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So today I have a take-home midterm that I’m working on, which has been consuming my entire Monday. My midterm is basically a really long essay on different representations of fidelity in three works in my gender and renaissance class, and right now I’m working on a simple outline so that when I get back from workshop, I can basically follow it and hopefully be done by around two am (oh beautiful all-nighters, if I had time I would write an ode to how crappy you are, but I don’t). Right now I’m wrapping up representations of sexual fidelity in this one play Arden of Faversham, where a woman is sent to her death after plotting the murder of her husband, Arden, with her lover Mosby (I know, really fun stuff). I’m arguing that although it may seem like Alice is committing infidelity against her husband, she is actually being loyal to her heart by rejecting the contract that is marriage by aligning herself with her lover Mosby. But the whole murder thing is a bit drastic I must say. After that I am moving on to this idea that in the English Renaissance a woman’s reputation solely rests on this idea of being loyal to your husband, and if you’re not married, being physically loyal to your future husband by not jumping in to a man’s bed, and how this rests a woman’s reputation as a “good woman” solely on her sexual activity or inactivity (excuse my French, but that’s flat out super shitty). Anyway, consequences of sexual infidelity in Arden of Faversham are pretty straightforward: kill the woman. Lovely. After I’m done with Arden of Faversham, I’m moving on to this “Conduct Book” called The Courtier, which will be a bit harder than Arden only because it’s not a story, but a rulebook. But I’m sure I’ll be able to find something in there. It will just be a bit harder to dig out.
