Chaste Value: Economic Crisis, Female Chastity and the Production of Social Difference on Shakespeare's Stage (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy)

__Chaste Value__ reassesses chastity’s significance in early modern drama, arguing that presentations of chastity inform the stage’s production of early capitalist subjectivity and social difference. Plays invoke chastity—itself a quasi-commodity—to interrogate the relationship between personal and economic value. The economic imagery surrounding chastity ranges from romantic evocations of treasure to more quotidian references to usury, counterfeiting, and commodity exchange. Attending to such discourse in late Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, __Chaste Value__ argues that representations of chastity (married fidelity as well as virginity) figure centrally within the early modern theatre’s interrogation of early capitalism, particularly with regard to the incorporation of people into commercial exchange. Through chastity discourse, the stage disrupts pre-capitalist ideas of intrinsic value while also reallocating such value according to emerging hierarchies of gender, race, class, and nationality. Chastity, therefore, emerges as a central category within early articulations of humanity, determining who possesses intrinsic value and, conversely, whose bodies and labour can be incorporated into market exchange. Examines the way that theatrical representations of chastity inform broader concerns about the commoditisation of people in early capitalismChaste Value reassesses chastity's significance in early modern drama, arguing that presentations of chastity inform the stage's production of early capitalist subjectivity and social difference. Plays invoke chastity--itself a quasi-commodity--to interrogate the relationship between personal and economic value. Through chastity discourse, the stage disrupts pre-capitalist ideas of intrinsic value while also reallocating such value according to emerging hierarchies of gender, race, class, and nationality. Chastity, therefore, emerges as a central category within early articulations of humanity, determining who possesses intrinsic value and, conversely, whose bodies and labor can be incorporated into market exchange.Key FeaturesReevaluates early modern drama's engagement with female chastity, situating them within broader anxieties about personal commoditization in early capitalist EnglandOffers an update/corrective to new economic critical approaches by demonstrating how concerns about personal and economic value shape emerging hierarchies of race, class, gender, and nationalityUniquely synthesizes current topics of concern in early modern literary studiesOffers innovative readings of seventeen literary works in relation to early modern debates about value, exchange, commoditization, and subjectivity Examines the way that theatrical representations of chastity inform broader concerns about the commoditisation of people in early capitalism Chaste Value reassesses chastitys significance in early modern drama, arguing that presentations of chastity inform the stages production of early capitalist subjectivity and social difference. Plays invoke chastityitself a quasi-commodityto interrogate the relationship between personal and economic value. Through chastity discourse, the stage disrupts pre-capitalist ideas of intrinsic value while also reallocating such value according to emerging hierarchies of gender, race, class, and nationality. Chastity, therefore, emerges as a central category within early articulations of humanity, determining who possesses intrinsic value and, conversely, whose bodies and labor can be incorporated into market exchange. Key Features Chaste Value reassesses chastity s significance in early modern drama, arguing that presentations of chastity inform the stage s production of early capitalist subjectivity and social difference.