Virtuous Necessity: Conduct Literature and the Making of the Virtuous Woman in Early Modern England

by Jessica Murphy and Jessica Murphy

While many scholars find the early modern triad of virtues for women--silence, chastity, and obedience--to be straightforward and nonnegotiable, Jessica C. Murphy demonstrates that these virtues were by no means as direct and inflexible as they might seem. Drawing on the literature of the period--from the plays of Shakespeare to a conduct manual written for a princess to letters from a wife to her husband--as well as contemporary gender theory and...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0472119575
• ISBN13: 9780472119578
• Release Date: August 2015
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.1"