Vagrancy, homelessness, and English Renaissance literature
By: Linda Woodbridge.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 338
Subjects: English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism; Rogues and vagabonds in literature; Homeless persons in literature; Homelessness in literature; Vagrancy in literature; Renaissance -- England
Description: "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."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [295]-323) and index.
Table of contents: title: Death by lack of cherishing : vagrancy and the work of Thomas Harman; title: Holiness and homelessness, or, Joke books and the English Reformation; title: More matter for mirth : humanism against the homeless; title: Homelessness on the home front : monarchy, nation building, and domesticity; title: Policing the boundaries of shame : hygiene, civility, and homelessness; title: Lear, the homeless king.