Writing women in Jacobean England

Author:

Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer, 1931-

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Imprint:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1993

Subject:

English literature - Early modern, 1500-1700 - History and criticism
English literature - Women authors - History and criticism
Women and literature - England - History - 17th century

ISBN:

9780674962422, 0674962427, 0674962427 (alk. paper), and 9780674962422 (alk. paper)

Description:

xii, 431 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Bibliographic Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-411) and index

Contents:

Enacting opposition: Queen Anne and the subversions of masquing -- Scripting a heroine's role: Princess Elizabeth and the politics of romance -- Writing resistance in letters: Arbella Stuart and the rhetoric of disguise and definance -- Exercising power: The Countess of Bedford as courtier, patron, and coterie poet -- Claiming patrimony and constructing a self: Anne Clifford and her diary -- Defending women's essential equality: Rachel Speght's polemics and poems -- Resisting tyrants: Elizabeth Cary's tragedy and history -- Imagining female community: Aemilia Lanyer's poems -- Revising genres and claiming the women's part: Mary Wroth's Oeuvre

Summary:

When was feminism born - in the 1960s, or in the 1660s? For England, one might answer: the early decades of the seventeenth century. James I was King of England, and women were expected to be chaste, obedient, subordinate, and silent. Some, however, were not, and these are the women who interest Barbara Lewalski - those who, as queens and petitioners, patrons and historians and poets, took up the pen to challenge and subvert the repressive patriarchal ideology of Jacobean England. Setting out to show how these women wrote themselves into their culture, Lewalski rewrites Renaissance history to include some of its most compelling - and neglected - voices. As a culture dominated by a powerful Queen gave way to the rule of a patriarchal ideologue, a woman's subjection to father and husband came to symbolize the subjection of all English people to their monarch, and all Christians to God. Remarkably enough, it is in this repressive Jacobean milieu that we first hear Englishwomen's own voices in some number. Elizabeth Cary, Aemilia Lanyer, Rachel Speght, and Mary Wroth published original poems, dramas, and prose of considerable scope and merit; others inscribed their thoughts and experiences in letters and memoirs. Queen Anne used the court masque to assert her place in palace politics, while Princess Elizabeth herself stood as a symbol of resistance to Jacobean patriarchy. By looking at these women through their works, Lewalski documents the flourishing of a sense of feminine identity and expression in spite of - or perhaps because of - the constraints of the time. The result is a fascinating sampling of Jacobean women's lives and works, restored to their rightful place in literary history and cultural politics. In these women's voices and perspectives, Lewalski identifies an early challenge to the dominant culture - and an ongoing challenge to our understanding of the Renaissance world

Collection:

BGC Monograph Stacks

Call Number:

PR113 .L53 1993

Available

c.1