There is the famous line from The Spanish Tragedy
HIERONIMO in his shirt,
What outcries pluck me from my naked bed
So he too seems to be wearing a shirt.
Best wishes,
Richard Ramsey
> You might have a look at Laura Gowing's _Common Bodies: Women, Touch
> and Power in Seventeenth-Century England_ (Yale, 2003), which discusses
> early modern meanings for "nakedness". Gowing quotes a conduct book's
> observation that "apparel may be called the body of the body" and notes
> that nakedness didn't necessarily preclude clothing -- so, for instance,
> the common phrase "naked in her smock" (p. 34). See the whole section
> "Unbuttoning to Entice," 34 ff.
>
> Amelia Zurcher
> Marquette University
>
> Margaret Christian wrote:
>> Good friends,
>>
>> Please indulge me and share your learned insights on an off-topic
>> query. I was discussing Coleridge's /Christabel/ with a class today,
>> and they were much taken by the detail of the two ladies disrobing
>> before sharing the bed. "Wasn't it usual to wear dressing gowns and
>> caps and everything? Why are they undressing in front of each other?"
>>
>> The psychosexual reading appealed to them a lot, but I reminded them
>> of Sir Gawain, trapped naked under the covers by his hostess (and
>> Chaucer's characters, who don't seem unduly hampered by layers of
>> fabric), and suggested that maybe Coleridge assumed that it wasn't
>> usual to wear gowns, etc.
>>
>> Anyway, in the real pre-modern world (as opposed to bawdy, medieval
>> romance, and gothic revival fantasy), what did people wear to bed?
>>
>> Many thanks,
>>
>> Margaret R. Christian, Ph.D.
>> [log in to unmask]
>> Associate Professor of English Office:
>> (610) 285-5106
>> Penn State Lehigh Valley
>> Home: (610) 562-0163
>> 8380 Mohr Lane fax:
>> (610) 285-5220
>> Fogelsville, PA 18051 USA
>> http://www.lv.psu.edu/professional/mrc1/
>>
>
|