Religion, Reform, and Women's Writing in Early Modern England
Cambridge University Press, 1/17/2008
EAN 9780521880671, ISBN10: 052188067X
Hardcover, 264 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm
Language: English
Long considered marginal in early modern culture, women writers were actually central to the development of a Protestant literary tradition in England. Kimberly Anne Coles explores their contribution to this tradition through thorough archival research in publication history and book circulation; the interaction of women's texts with those written by men; and the traceable influence of women's writing upon other contemporary literary works. Focusing primarily upon Katherine Parr, Anne Askew, Mary Sidney Herbert, and Anne Vaughan Lok, Coles argues that the writings of these women were among the most popular and influential works of sixteenth-century England. This book is full of prevalent material and fresh analysis for scholars of early modern literature, culture and religious history.
Introduction
making sects
women as reformers, writers and subjects in Reformation England
1. The death of the author (and the appropriation of her text)
the case of Anne Askew's Examinations
2. Representing the faith of a nation
transitional spirituality in the works of Katherine Parr
3. '[A] pen to paynt'
Mary Sidney Herbert and the problems of a Protestant poetics
4. A New Jerusalem
Anne Lok's 'Meditation' and the lyric voice
5. 'A Womans writing of diuinest things'
Aemilia Lanyer's passion for a professional poetic vocation
Afterword.