Imaginary betrayals
Subtitle: subjectivity and the discourses of treason in early Modern England
By: Karen Cunningham.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Philadelphia
Language: eng
Number of pages: 216
Subjects: English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism.; Treason in literature.; English drama -- 17th century -- History and criticism.; Trials (Treason) -- Great Britain -- History -- 16th century.; Law and literature -- History -- 16th century.; Subjectivity in literature.; Sex role in literature.; Betrayal in literature.; Law in literature.
Description: "Referring to the extensive early modern literature on the subject of treason, Imaginary Betrayals reveals how and to what extent ideas of proof and grounds for conviction were subject to prosecutorial construction during the Tudor period. Karen Cunningham looks at contemporary records of three prominent cases in order to demonstrate the degree to which the imagination was used to prove treason: the 1542 attainder of Katherine Howard, fifth wife of Heavy VIII, charged with having had sexual relations with two men before her marriage; the 1586 case of Anthony Babington and twelve confederates, accused of plotting with the Spanish to invade England and assassinate Elizabeth; and the prosecution in the same year of Mary, Queen of Scots, indicted for conspiring with Babington to engineer her own accession to the throne." "Linking the inventiveness of the accusations and decisions in these cases to the production of contemporary playtexts by Udall, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Kyd, Imaginary Betrayals demonstrates how the emerging, flexible discourses of treason participate in defining both individual subjectivity and the legitimate Tudor state. Concerned with competing representations of self and nationhood, Imaginary Betrayals explores the implications of legal and literary representations in which female sexuality, male friendship, or private letters are converted into the signs of treacherous imaginations."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [187]-201) and index.