Writing, Gender and State in Early Modern England Matchinske Hardback

Writing, Gender and State in Early Modern EnglandIdentity Formation and the Female Subject\nAuthor(s): Megan Matchinske\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521622547, 978-0521622547\nSynopsis\nThe period from the Reformation to the English Civil War saw an evolving understanding of social identity in England. This book uses four illuminating case studies to chart a discursive shift from mid-sixteenth-century notions of an individually generated, spiritually motivated sense of identity, to Civil War perceptions of the self as inscribed by the state and inflected according to gender, a site of civil and sexual invigilation and control. Each centres on the work of an early modern woman writer in the act of self-definition and authorization, in relation to external powers such as the Church and the monarchy. Megan Matchinske's study illustrates the evolving relationships between public and private sel.