November 08, 2003

Second blast of the trumpet

I'm teaching a new course on women's writing for January 2004, and am in the middle of putting together the syllabus. For the first class I am planning to introduce the students to some anti-women texts, and so just did a web search for John Knox's The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558). Imagine my surprise to discover that there is a recent horror novel, by Eric McCormack, that uses the same title. I don't usually read contemporary horror, but this review makes it sound something special. McCormack teaches c17th lit. at the U of Waterloo, apparently: he is ONE OF US.

Uh–oh: further searching has turned up another novel, A Monstrous Regiment of Women (2000) by Laurie R. King. What on earth is going on?!??

Unknown artist, portrait of John Knox 1509-1572