Major Women Writers Of Seventeenth Century England

The first comprehensive anthology of seventeenth-century English women writers

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Leipzig (Institut für Anglistik), course: Culture and Literature of 17th century England , language: English, abstract: Contents Introduction 1 The 17th Century Britain 1.1 Political Background 1.2 Population and Religion 1.3 Literature and Theatre 2 Female Authorship 2.1 Situation of Women 2.2 Writing and Publishing as a Woman 3 Margaret Cavendish 3.1 Biography 3.2 Life and Work as a Writer 3.3 Cavendish’s Natural Philosophy 3.4 The Atomic Poems Summary Bibliography Introduction The present paper deals with the topic oft female authorship in the literary world of the seventeenth-century England and puts the emphasis on an exceptional and prolific female writer: Margaret Cavendish. This works is divided into three main parts. The first section serves as an introduction to the main topic and provides the reader with background information about the political, social, religious and literary situation during that time. It presents a review of the tumultuous succession of the English throne, the rising Puritan movement throughout the century and the development of English theatre after the era of the Elizabethan Stage at the end of the sixteenth century. The second part describes women’s role in the patriarchal society of the seventeenth century and the difficulties of their every-day life. It also points out the obstacles and difficulties women encountered when trying to enter the male-dominated literary world and names Aphra Behn and Katherine Philips as two women, who, nevertheless, established themselves as successful female writers. Finally, the third and last part of this paper is dedicated to the prolific writer Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. It contains an overview of her life and work and especially examines her as the first woman to publish her own natural philosophy, for which she was criticized by many of her contemporaries.

This anthology represents a re-examination of its field, based on extensive archival research. Each woman's work is accompanied by a headnote which combines biographic information with some guidance as to the context, intended audience and genre.

This is a major new textbook, designed for students in all disciplines seeking an introduction to the very latest research on all aspects of women's lives in Europe from 1500 to 1750, and on the development of the notions of masculinity and femininity. The coverage is geographically broad, ranging from Spain to Scandinavia, and from Russia to Ireland, and the topics investigated include the female life-cycle, literacy, women's economic role, sexuality, artistic creations, female piety - and witchcraft - and the relationship between gender and power. To aid students each chapter contains extensive notes on further reading (but few footnotes), and the approach throughout is designed to render the subject in as accessible and stimulating manner as possible. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe is suitable for usage on numerous courses in women's history, early modern European history, and comparative history.

Ramona Way introduces readers to a range of writing by women across the breadth of the 17th century. In doing so, she traces the trajectory of women's writing from the first stirrings of female authorship in the late 16th century to the emergence of the professional woman writer at the Restoration.

Written by various experts in the field, this volume of thirteen original essays explores some of the most significant theoretical and practical fault lines and controversies in seventeenth-century English literature. The turn into the twenty-first century is an appropriate time to take stock of the state of the field, and, as part of that stocktaking, the need arises to assess both where literary study of the early modern period has been and where it might desirably go. Hence, many of the essays in this collection look both backward and forward. They chart the changes in the field over the past half century, while also looking forward to more change in the future.

In Domesticity and Dissent Katharine Gillespie examines writings by seventeenth-century English Puritan women who fought for religious freedom. Seeking the right to preach and prophesy, women such as Katherine Chidley, Anna Trapnel, Elizabeth Poole, and Anne Wentworth envisioned the modern political principles of toleration, the separation of Church from state, privacy, and individualism. Gillespie argues that their sermons, prophesies, and petitions illustrate the fact that these liberal theories did not originate only with such well-known male thinkers as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. Rather, they emerged also from a group of determined female religious dissenters who used the Bible to reassess traditional definitions of womanhood, public speech and religious and political authority. Gillespie takes the 'pamphlet literatures' of the seventeenth century as important subjects for analysis, and her study contributes to the important scholarship on the revolutionary writings that emerged during the volatile years of the mid-seventeenth-century Civil War in England.

In a famous passage in A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf asked 'why women did not write poetry in the Elizabethan age'. She went on to speculate about an imaginary Judith Shakespeare who might have been destined for a career as illustrious as that of her brother William, except that she had none of his chances. The truth is that many women wrote during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and this collection will serve to introduce modern readers to the full variety of women's writing in this period from poems, prose and fiction to prophecies, letters, tracts and philosophy. The collection begins with the poetry of Isabella Whitney, who worked in a gentlewoman's household in London in the late 1560s, and ends with Aphra Behn who was employed as a spy in Amsterdam by Charles II. Here are examples of the work of twelve women writers, allowing the reader to sample the diverse and lively output of all classes and opinions, from artistcrats such as Mary Wroth, Anne Clifford and Margaret Cavendish to women of obscure background caught up in the religious ferment of the mid seventeenth century like Hester Biddle, Pricscilla Cotton and Mary Cole. The collection includes three plays, and a generous selection of poetry, letters, diary, prose fiction, religious polemic, prohecy and scienticficic speculation, offering the reader the possibilility of tracing patterns through the works collected and some sense of historical shifts and changes. All the extracts are edited afresh from original sources and the anthology includes comprehensive notes, both explanatory and textual. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.