Vagrancy, homelessness, and English Renaissance 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."--Jacket
Criticism, interpretation, etc
338 pages ; 24 cm
9780252026331, 0252026330
44681688
Death by lack of cherishing : vagrancy and the work of Thomas Harman
Holiness and homelessness, or, Joke books and the English Reformation
More matter for mirth : humanism against the homeless
Homelessness on the home front : monarchy, nation building, and domesticity
Policing the boundaries of shame : hygiene, civility, and homelessness
Lear, the homeless king