Henpecked Husbands, Unruly Wives, and Royal Authority in Lydgate's 'Mumming at Hertford'
- Author / Editor
- Sidhu, Nicole Nolan.
Henpecked Husbands, Unruly Wives, and Royal Authority in Lydgate's 'Mumming at Hertford'
- Published
- Chaucer Review 42 (2008): 431-60.
- Description
- Building on medieval "gender comedies," including Chaucer's (especially WBP and the fabliaux), Lydgate anticipates the family-state analogy that pervades early modern political theory. By giving the complaints of abused husbands a court hearing, the "Mumming" establishes wifely shrewishness as a public "problem" even as it figures the passive henpecked husband as the "ideal subject" of royal authority.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion