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"Bordo's sharp reading of Boleyniana and her clear affection for this proud, unusual woman make this an entertaining, provocative read."--Boston Globe
Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a reconstruction of Boleyn's life and an illuminating look at her very active afterlife in the popular imagination. With recent novels, movies, and television shows, Anne has been having a twenty-first-century moment, but Bordo shows how many generations of polemicists, biographers, novelists, and filmmakers have imagined and reimagined her: whore, martyr, cautionary tale, proto-"mean girl," feminist icon, and everything in between. Drawing on scholarship and razor-sharp analysis, Bordo probes the complexities of one of history's most intriguing women, teasing out what we actually know about Anne Boleyn and what we think we know about her.
"Riveting . . . Bordo's eloquent study not only recovers Anne Boleyn for our times but also demonstrates the ways in which legends grow out of the faintest wisps of historical fact." --Book Page
"Engrossing . . . Ms. Bordo offers a fascinating discussion."--New York Times
About the author
Susan Bordo, Otis A. Singletary Professor in the Humanities at University of Kentucky, is the author of
Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, a book that is still widely read and assigned in classes today. During speaking tours for that book, she encountered many young men who asked, "What about us?" The result was
The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private.
Her work has been translated into many languages and frequently reprinted in collections and writing textbooks. A popular public speaker, Susan lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband and daughter, and teaches humanities and gender studies at the University of Kentucky.
Summary
“Bordo’s sharp reading of Boleyniana and her clear affection for this proud, unusual woman make this an entertaining, provocative read.”—Boston Globe
Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a reconstruction of Boleyn’s life and an illuminating look at her very active afterlife in the popular imagination. With recent novels, movies, and television shows, Anne has been having a twenty-first-century moment, but Bordo shows how many generations of polemicists, biographers, novelists, and filmmakers have imagined and reimagined her: whore, martyr, cautionary tale, proto-“mean girl,” feminist icon, and everything in between. Drawing on scholarship and razor-sharp analysis, Bordo probes the complexities of one of history’s most intriguing women, teasing out what we actually know about Anne Boleyn and what we think we know about her.
“Riveting . . . Bordo’s eloquent study not only recovers Anne Boleyn for our times but also demonstrates the ways in which legends grow out of the faintest wisps of historical fact.” —Book Page
“Engrossing . . . Ms. Bordo offers a fascinating discussion.”—New York Times
