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Lady Mary Wroth's Empowerment of Female Authorship

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Lady Mary Wroth's Empowerment of Female Authorship LADY MARY WROTH'S EMPOWERMENT OF FEMALE AUTHORSHIP A University Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, East Bay In Partial Fulfillment ofthe Requirements for the Degree Master in English By Teresa M. Brandt June, 2006 LADY MARY WROTH'S EMPOWERMENT OF FEMALE AUTHORSHIP By Teresa M. Brandt Date: 11 Table ofContents Page Chapter One Lady Mary Wroth's Empowennent ofFemale Authorship Through Her Sidnean Heritage 1 Chapter Two Empowennent ofFemale Authorship in The First Part ofThe Countess ofMontgomery's Urania 20 Chapter Three Empowennent ofFemale Authorship in Pamphilia to Amphilanthus 50 Works Consulted 76 111 I Chapter I: Lady Mary Wroth's Empowerment ofFemale Authorship Through Her Sidnean Heritage Long before Lady Mary Wroth published The First Part ofThe Countess of Montgomery's Urania and Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, the pastoral tradition represented the literary symbol ofjustice and contentment, ofrighteousness within a perfect civilization. Since classical times, pastorals have offered a tangible expression ofabstract virtues such as innocence, generosity, modesty, truth, and faith. When Lady Mary Wroth's uncle Philip Sidney wrote The OldArcadia, he blended his prose with an acute understanding ofthe value ofjustice in remedying personal and public misfortunes. By writing The OldArcadia, Sidney continued the classical tradition that the country life provides a defense against adversity and a relieffrom ill consequences. Almost the entire fifth book is concerned with the trial ofthe two princes, Musidorus and Pyrocles. Ironically, Sidney wrote this pastoral during a difficult period ofhis life while his extended family was experiencing misfortune and during a time when Sidney, himself, seemed to lack favor with Queen Elizabeth I and, consequently, found difficulty in obtaining employment. An examination ofhis literary works reveals that Sidney believed that he lived in an unjust age, but he effectively used his poetic skill and intellectual expression to articulate how justice should function in society. Sidney's pastoral The OldArcadia, and his sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella, firmly established the pastoral as an English literary tradition during the sixteenth century-a tradition that juxtaposed aesthetic, moral, and political values against the reality ofthe English political landscape as a tool ofreform. 2 In Urania and Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, Wroth is concerned with fairness in society, but particularly with justice pertaining to the lives and social liberties ofwomen during the reign ofJames I, who ruled in the early seventeenth century. Like her uncle, Wroth also chose the pastoral as a vehicle for changing society; she critiques the patriarchal status quo and manifests an alternative vision for the participation and contributionofwomen in seventeenth-century society. Wroth creates her alternative vision by granting considerable agency to female characters. Instead ofcompletely abandoning the conventions ofthe pastoral that objectify women, Wroth uses satire to illustrate how such conventions are unrealistic representations ofwomen. Wroth also criticizes the conventions that characterize and romanticize men by using humor and Irony. While Philip Sidney and other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English male authors participated in the English Renaissance by writing literature that was infused with classical references and a rapidly expanding English vocabulary, Tudor and Stuart women writers were largely limited in their literary pursuits to the practice of translations. During James I's reign, women lost even more freedom ofexpression as the king supported the publication of"conduct books" that attempted to confine women to home and marriage, social structures largely dominated by men. Naomi J. Miller asserts, however, that the monarchy's efforts to limit women's social activities indicates a "presence ofconflicting notions ofwhat was acceptably ... appropriate for a woman to write, and what right a voice from 'elsewhere' had to depict, let alone attack, the 'center.'" She further believes that Wroth's marginalized position helped to develop her 3 literary voice (Changing the Subject 10). Wroth, who appears to have been intensely aware ofher marginalized status and the need to establish authority for her position as a writer in her society, promotes her literary credibility by directly associating Urania with the works ofrespected authors within her family and with other contemporary writers of her time. Wroth's Literary Association with Philip Sidney By connecting Urania's plot with the works ofother authors within the Sidney family, Wroth asserts her place within a respected, literary heritage passed down to her through patriarchal lines. Kim Walker comments that the title ofWroth's romance, The Countess ofMontgomery's Urania, echoes the title ofher uncle Philip Sidney's revised pastoral The Countess ofPembroke's Arcadia, which includes a story ofthe missing shepherdess Urania in the Fourth Eclogue (171). A comparison ofSidney's narrative about Urania in Arcadia to the beginning ofWroth's account ofher in Urania reveals that Wroth clearly intends her Urania to represent the same lost shepherdess ofSidney's tale. Sidney describes Urania as "thought [to be] a shepherd's daughter, but indeed offar greater birth" (284). To Strephon and Claius, however, who are devoted to Urania and sing her praises within a double sestina and a crown ofpoems, Urania represents more than a mere shepherdess. They describe her as ifshe possesses divine powers "whose least word brings from the spheres their music" or at "whose approach the sun rase in the evening" (Arcadia 287). Elaine V. Beilin suggests that Sidney associates Urania with Christ by surrounding her with "Christological references-the thorn, the lamb, the sheep-hook, her poverty, her charity, her humble, devoted followers" and strongly 4 suggests that Wroth, also, embodies a spiritual principle within the character ofUrania (216). Indeed, Urania plays a significant role in Wroth's pastoral as a counselor and guide to others in their search for love and self-actualization. In Wroth's legend, Urania's shepherd parents tell her that she is not their daughter, but was given to them to raise as their own. While Urania is lamenting the ignorance ofher heritage, she meets Perissus, who declares that she is more like a princess than a shepherdess. Soon after, Urania leaves her foster parents for Naples after she discovers the truth ofher royal lineage; she is the princess ofNaples, sister to Amphilanthus, and cousin to Pamphilia. Urania's significant familial relationship to Wroth's two main characters signifies her importance in their lives. At key moments of Pamphilia's despair over Amphilanthus, Urania counsels Pamphilia to convert her attachment to passionate love into fidelity to divine love: "I love Love, as he should be loved, and so deare Lady do you, and then you will plainly see, he is not such a Deity, as your Idolatry makes him" (Urania 3.469). Wroth's Urania represents Pamphilia's spiritual guide, reminiscent ofVirgil who served as Dante's spiritual guide in The Divine Comedy and who helped Dante transform his tormented, earth-bound perspective into divine perception. An appraisal ofPamphiIia's character further reveals Wroth's indebtedness to Sidney's Arcadia. Wroth symbolically authorizes her participation in the Sidnean literary tradition by arranging for Pamphilia to inherit her kingdom, not from her father, but from her uncle: '''Goe I must with mine Uncle, to be seene to the Pamphilians, and acknowledged their Princesse .... He long since chose me, and to that end gave mee that 5 name" (Urania 1.145). This is a deliberate strategy on Wroth's part ofusing the status of her uncle Sidney to gain access to the privileged territory ofsecular writing. Pamphilia's personality also resonates with the characteristics oftwo ofSidney's "complex female characters," Pamela and Philoclea (Beilin 215). Certainly, her name seems to be a permutation oftheirs. Pamela is the older ofthe two sisters and portrays the characteristics ofa future queen, while Philoclea, the younger, represents the embodiment ofbeauty and fruitful love. Beilin describes the sisters as follows: "Pamela and Philoclea reflect the archetypal opposition ofDiana or armed chastity and Venus or love.... Pamela displays a virtuous self-sufficiency, while Philoclea invites relationship" (215). The sisters emulate contrasting virtues: one is active, the other passive. Wroth's Pamphilia exemplifies all oftheir combined, heroic characteristics and represents a "philosophically complex, emotionally conflicted, and more varied, more profound, more significant female hero" (Beilin 216). In Pamphilia, Wroth emphasizes not only the traditional female virtues-love, chastity and modesty-but also the more progressive virtues ofindependence and contribution to society. Pamphilia desires to love, yet radiates dignity and self-sufficiency at the same time, expressing these feelings and qualities in her lamentations, poetry, and through the care ofher monarchy. Wroth's Literary Connection to Mary Sidney Herbert The influence ofMary Sidney Herbert, The Countess ofPembroke, is manifested not only through one ofWroth's characters, but also through Wroth's writing style. Wroth was Herbert's goddaughter and her namesake. Since Wroth's father was often away on business during her childhood, Wroth's mother, Barbara Gamage, and her 6 children often visited Herbert's "palatial homes at Wilton and
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