Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T03:19:05.667Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 1 - Chests of the Mind in Early Modern England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2021

Get access

Summary

Reveals the profusion of boxes in early modern England, valued for practical and aesthetic reasons. While boxes are often very mundane, they might also be associated with events such as marriage, and are frequently bequeathed as items of intrinsic value. Wills and inventories demonstrate the ready slippage between boxes as furnishings for rooms, and furnishings for the mind – one author stores up his faith in ‘my Breste, the Cheste of my mynde’. His words illustrate the blurring of the material and the metaphorical that can happen inside boxes. Considering Elizabeth I’s bedchamber, hiding places in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and moments of enclosure in John Donne, this chapter interweaves close readings of wills and prayer manuals with objects such as velvet boxes and parish chests. It establishes a key quality of the box: although it is one of the most physically solid and constraining kinds of object, it offers flexible imaginative possibilities.

Type
Chapter
Information
Boxes and Books in Early Modern England
Materiality, Metaphor, Containment
, pp. 30 - 60
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×