
How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England
A Guide for Knaves, Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts
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Narrated by:
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Jennifer M. Dixon
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By:
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Ruth Goodman
Every age and social strata has its bad eggs, rule-breakers, and nose-thumbers. As acclaimed popular historian and author of How to Be a Victorian Ruth Goodman reveals in her madcap chronicle, Elizabethan England was particularly rank with troublemakers, from snooty needlers who took aim with a cutting "thee" to lowbrow drunkards with revolting table manners. Goodman draws on advice manuals, court cases, and sermons to offer this colorfully crude portrait of offenses most foul.
Mischievous listeners will delight in learning how to time your impressions for the biggest laugh, why quoting Shakespeare was poor form, and why curses hurled at women were almost always about sex (and why we shouldn't be surprised). Bringing her signature "exhilarating and contagious" enthusiasm (Boston Globe), this is a celebration of one of history's naughtiest periods, when derision was an art form.
©2018 Ruth Goodman (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...




















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Good to know
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Perfectly explains weird Behaviors we cling to
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Lots of fun
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What an interesting cultural experience!
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So interesting
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The narration was good, I have no complaints.
A bit redundant and slow..
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Actually, the book’s title, “How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England,” is just a little bit misleading since it covers the period from 1550-1660, which extends on beyond into the reign of the Stuarts. She covers a broad range subjects. There is a review of clothing and what it represented. There is a discussion of their attitudes toward sexual relations in all its forms and how the rules were applied as well as how their attitudes affected law, insults, and family. And certainly there is much about insults and other subjects related to language including slang and swearing which leads to a discussion of gestures as well (and no, the common rude or insulting gesture at that time was not the middle finger). And when I think of manners, I especially think of mealtime, which she discusses in detail. Of course, any discussion of bad behavior must include those relating to our bodies, including farting, burping, spitting and what to do when you’ve just got to go in a day when there were no public toilets nor indoor plumbing.
It is interesting to note that she does not just discuss bad manners from the perspective of the elite but has extensively researched various sources (even death records listing what possessions are left behind after one has passed on) to discover what was important to the average person. She notes that even the poor who had very little to leave to their descendents often listed items related to cleanliness such as napkins.
There are parts that are quite funny and some that is a bit surprising. She even discusses different ways of walking and how bowing developed over the century.
This is not a book that will change your life. You probably won’t learn anything that you really need to know or that will be useful to you except in a trivia quiz. But it is fun and that is part of what reading is for.
Just fun to read
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Not Quite What I Anticipated
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Ruth
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A Great Resource for Authors and Moviemakers
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