Masculinity And The Metropolis Of Vice, 1550-1650 (early Modern Cultural Studies 1500-1700)

Leading authors in the field of early modern studies explore a range of bad behaviours - like binge drinking, dicing, and procuring prostitutes at barbershops - in order to challenge the notion that early modern London was a corrupt city that ruined innocent young men. Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction: Gendered Geographies of Vice....Pages 1-17 Front Matter....Pages 19-19 Manly Drunkenness: Binge Drinking as Disciplined Play....Pages 21-44 University of Vice: Drink, Gentility, and Masculinity in Oxford, Cambridge, and London....Pages 45-65 The Social Stakes of Gambling in Early Modern London....Pages 67-86 Front Matter....Pages 87-87 Carnal Geographies: Mocking and Mapping the Religious Body....Pages 89-113 “To What Bawdy House Doth Your Maister Belong?”: Barbers, Bawds, and Vice in the Early Modern London Barbershop....Pages 115-135 Front Matter....Pages 137-137 Coriolanus and the “Rank-Scented Meinie”: Smelling Rank in Early Modern London....Pages 139-159 Vicious Objects: Staging False Wares....Pages 161-183 City Of Angels: Theatrical Vice and The Devil is an Ass....Pages 185-204 Afterword A Question of Morality....Pages 205-216 Back Matter....Pages 217-230 "Masculinity and the Metropolis of Vice, 1550-1650 offers a new account of the pleasures and dangers of early modern London. Instead of focusing on moralist diatribe, the essays collected here consider the mostly masculine culture of drinking, gaming, play-going, rioting, violence, and sex that shaped the urban subject in the century during which London's population and its geography expanded exponentially. By focusing on the social spaces in which vice took place - from the central aisle of St. Paul's to barbers' shops and bawdy houses, these essays draw on the work of cultural geographers as well as social historians to revise rigid patriarchal narratives and help us rethink early modern masculinity. A well-chosen collection useful for both teaching and research."--Karen Newman, Professor of English, New York University This volume offers a unique historical perspective on the ways that everyday life in early modern London both challenged and constituted manhood. Through the close examination of literary texts, primary sources, and the material artifacts of urbanity, leading authors in the field of early modern studies explore a range of bad behaviors - binge drinking at taverns, dicing at gaming houses, and procuring prostitutes at barbershops - in order to challenge the notion that a corrupt city ruined innocent young men. This collection shows that alternative modes of manhood radically revised the emotional, imaginative, and cultural geographies of London Leading scholars explore a range of male bad behaviors in order to challenge the notion that early modern London was a corrupt city that ruined innocent young men