High Anxiety: Masculinity in Crisis in Early Modern France (Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies)

This collection explores the evolution of notions about masculinity during the intense crisis of Renaissance and early modern France. Authors of the period reflect the anxieties about masculinity that became more pronounced against the backdrop of major events and innovations of the period: the religious conflict in France, the repeated questioning of religious and royal authority, the revival of Greek skepticism, the discovery of the New World, and the rise of clinical medicine. These events in turn fueled growing doubt concerning the fixed and hierarchical nature of gender distinction, a distinction upon which many felt French culture was dependent for its very survival. Louise Labé's Transgressions / Cathy Yandell -- Masculine Rhetoric And The French Blason Anatomique / Jeffery Persels -- Primal Scenes/primal Screens / Amy Staples -- Catherine, Cybele, And Ronsard's Witnesses / Stephen Murphy -- Mother's Milk From Father's Breast / Kirk Read -- Montaigne Moqueur / Tom Conley -- Jacques Duval On Hermaphrodites / Kathleen Long -- Molière's Body Politic / Mitchell Greenberg -- Curious Study In Parallel Lives / Virginia M. Marino -- Pig Or Prince? / Lewis C. Seifert -- Masculinity, Monarchy, And Metaphysics / Catharine Randall. Edited By Kathleen P. Long. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.