Re: A Halloween romantic comedy - TAM LIN

Nancy wrote:
> About Elizabethan/Jacobean attitudes on virginity vs. chastity -
> firstly, what is your take on the difference between virginity and
> chastity and what is it that makes you feel that there was a
> significant difference in the attitudes of the E/J societies about
> them?

The difference is that they're two different words with two different 
meanings.  And early Protestantism associated virginity with the hated 
religious.  England only came to boast about their "virgin queen" when 
it was obvious that they no longer had another option.

> If you are right about the E/J attitudes, then Shakespeare must have
> personally had a thing for virginity - he's always going on about it.

I cannot agree with that.  In general, when the word comes up, it is in 
a de-facto reference to chastity.  The word seems to occur most in 
"All's Well that Ends Well", throughout which Helena never intends to 
stay a virgin if she can help it.

--
John W. Kennedy
"You can, if you wish, class all science-fiction
together; but it is about as perceptive as classing the
works of Ballantyne, Conrad and W. W. Jacobs together
as the 'sea-story' and then criticizing _that_."
  -- C. S. Lewis.  "An Experiment in Criticism"