MADAME MEDIATOR: WOMEN WRITERS TH OF 17 CENTURY ATLANTICISM A Doctoral Dissertation Submitted by Andrea L. Humphrey In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English TUFTS UNIVERSITY May 2011 Adviser: Carol Houlihan Flynn Tufts Faculty Readers: Modhumita Roy Kevin Dunn Outside Faculty Reader: Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace (Professor of English, Boston College) Humphrey ii ABSTRACT Beginning with Madam Mediator, Margaret Cavendish's liminal character in her closet drama The Convent of Pleasure, this study examines the mediation between complicity and subversion required of women writers seeking access to publication and circulation in the late seventeenth century. Contemporaries Aphra Behn and Maria Sibylla Merian emerge as skilled mediators navigating not only complicity and subversion, but also the Atlantic itself during missions to European colonies in Surinam where few men with far more resources dared venture. After profound cross-cultural encounters, they produced writing that conformed sufficiently to gain wide audiences, but that also archived subversive responses to imperial racism and sexism for subsequent women writers to recover. One such writer, Beryl Gilroy, born in Guyana the 1920's, recovers mediated subversions like those in Behn's and Merian's works as what Raymond Williams calls "structures of feeling" awaiting incorporation into hegemonic culture. Using her Atlanticist position to difuse her subaltern status, Gilroy transforms archived structures of feeling in the works of 17th century women writers into fully voiced tropicopolitan blasts at the foundations of empire. In the process, Gilroy models what Laura Brown calls radical contemporeneity, but Gilroy does it across cultures as well as time, drawing out of the enocunters among structures of feeling about race and sex "quantum leaps" of imagination, as Adrienne Rich calls them, that "spark like a dialectic," as Audre Lorde asserts, from which 21st century writers can begin to forumlate visions of human interaction without racist and sexist oppression. Humphrey iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Like most dissertations, this one has been a long time coming: seven years since the first proposal. Support has come from many sources, some from the start, some at the end, but each one crucial in their role. First is my advisor, Carol Flynn. Generous, attentive, quick, and wise, she has been available even from her isolated summer cottage in Scotland to read, respond and always reassure. Choosing Carol as my advisor was the wisest professional decision I ever made. My Tufts graduate colleagues, Jessica Wandrei, Marta Rivera Monclova, Delilah Bermudez Brataas, and Kellie Donovan Condron have been my most stalwart and rowdy supports, beginning with our first literary theory class together in Fall 1999. Of course, their reading of endless (in number and length) drafts was astute and constructive, but most valuable were the lunches and beer sessions convened for the purpose of re-upping after every pitfall and stumble. Support also came from other excellent sources like the Graduate Women's Studies Consortium Dissertation Reading Group, which put me among feminist colleagues from many disciplines. Guided by facilitator Dr. Erica Harth, Professor Emeritus of Brandeis University, our group sharpened my writing considerably. Similarly, course work with my second reader, Dr. Modhumita Roy, and third reader, Dr. Kevin Dunn, of the Tufts English Department provided analytical skills, theoretical positions, and academic courage, which I hope this work manifests. I am also grateful to Dr. Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace for taking on the role of outside reader. While I did not work with individual Tufts librarians, I am grateful for the facility and resources they manage at Tisch Library which made my research Humphrey iv possible. When I required access to rare volumes of Maria Sibylla Merian's work, Carol Minton Morris connected me to Marty Schalbach, Librarian at the Entomology Library at Cornell University. Marty made me feel right at home in my first "visiting scholar" stint. As crucial as these academic supports have been, I could not have done this work without the support of teaching colleagues, friends, and family who continually conveyed their interest and support. I can't give all their names here, but colleagues Elisa Giaquinto, Lauress Wilkins, Lorna Rinear, Pat Elliott, Jayson Baker, and Julia Lisella have been vocal and constant in their support. My brother, Dan Jenkins, has also been a tireless enthusiastic cheerleader. The importance of my children's contribution to my work simply cannot be conveyed. They have generously embraced the project and me when I was at my wits end, helping financially and materially in ways I can only address privately. Their regularly scheduled life events – weddings, childbirths, graduations, professional successes, and geographical moves – helped keep me focused on the important things in life. My love and gratitude to Jesse Johnson, Eryn Johnson, Andrew Humphrey and Stephanie Humphrey is unending. Finally, last to appear in my dissertating life is my partner, Emma Hamer, who made up for lost time with an unbelievable eagerness to make tea, cook gourmet meals, dispense hugs, and otherwise stay out of the way of the writing. She also reminded me to party sometimes. She has been a treasure as I've labored through the last efforts toward completion. Thank you to all of you for making it possible to do this work that I love. Humphrey v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................ v LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................. vii Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................. 1 INTRODUCTION – MADAME MEDIATOR THE MARXIST FEMINIST ... 1 Radical Imagination and Ecumenical Reading ................................... 1 Structures of Feeling in the Atlantic Cockpit ..................................... 9 Feminist genealogy and Strategic Essentialism ................................ 19 Structures of feeling in Solution – a cultural metaphor .................... 35 The Ecumenizing Text ...................................................................... 49 Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................... 53 APHRA BEHN'S ATLANTICIST LIFE: MADAME MEDIATOR THE SPY ........................................................................................................................... 53 Atlanticism – the container of western culture ................................. 60 Behn's Life ........................................................................................ 63 Challenges to Atlanticism ................................................................. 70 Behn's path to Suriname ................................................................... 85 Behn and literature ............................................................................ 92 Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................... 95 APHRA BEHN'S ATLANTICIST TEXTS ....................................................... 95 Gender in The Young King............................................................... 96 Presumptions about race in Abdelazer ............................................ 102 Beyond 20th Century Presumptions about Oroonoko ..................... 107 No Widow, Ranter .......................................................................... 131 Chapter 4 ............................................................................................................. 155 MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN'S SUBALTERN LIFE: MADAME MEDIATOR IN THE FIELD WITH INSECTS................................................................... 155 Subalterity – dissolution of the solute ............................................. 159 Merian's Life ................................................................................... 170 Gendered Subaltern Life ................................................................. 175 Religion as Chrysalis ...................................................................... 205 Chapter 5 ............................................................................................................. 212 MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN’S UNSUBALTERN TEXTS ........................ 212 Merian's Work ................................................................................. 212 Atlanticist Work: Science transmutes from Alchemy .................... 219 Merian in Suriname: Cracking the Chrysalis .................................. 233 Metamorphosis Completed: Amsterdam Again and Finally .......... 240 Conclusion: Who Gets To Educate The World? ............................. 270 Chapter 6 ............................................................................................................. 278 BERYL GILROY’S TROPICOPOLITAN LIFE: MADAME MEDIATOR THE SCHOLAR ............................................................................................. 278 Exploring Derrida’s Blank Space ..................................................