The Poems of Isabella Whitney: a Critical Edition
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THE POEMS OF ISABELLA WHITNEY: A CRITICAL EDITION by MICHAEL DAVID FELKER, B.A., M.A. A DISSERTATION IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved May 1990 (c) 1990, Michael David Felker ACKNOWLEDGMENT S I would like especially to thank the librarians and staff of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the British Library for their assistance and expertise in helping me trace the ownership of the two volumes of Isabella Whitney's poetry, and for their permission to make the poems of Isabella Whitney available to a larger audience. I would also like to thank the members of my committee. Dr. Kenneth Davis, Dr. Constance Kuriyama, Dr. Walter McDonald, Dr. Ernest Sullivan, and especially Dr. Donald Rude who contributed his knowledge and advice, and who provided constant encouragement throughout the lengthy process of researching and writing this dissertation. To my wife, who helped me collate and proof the texts until she knew them as well as I, I owe my greatest thanks. 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE vi BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE viii BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE xxxviii INTRODUCTION Literary Tradition and the Conventions Ixii Prosody cvi NOTE ON EDITORIAL PRINCIPLES cxix THE POEMS The Copy of a Letter 1 [THE PRINTER TO the Reader] 2 I. W. To her vnconstant Louer 3 The admonition by the Auctor 10 [A Loueletter, sent from a faythful Louer] 16 [R W Against the wilfull Inconstancie of his deare Foe E. T. ] 22 A Sweet Nosgay 29 To the worshipfull and right vertuous yong Gentylman, GEORGE MAINWARING Esquier 30 The Auctor to the Reader 32 [T. B. in commendation of the Authour].... 39 A sweet Nosgay 42 A soueraigne receypt 69 A farewell to the Reader ^0 Certain familier Epistles 72 111 To her Brother. G. W 72 To her Brother. B. W 73 An order prescribed, by IS. W. to two of her yonger Sisters 74 To her Sister Misteris A. B 78 To her Cosen F. W 80 A carefull complaynt by the vnfortunate Auctor 81 [An answer to comfort her] 83 A Replye to the same 84 Is. W. to C. B in bewaylynge her mishappes 87 [In answer byC. B. toIS. W.] 89 To my Friend Master T. L 92 [An other Letter sent to IS. W.].... 93 IS. W. beyng wery of writyng 97 The Aucthour (though loth to leaue the Citie) 98 The maner of her Wyll 99 NOTES ON THE POEMS A. THE COPY OF A LETTER 113 B. A SWEET NOSGAY 125 BIBLIOGRAPHY 169 APPENDICES A. GEOFFREY WHITNEY'S WILL 181 B. VARIANTS IN THE COLLIER AND ARBER EDITIONS OF THE COPY OF A LETTER 185 GLOSSARIAL INDEX 266 iv TABLES 1. Types used in The Copy of a Letter Iii 2. Types used in A sweet Nosgay Iv 3. Verbal Changes in Collier's Edition 206 4. Variant Spellings in Collier's Edition 207 5. Variant Spellings in Arber's Edition 209 6. Verbal Changes in Arber's Edition 211 7. Variants in Collier's and Arber's Editions 216 V PREFACE Although she is almost unknown today, Isabella Whitney was the first woman, other than members of the aristocracy or the church, whose poetic works are known to have been published in England. Her two volumes of poetry. The Copy of a letter, lately written in meeter, by a. yonge Gentilwoman (1567?) and A sweet Nosgay (1573), exist today in apparently unique copies, the former at the Bodleian and the latter at the British Library; consequently, her work has not been readily available to scholars. Later editions of her work are not, for one reason or another, completely satisfactory. The two nineteenth-century editions of The Copy of a Letter by Collier (1863) and Arber (1896) vary extensively from the Bodleian octavo, and are, therefore, not reliable; twentieth-century editors have usually chosen to reprint only single poems or excerpts from her poems. The most complete modern edition of Whitney's work, Richard Panofsky's photoreproduction in 1982, provided little critical commentary, and mentioned, but did not include, the poems which were attributed to Whitney by Henry Green in 1866 and by Robert Fehrenbach in 1981. In an attempt to make Whitney's work more readily available to scholars and students of the early English Renaissance, this edition brings together all the work signed by Whitney and the work attributed to her by vi nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars, as well as providing a biography based on what is known and what safely can be surmised about Whitney herself. This edition provides a complete bibliographic description of the present state of her sixteenth-century texts, and places Whitney's poetry in its historical and literary context so that modern readers can more fully understand her unique place in English literary history. The poems themselves have been annotated, with sources and influences identified wherever possible, and a final Appendix examines the two nineteenth- century editions of Whitney's The Copy of a, letter and shows why neither should be considered authoritative. A glossary defines archaic and dialectical words in the text of the poems, and serves as an index to their location and the location of her allusions to mythological figures and to other writers. In attempting to make Whitney's work more accessible to modern readers, this edition has been modeled after the publications of the Early English Text Society which have long been a model for editions of the works of minor writers, or of lesser-known works by major writers. Vll BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE We can say very little about Isabella Whitney's life with certainty. She was the mid-sixteenth-century author of two small volumes of poetry. The Copy of a. letter, lately written in meeter, h^ £ yonge Gentilwoman (1567?) and A Sweet Nosgay (1573). She was a member of the Whitney family of Coole Pilate, a township in the parish of Acton, near Nantwich in Cheshire, and the sister of Geoffrey Whitney, the author of A Choice of Emblemes (1586) from which Shakespeare gained much of his knowledge of emblems. As the registers both of Acton parish and Nantwich begin too late, scholars have so far been unable to find a record of her birth. As a young adult, she lived in London in Abchurch Lane, but whether she remained there after the publication of A Sweet Nosgay, or returned to Coole Pilate as the final poem suggested she might, cannot be determined. The record of her death, perhaps under her married name, has not yet been found. Isabella Whitney's Family In 1862, Notes and Queries called her "probably of the family of Whitney of Cheshire" (32), but, one year later, J. Payne Collier argued that no such person existed: "we have little doubt that Elderton, Deloney, Munday, or some other popular scribbler, put the pamphlet [The Copy of a letter] viii together for the sake of a few shillings obtained from the printer" (ii). Henry Green, in 1866, however, drew part of his biography of Geoffrey Whitney from the poems "of his sister Isabella" (liii-lvii), and the entry on Geoffrey Whitney in the Dictionary of National Biography followed Green's assertion (Sanders 143). Betty Travitsky, writing in 1980, was less convinced, and called her "possibly the sister of Geoffrey Whitney of Cheshire" ("Wyll" 77). Travitsky continued, however, by pointing out the seeming discrepancy between Geoffrey's country upbringing and Isabella's comment in her "Wyll and Testament" that she was London-bred (11. 76-77), and suggested that Isabella might have been a more distant relative of Geoffrey's instead of his sister ("Wyll" 78 n9). In answer to Travitsky, R. J. Fehrenbach pointed out that the use of "London-bred" in the poem might have meant nothing more than "Isabella's viewing herself as having been educated or trained in the larger sense in and by the city," and referred the reader to Ascham's "similar use of the verb in 1570" ("Isabella Whitney, Sir Hugh Plat," 10, and n8) . The poems of A Sweet Nosgay, with which Collier was apparently not familiar, clearly show that Isabella and Geoffrey were brother and sister, not distant relatives. The collection itself is dedicated to George Mainwaring, Esquier (of Namptwich Hundred, Cheshire), by his "Wellwilling Countrywoman." This is apparently the same ix George Mainwaring to whom Geoffrey dedicated his Emblem 139 in A Choice of Emblemes (1586), and who, according to Green, lived within eight miles of Coole Pilate, the Whitneys' home (xciv-xcv). Isabella speaks of having known Mainwaring "from our Childhod" (11. 11-12), showing that she had grown up in Cheshire, not in London. The first of her "Certain familier Epistles and friendly Letters" is addressed to her "Brother. G. W." [Geoffrey Whitney], and the second "To her Brother. B. W.," named as Brooke in the poem itself. Geoffrey addresses his Emblem 88 to his brother, "M Br. Whitney," and, in his will (1600) [see Appendix A], bequeaths "to my brother Brooke Whitney the residue of yeares yet remaininge in my Farme or lease which I holde of Richard Cotton of Cambermere" as well as most of his household goods, his horse, books, clothes, and debts (Green xciii) . Isabella's third letter is addressed "to two of her yonger Sisters seruinge in London," and Geoffrey's will mentions his sisters Evans and Margerie. Isabella next writes to "her Sister Misteris A. B.," identified in the letter as "Sister Anne" (1. 3). Again, in his will, Geoffrey leaves forty shillings to his "sister Baron," identified as Anne Borron [the sister A.