High Anxiety: Masculinity in Crisis in Early Modern France

Long (French, Cornell U.) points out the irony of critical inquiries on gender, sexuality, and the body viewing the feminine as "other" to a little-defined male norm. These 11 essays study destabilized gender roles in France following social upheavals in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Topics include women crossing into traditional male genres of rhetoric (e.g., love poetry), cross-dressers of both sexes, gender roles as questioned in "the body politic" of Moliére's farces, and medicine's evolution away from midwifery. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)