Houses of Correction
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Matthew Ritger
About this book
The first book-length literary history of some of early modern Europe’s most influential carceral institutions, including England’s Bridewell
More than 250 years before the rise of the modern penitentiary, houses of correction pioneered the use of forced labor and individualized sentences within institutions of confinement, promoting reform and the “hope of amendment” for every individual. Yet these earlier carceral institutions faced many of the problems that remain familiar today: corruption scandals, recidivism, and abuses of power.
In Houses of Correction, Matthew Ritger turns to the archives of England’s first house of correction, Bridewell, to show how humanist reformers provided ideas, justifications, and administration for what came to be called bridewells, workhouses, and “Literary worke-houses,” even as repeated scandals made it clear that these coercive institutions would forever be at odds with the ideals of humanist culture. Examining how the work of writers including More, Shakespeare, and Milton dealt with humanism’s entanglements with these new prisons, Houses of Correction constructs the first book-length literary history of some of early modern Europe’s most influential carceral institutions.
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Topics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
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Notes on the Text
ix -
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Introduction
1 -
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Chapter 1 “The destruction of vices, and the savinge of menne”
29 -
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Chapter 2 “The House of Correction, is the School of Instruction”
65 -
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Chapter 3 Jurisdictions of “Correction, and Instruction” on Shakespeare’s Stage
100 -
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Chapter 4 “If the whole Countrey were but such a Bridewell”
137 -
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Chapter 5 Milton’s Reader, Thomas Ellwood, and the “Literary Worke-house”
163 -
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Conclusion
197 -
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Notes
209 -
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Bibliography
247 -
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Index
265 -
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Acknowledgments
275
