According to the OED, a "nightgown" was an informal garment worn over
"nightclothes"--the word wasn't used for something worn in bed until the
early nineteenth century.
-----Original Message-----
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hardin, Richard F
Sent: Wednesday, 6 December 2006 9:05 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Sleeping attire
Not to mention Hamlet: "Enter the ghost in his nightgown" (OK it's Q1
but it's still worth quoting) and same with Julius Caesar when his
friends come for him.
Dick Hardin
-----Original Message-----
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
[log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 5:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Sleeping attire
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/
>>
>
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