"Cony-Catchers" and the Early Modern City

NEMLA; April 7-8; Buffalo, NY

This panel focuses on the literary figure of the "cony-catcher" in Tudor-Stuart London and how this character reveals changing attitudes toward urban life, literary culture, and economic practice. The transformation of London from a medieval town to a sixteenth-century metropolis provides the background for an examination of these rogue-heroes. The cony-catcher, an urban con-man whose criminal dexterity produced guilty narrative pleasure and gave rise to stimulating moral polemics, dramatizes the intersection of literary culture and urban reality. Cony-catchers appear in prose fiction, on stage, and in chapbooks, ballads, and historical tracts. This panel will interrogate these early modern literary rogues from a variety of angles. Does the cony-catcher incite fear in the reading public, or does he provide a devious route to liberation? Is he an image of greed run amok, or a shrewd resistor of the dominant social hierarchies? Does he give a voice to subaltern, even “middle-class,” citydwellers, or does he terrify productive citizens? Does he glorify or trivialize literary invention? Submissions which consider the configurations of urban marketplaces or early modern business practices are particularly welcome.

Please submit a 250-word bstract or a completed paper by September 1, 1999. Email submissions OK.

Steve Mentz 484 Whitney Ave, #A3 New Haven, CT 06511 steven.mentz@yale.edu

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© 1999-, Lisa Hopkins (Editor, EMLS).
(PD 22 July 1999)