“Bassnett’s groundbreaking monograph puts women, food, and politics center table. She places a full plate before readers. … she provides an invaluable perspective on early modern food studies, which, barring the excellent scholarship on recipes and domesticity, has largely left women behind kitchen doors. Those interested in food studies, women’s writing, women’s religio-political agency, or the history of English Protestantism should not hesitate to add this monograph to their bookshelves.” (Lauren Shook, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 72 (4), 2019) “To this field, Madeline Bassnett’s Women, Food Exchange, and Governance in Early Modern England is a welcome and fascinating addition … . Bassnett’s book is well conceived and well executed.” (Elisa Tersigni, TSWL Tulsa Studies in Women's Literatur, Vol. 38 (2),2019) “Women, Food Exchange, and Governance is strikingly original in bringing together aspects of food history not normally treated in conjunction. Bassnett discusses hospitality, fasting, feasting, and kitchen management alongside agricultural production and breastfeeding, pushing early modern food studies to think more expansively about where we direct our attention.” (Andrea Crow, Modern Philology, Vol. 116 (4), 2019) “The book is written in an admirably clear and straightforward style. It takes generous account of prior critics, summarizing complex arguments and relying where relevant upon the groundbreaking work of other scholars.” (David B. Goldstein, Renaissance and Reformation, Vol. 41 (4), 2018)

Author Information

Madeline Bassnett is Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Writing Studies at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. She has published numerous articles on the topics of food and early modern women’s writing. Her work has appeared in Modern Philology, The Seventeenth Century, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 and Early English Studies.

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