Feminist criticism in the Renaissance and seventeenth century

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139167314.004

2 - Feminist criticism in the Renaissance and seventeenth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

Helen Wilcox

Edited by

Gill Plain and

Susan Sellers

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Helen Wilcox: Affiliation:
University of Wales, Bangor
Gill Plain: Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Susan Sellers: Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland

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Summary

EARLY MODERN WOMEN: COURAGEOUS OR SILENT?

The period under discussion in this chapter, approximately 1550 to 1700, was an immensely exciting time in terms of the history of women and literature in England. Female writers were beginning to publish their works, both through manuscript circulation and in printed books, in an enormous variety of genres including poems, plays, conversion narratives, advice books, translations, letters, devotional texts, prophecies, pamphlets, memoirs and works of philosophy and fiction. In social and political terms, too, this was an era when female rulers – seen by John Knox and no doubt other contemporaries as a ‘monstrous regiment’ – came to prominence. When Mary Tudor became queen in 1553, she was England's first Queen Regnant since the disputed rule of Matilda in the twelfth century. The iconic female image of Elizabeth I, Mary's half-sister who succeeded her on the throne, is a symbol of the political and cultural dominance of the ‘Virgin Queen’ during the second half of the sixteenth century. Though Elizabeth felt the need to represent herself as possessing the ‘heart and stomach of a king’ in spite of having the body of a ‘weak and feeble woman’, she was in this way – paradoxically – not afraid to draw attention to her gendered identity (Elizabeth I, 2000: 326).

Spurred on by her example, as well as by frustration with prevailing patriarchal values, Elizabeth's female subjects began to publish defences of their own sex, even though they often did so under the protection of a pseudonym.

Type: Chapter
Information: A History of Feminist Literary Criticism , pp. 27 - 45

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139167314.004 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2007

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