This course will discuss the work of sixteenth- and seventeeth-century women poets writing from old and new worlds; the selections will span the period until the restoration in 1660. While we will read the poetry of Isabella Whitney, Anne Vaughan Lock, Anne Dowriche, Mary Sidney Herbert, Elizabeth Melville, Elizabeth Jane Weston, Bathsua Reginald, Aemilia Lanyer, Mary Wroth, An Collins, "Eliza," Anne Bradstreet, Katherine Philips and Margaret Cavendish with reference to and in the context of their male contemporaries (of cavalier and metaphysical schools, Anglican and Puritan loyalties), our purpose is not to position these women on the non-canonical periphery. These poets were not cultural subalterns. We will investigate their concepts of poetry and subjectivity to understand their relationship to the emerging discourses of selfhood, sexuality and statecraft. We will consider how their poetry embodies and dramatizes the connections between love and friendship, the imprinting of religious and political allegiances, and the modes of fashioning domestic realities.
TEXTS Major Women Writers of Seventeenth-Century England, ed. J. Fitzmaurice et al. (U Michigan P, 1997) Women Writers in Renaissance England, ed. R Martin (Longman, 1997) Collected Works of Lady Mary Sidney Herbert, vol 2, Psalms (Clarendon 1998) Collected Works of Katherine Philips, vol. 3, Poems (Stump Cross, 1993) Poems of Lady Mary Wroth, ed. J. Roberts (Louisiana State UP, 1983)
SECONDARY and REFERENCE TEXTS: on reserve in Rutherford The Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimile Library of Essential Works, ed. B. Travtisky and P. Cullen, 10 vols (Scolar, 1996) Elizabeth Jane Weston, Collected Writings, ed. D. Cheney and B. Hosington (U Toronto P, 2000) Paper Bodies: A Margaret Cavendish Reader, ed. S. Bowerbank and S. Mendelson (Broadview, 2000) Anne Vaughan Locke, Collected Writings, ed. S. Felche (U Arizona P, 1999) Kissing the Rod: An Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Women's Verse, ed. G. Greer et al (Virago, 1988)