The Ideas of Man and Woman in Renaissance France: Print, Rhetoric, and Law

by Lyndan Warner, Allyson M Poska, Abby Zanger

Overview

The Ideas of Man and Woman in Renaissance France provides the first comprehensive comparison of the printed debates over the superiority or inferiority of woman - the Querelle des femmes - and the dignity and misery of man, revealing the striking overlap between them as they evolved into the 1600s. Drawing on probate inventories, court registers and published lawyers' pleadings, Lyndan Warner traces these intertwined ideas from author to bookseller to reader.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781409482147
Publisher:	Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Publication date:	07/28/2013
Series:	Women and Gender in the Early Modern World
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Lyndan Warner, an Associate Professor of History, obtained her doctorate from the University of Cambridge and since 1998 has worked at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Table of Contents

Contents: Introduction; Booksellers and the market to the 1550s; The dignity and misery of man ... and of woman; The Querelle des femmes; The dialogue: beyond dignity and misery, beyond the Querelle des femmes; Diversity, citation and the invention of the essay; Books in the Palais de Justice and their readers in the late 1500s to early 1600s; Rhetoric, print and lawyers' pleadings in the Parlement de Paris; Conclusion; Bibliography' Index.

Editorial Reviews

'This is an exciting new interpretation of the meanings of gender in Renaissance culture. The Ideas of Man and Woman in Renaissance France offers a detailed and complex reading of the widely known and culturally significant querelle des femmes and dignity of man and woman debates as deeply intertwined rhetorical exercises, tracing their evolution and influences from legal discourse, humanist modes of thought and expression, and the print trades, as well as emphasising the implications for these in return. Warner's deep analytical engagement with diverse sources such as literary works, legal case histories, legal discourse and training, book and print history as well as humanist educational practices is impressive indeed.' Susan Broomhall, The University of Western Australia 'Lyndan Warner promises a path-breaking study by exploring for the first time the fundamental connections between two major literary and cultural topics: the Querelle des femmes, on the nature of woman, and the Renaissance debate on the dignity and misery of man. The Ideas of Man and Woman in Renaissance France fulfils this ambitious promise admirably... Warner's book will appeal to those with an advanced understanding of early modern feminism, and deserves to be read alongside the studies of Susan Broomhall, Linda Timmermans, and Ian Maclean.' French Studies '... this book is persuasive and extremely engaging... pertinent passages offer welcome readings of some lesser-known authors. Moving well beyond her stated goal of highlighting the crucial connections between the literatures on the dignity and misery of man and on women, Lyndan Warner reminds scholars of history and literature alike of the interconnectedness of literary and legal texts, and of the influence of these works on the lives of women and men in the Renaissance.' H-France 'The ideas of Man and Woman in Renaissance France is an insightful and masterful work of historical scholarship. [The book] offers an array of importa

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