Death and the Early Modern Englishwoman

Lucinda M. Becker

Contents: Death in Early Modern England: Facing death: The fear of death: pious publications; Death as God's will: acceptance and preparation; Recording death: rehearsing and revising; Early modern women and death: Witnessing death: the domestic deathbed; Wives, widows and mothers: transition and transformation; Women as healers: medicine and superstition; Death as a gendered experience: blurring the boundaries; The creation of posthumous female images: Patterns for posterity: selecting and editing; Dying mothers: blessings and instruction; A public death: exposure and judgement; Contrasting Images: Women dying badly: Recording poor deaths: private and public writings; Female weakness: physicality and irrationality; Controlling femininity: popular pamphlets; The crime of self-murder: sin and despair; Upholding the patriarchy: education and social cohesion; Women dying well: Women and the family: wives, mothers and daughters; Women and politics: propaganda and persuasion; Religious propaganda: assertion and negation; The upholding of gender: praise and condemnation; Enduring Images: Death as an Opportunity: Women and the rituals of death: Funerals: sermons and sanctification; Commemoration: private grief and public memorials; Execution: assertion and repression; Female martyrs: leadership and idolatry; Female identity in death: wills and posthumous marital status: Women's wills: expression and conformity; Posthumous marital status: temporal and spiritual husbands; Women's writing and death: Women and publication: writing and revealing; Female authorship: challenges and solutions; Autobiographical writing: creation and introspection; Mothers' literary legacies: parenting and authoring; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.