Consecrated female forms: Matrimony, monasticism and mutiny in Renaissance and eighteenth century literature
Description
In 1566, largely in response to the Reformation, Pope Pius V's circa pastoralis enforced clausura (enclosure) on all female religious communities. Protestant populations simultaneously were moving to enclose women within a single, appropriate sphere of domesticated and sexualized space (i.e., the home) which, like the convents, attempted to enforce chastity, obedience, separation and silence. This dissertation engages a number of cultural and historical contexts to construct a reading of the nun as both a historical figure and as an unstable cultural category. Chapter I explores the relationship between female chastity and national constructions of male honor and identity through the texts, The Rape of Lucrece, The Voyage of Thomas Cavendish round the whole earth, and Oroonoko. Chapter II interrogates the subtle resistance to this model in both Shakespeare's portrayal of transitional virginity and Katherine Philips, poetic construction of female friendship circles. In Chapter III, the texts, 'Eloisa to Abelard' and A Simple Story are shown to reflect the ideological struggle between women who long for a voice and a culture interested in silencing them In the course of my investigation, I found that the ideological (and literal) control of sacred female bodies was an integral part of the Catholic/Protestant tension. Ironically, I found that the importance of these women whose sexuality, chastity and/or fertility symbolized and defined nations did not lead to their empowerment, but merely to the necessity of their submission to patriarchal authority. In the final analysis, while women were reverenced for their chastity, they were also criticized for what was seen as its subversive stance