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[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

'Nother intro post...

Hi, I'm Nora, a.k.a. After the Rain and Fretful Porpentine, and I'm a grad student at a Large State University in the U.S. (which will probably not remain very anonymous after I've made a few more posts, but let's pretend, OK?) I'm writing my dissertation on English commoners and communities in the history plays (using a rather expansive definition of "history plays" -- I think Merry Wives is going to end up in there, along with Arden of Feversham and The Shoemaker's Holiday, but I've hit most of the conventional ones too).

I'm also getting ready to teach Edward II to undergrads for the very first time, so any advice on how not to shock them over-much is most welcome.

Comments

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

And more in keeping with the period, since they didn't have a concept of sexual orientation (which isn't to say that it didn't exist until we invented it, necessarily). Which would also be a fun and possibly confusing thing to teach... ;)

On an only tangentially-related note, it's quite interesting that in Elizabeth Cary's History of Edward II (written approximately 1627 but not printed until 1680) the more threatening of Edward's favorites isn't Gaveston but Spencer, because he's really with-it politically, whereas Gaveston (to whom Edward is far more passionately attached) is sort of insubstantial really and is dispatched approximately 30 pages into the narrative. So I think it's fairly clear what sort of issues she was interested in. ;)