The Politics of Early Modern Women's Writing

by Clarke,Danielle

• ISBN13: 9780582309098
• ISBN10: 0582309093
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-02-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

An introduction to the ever-expanding field of early modern women¿s writing, which challenges the conventional view of Renaissance women as marginal to the cultural reproduction of the time. Far from conforming to the conventional ¿chaste, silent and obedient¿ model, or merely working from the ¿margins¿ of Renaissance culture, women in the early modern period engaged centrally with many of the major ideas and controversies of their time. The author discusses many previously neglected texts and authors, as well as more familiar figures such as Mary Sidney, Countess of Penbroke, Isabella Whitney and Lady Mary Wroth. Examining the importance of genres and forms of circulation in the production of meaning, this survey will be of interest both to readers encountering the material for the first time, and to those working in the fields of women¿s writing, gender studies, history and literature.

Author Biography

Danielle Clarke is Lecturer in English at University College Dublin

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements	ix
A Note on Texts	xii
Introduction	1	(16)
Women, Language and Rhetoric	17	(32)
Education and literacy	19	(5)
Speaking	24	(8)
Reading	32	(6)
Writing	38	(11)
The Renaissance Debate about Women	49	(31)
Jane Anger and the inversion of tradition	53	(5)
Swetnam the woman-hater arraigned	58	(22)
Drama and the Gendered Political Subject	80	(43)
Translating politics	83	(5)
Death, sex and politics	88	(7)
Tragedy and the playing of marriage	95	(11)
Comedy and the playing of politics	106	(17)
Writing the Divine: Faith and Poetry	123	(64)
Voicing God in the Psalms of David	127	(20)
Poetic visions and dream poetry	147	(10)
Aemilia Lanyer and the revision of biblical history	157	(5)
Anne Dowriche and political agency	162	(4)
Elegies, epitaphs and the poetry of mourning	166	(21)
Poetry, Politics and Gender	187	(45)
Isabella Whitney: wit, prodigality and the city	192	(11)
Petrarchanism, politics and the feminine	203	(10)
Lady Mary Wroth and the dynamics of disclosure	213	(19)
Women Reading and Writing Romance	232	(33)
Barclay's Argenis and gendered translation	235	(4)
The Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania (1621)	239	(13)
Reforming devotion: courtly religion and the translation of discourse	252	(13)
Epilogue	265	(2)
Select bibliography	267	(16)
Index	283