Vagrancy, homelessness, and English Renaissance literature
著者
書誌事項
Vagrancy, homelessness, and English Renaissance literature
University of Illinois Press, 2001
大学図書館所蔵 全19件
  青森
  岩手
  宮城
  秋田
  山形
  福島
  茨城
  栃木
  群馬
  埼玉
  千葉
  東京
  神奈川
  新潟
  富山
  石川
  福井
  山梨
  長野
  岐阜
  静岡
  愛知
  三重
  滋賀
  京都
  大阪
  兵庫
  奈良
  和歌山
  鳥取
  島根
  岡山
  広島
  山口
  徳島
  香川
  愛媛
  高知
  福岡
  佐賀
  長崎
  熊本
  大分
  宮崎
  鹿児島
  沖縄
  韓国
  中国
  タイ
  イギリス
  ドイツ
  スイス
  フランス
  ベルギー
  オランダ
  スウェーデン
  ノルウェー
  アメリカ
注記
Includes bibliographical references and index
内容説明・目次
内容説明
Thanks to cony-catching pamphlets and other rogue literature, the vagrant poor of Renaissance England have acquired a patina of comic good humor and a reputation as sturdy rogues who were adept at living on the fringes of society. Unearthing the sources as well as the effects of this reputation, Linda Woodbridge shows that the prevailing image of the vagrant poor was essentially a literary fabrication pressed into the service of specific social and political agendas. Looking at texts such as Thomas Harman's influential "Caveat for Common Cursetors", "Vulgarly Called Vagabonds", Till Eulenspiegel's "A Man Called Howlglas", and Walter Smith's "Twelve Merry Jests of the Widow Edith", Woodbridge identifies a well-established literary tradition of treating vagrants as comic figures.This literary practice, she maintains, has informed both the legal and the historical treatment of vagrancy, erasing pity and compassion for the homeless by depicting them as robust, resourceful, conniving tricksters. Her study culminates in a close look at one literary work that does invoke compassion for the homeless, placeless poor: Shakespeare's "King Lear".
Woodbridge presents the vagrant as a Renaissance 'other', constructed by the powerful to promote causes as diverse as humanism, bureaucratic centralization, and the Reformation. She suggests that literary images of the vagrant poor influenced the "Poor Laws in England", laws that carefully distinguished between the deserving, domiciled poor, who were to benefit from charity, and the undeserving, vagrant poor, who were to be treated with scorn and suspicion as loafers feigning poverty and affliction.Woodbridge also examines political and philosophical tracts that incorporated the romanticized language of rogue literature and looks at social changes, such as a new emphasis on domestic space and privacy, that left the 'houseless' even further out in the cold. Tracing the conversion of harmless fiction into powerful fact, "Vagrancy, Homelessness, and English Renaissance Literature" offers a sobering commentary on a view of the homeless that has become our legacy.
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