The History of British Women's Writing, 1610–1690
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The History of British Women’s Writing, 1610–1690 The History of British Women’s Writing General Editors: Jennie Batchelor and Cora Kaplan Advisory Board: Isobel Armstrong, Rachel Bowlby, Carolyn Dinshaw, Margaret Ezell, Margaret Ferguson, Isobel Grundy, and Felicity Nussbaum The History of British Women’s Writing is an innovative and ambitious monograph series that seeks both to synthesize the work of several generations of feminist scholars, and to advance new directions for the study of women’s writing. Volume editors and contributors are leading scholars whose work collectively reflects the global excellence in this expanding field of study. It is envisaged that this series will be a key resource for specialist and non-specialist scholars and students alike. Titles include: Caroline Bicks and Jennifer Summit (editors) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1500–1610 Volume Two Mihoko Suzuki (editor) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1610–1690 Volume Three Ros Ballaster (editor) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1690–1750 Volume Four Jacqueline M. Labbe (editor) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1750–1830 Volume Five Forthcoming titles: Elizabeth Herbert McAvoy and Diane Watt (editors) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 700–1500 Volume One Mary Joannou (editor) THE HISTORY OF BRITISH WOMEN’S WRITING, 1920–1945 Volume Eight History of British Women’s Writing Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–230–20079–1 hardback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a stand- ing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of diffi culty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England The History of British Women’s Writing, 1610–1690 Volume Three Edited by Mihoko Suzuki Professor of English and Director of the Center for the Humanities at the University of Miami Palgrave macmillan Selection and editorial matter © Mihoko Suzuki 2011 Individual chapters © contributors 2011 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-22460-5 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors has asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-30955-9 ISBN 978-0-230-30550-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230305502 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 Contents List of Figures vii Series Preface viii Acknowledgments x Notes on Contributors xi Chronology xv Introduction 1 Mihoko Suzuki Part I Networks, Debates, Traditions, Discourses 1 Identifying as (Women) Writers 33 Paul Salzman 2 Channeling the Gender Debate: Legitimation and Agency in Seventeenth-Century Tracts and Women’s Poetry 48 Megan Matchinske 3 All about Eve: Seventeenth-Century Women Writers and the Narrative of the Fall 64 Shannon Miller 4 English Civil War Women Writers and the Discourses of Fifth Monarchism 80 Katharine Gillespie Part II Modes and Sites 5 Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscript Writing 99 Victoria E. Burke 6 Reading Seventeenth-Century Women’s Letters 114 Susan Wiseman 7 ‘Herselfe livinge, to be pictured’: ‘Monumental Circles’ and Women’s Self-Portraiture 129 Patricia Phillippy v vi Contents Part III New Perspectives on Literary Genres 8 ‘More lively, parfett, lasting, and more true’: Mary Wroth’s Indefensible Apologies for Poesy 155 Clare R. Kinney 9 Valuing Early Modern Women’s Verse in the Twenty-First Century 171 Pamela Hammons 10 Early Modern English Women Dramatists (1610–1690): New Perspectives 187 Marion Wynne-Davies 11 History, Satire, and Fiction by British Women Writers in the Seventeenth Century 204 Margaret Reeves Part IV Revisioning Contexts 12 Critiquing the Sexual Economies of Marriage 221 Theodora A. Jankowski 13 ‘The Empire of Man over the inferior Creatures’: British Women, Race, and Seventeenth-Century Science 238 Cristina Malcolmson 14 Questioning Gender, War, and ‘the Old Lie’: The Military Expertise of Margaret Cavendish 254 Joanne Wright 15 Women, Civil War, and Empire: The Politics of Translation in Katherine Philips’s Pompey and Horace 270 Mihoko Suzuki 16 English Women’s Writing and Islamic Empires, 1610–1690 287 Bernadette Andrea Select Bibliography 303 Index 321 List of Figures 1. Unknown artist, Monument for Margaret Talbot, St Dustan- in-the-West, London (1620). Photo: Patricia Phillippy. 130 2. Unknown artist, Monument for Richard and Charity Leche (detail), Ss Mary and Andrew, Fletching (1596). Photo: Patricia Phillippy. 133 3. Joshua Marshall, Monument for Mary Brocas, St Margaret’s Westminster (1654). © Dean and Chapter of Westminster. 135 4. Simon van de Passe, portrait of Anne Bill from Martin Day (?), Peplem Modestiae, The Vaile of Modesty (London: John Hodgett, 1621). © The British Library Board (C.122.b.8). 138 5. Bartholomew Ayte and Isaac James, Monument for Richard Kingsmill (detail), St Michael’s, Highclere (1601). Photo courtesy of Jane Malcolm-Davies (http://www.tudoreffi gies. co.uk). 140 6. Bartholomew Ayte and Isaac James, Monument for Sir Thomas Lucy II, St Leonard’s, Charlecote (1605). Photo: Phil Draper (http://www.churchcrawler.co.uk). 141 7. Unknown artist, Monument for Constance Whitney, St Giles Cripplegate, London (1628). Destroyed in World War Two. Photo: Catherine Weed Ward. Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film. 143 8. Unknown artist, Monument for Margaret Lucy, St Giles Cripplegate (1634). Photo: Patricia Phillippy. 144 9. Edward or Joshua Marshall, Monument for Frances Kniveton (detail), St Giles-in-the-Fields, London (1663). Photo: Patricia Phillippy. 147 10. Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth by Pierre Mignard. National Portrait Gallery, London (497). 222 11. Margaret Cavendish (Lucas), Duchess of Newcastle by Pieter Louis van Schuppen (after Abraham Diepenbeeck). National Portrait Gallery, London (D 11111). 235 vii Series Preface One of the most significant developments in literary studies in the last quarter of a century has been the remarkable growth of scholarship on women’s writing. This was inspired by, and in turn provided inspira- tion for, a post-war women’s movement, which saw women’s cultural expression as key to their emancipation. The retrieval, republication, and reappraisal of women’s writing, beginning in the mid-1960s, have radically affected the literary curriculum in schools and universities. A revised canon now includes many more women writers. Literature courses that focus on what women thought and wrote from antiquity onwards have become popular undergraduate and postgraduate options. These new initiatives have meant that gender – in language, authors, texts, audience, and in the history of print culture more generally – are central questions for literary criticism and literary history. A mass of fascinating research and analysis extending over several decades now stands as testimony to a lively and diverse set of debates, in an area of work that is still expanding. Indeed so rapid has this expansion been, that it has become increas- ingly difficult for students and academics to have a comprehensive view of the wider field of women’s writing outside their own period or specialism. As the research on women has moved from the margins to the confident centre of literary studies it has become rich in essays and monographs dealing with smaller groups of authors, with particular genres and with defined periods of literary production, reflecting the divisions of intellectual labour and development of expertise that are typical of the discipline of literary studies. Collections of essays that provide overviews within particular periods and genres do exist, but no published series has taken on the mapping of the field even within one language group or national culture. A History of British Women’s Writing is intended as just such a carto- graphic standard work. Its ambition is to provide, in ten volumes edited by leading experts in the field, and comprised of newly commissioned essays by specialist scholars, a clear and integrated picture of women’s contribution to the world of letters within Great Britain from medieval viii Series Preface ix times to the present. In taking on such a wide-ranging project we were inspired by the founding, in 2003, of Chawton House Library, a UK registered charity with a unique collection of books focusing on women’s writing in English from 1600 to 1830, set in the home and working estate of Jane Austen’s brother.