Module Identifier
EN38630
Module Title
RENAISSANCE WOMEN AND WRITING
Academic Year
2008/2009
Co-ordinator
Dr Jayne Archer
Semester
Intended for use in future years
Other Staff
 

Course Delivery

Delivery Type Delivery length / details
Seminars / Tutorials 10 x 2 hour seminars
 

Assessment

Assessment Type Assessment length / details Proportion
Semester Assessment 2 x 3000 word essays  100%
Supplementary Assessment Resubmit or resit failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. 

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to:
1. Demonstrate a broad knowledge of writing by and about women in the period 1550-1666.

2. Show awareness of the main theoretical issues concerning gender difference and writing in the period 1550-1666

3. Analyze critically literary and non-literary texts by men and women

4. Situate literary and non-literary texts within their historical moment, and identify the influence of contemporary debates in politics and religion

Content

Outline Programme:

Week 1: Introduction: Women and Writing in Renaissance England.
Extracts from books on medicine, theology, law, and political theory.

Week 2: Royal Women.
Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) ? selected speeches, poems, letters, and prayers.

Week 3: Martial Women.
Edmund Spenser, Book 3, The Faerie Queene (c. 1596).

Week 4: Women and the City.
Isabella Whitney, `The Last Will and Testament? (1573).
Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton, The Roaring Girl (c1607-1610).

Week 5: Women and Speech.
William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew (1594).

Week 6: Women and the querelle des femmes.
Aemilia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611).
John Donne, selected poems from Songs and Sonnets (c. 1593).
Rachel Speght, A Mouzell for Melastomus (1617)

Week 7: Women and Romance.
Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus (1621).
Selections from Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella (1591).

Week 8: Women and Science.
Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World (1666).

Week 9: Women and the Literary Marketplace.
Hester Pulter, 'Poems Breathed Forth by the Noble Hadassa' (1640-1660s).
Katherine Philips (1632-1664), selected poems.

Week 10: Did Englishwomen have a Renaissance?
Revision seminar, dicussing the themes raised in the module and selected extracts from feminist criticism.


Aims

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf asked 'why women did not write poetry in the Elizabethan age'. Unable to find any examples of Elizabethan women writers, Woolf invented the imaginary 'Judith Shakespeare', who might have enjoyed a career as successful as that of her brother William, had she only been born a man. In fact, many women wrote during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including Queen Elizabeth I herself.

This module will explore some of the writings by and about Renaissance women, and will examine a range of genres, from poems, drama, prose, and fiction, to prophecies, letters, polemics, and philosophy. Each week, we'll focus on a particular woman writer or on a male-authored work in which the representation of women is of central importance. The texts will be read within the contexts of the life and social milieu of the author, her or his political and religious affiliations, and the historical moment. Wherever possible, writings by women will be set in 'conversation' with male-authored works of the same period or genre, thus enabling an assessment of the role of gender difference in helping shape literary and authorial identity in Renaissance England.

Brief description

This module will focus on writing by and about women of the English Renaissance (1550-1666), and will explore the religious, political, and cultural issues relevant to the time.

Module Skills

Skills Type Skills details
Communication written communication through the production of essays oral communication in the form of seminar discussions and presentations (not assessed)
Improving own Learning and Performance developing own research skills, management of time
Information Technology use of electronic resources (EEBO); production of written work
Problem solving formulating and developing an extended argument
Research skills developing independent study
Subject Specific Skills Detailed analysis of literary and cultural texts and evaluation of broad intellectual concepts
Team work presentations will be give by teams of two or three

Reading List

General Text
Cavendish, Margaret (March 2005) The Blazing World and Other Writings Penguin Classics [Imprint] Primo search Essential Reading
(2000.) Early modern women's writing :an anthology, 1550-1700 /editor, Paul Salzman. Oxford University Press Primo search Middleton, Thomas (1997.) The roaring girl /by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker; edited by Elizabeth Cook. A. & C. Black Primo search Shakespeare, William (Aug. 2006) The Taming of the Shrew Penguin Books, Limited Primo search Spenser, Edmund (1978) The faerie queene /Edmund Spenser ; edited by Thomas P. Roche with the assistance of C. Patrick O'Donnell. Penguin Primo search Supplementary Text
(2005.) Early modern women's manuscript poetry /edited by Jill Seal Millman & Gillian Wright. Manchester University Press Primo search (1995.) Renaissance woman :a sourcebook : constructions of femininity in England /edited by Kate Aughterson. Routledge Primo search Donne, John (Feb. 1994) The Complete English Poems Everyman Primo search Recommended Background
(2000.) "This double voice";gendered writing in early modern England /edited by Danielle Clarke and Elizabeth Clarke. Macmillan Primo search (c2004.) Early modern women's manuscript writing :selected papers from the Trinity/Trent colloquium /edited by Victoria E. Burke, Jonathan Gibson. Ashgate Primo search (1998.) Maids and mistresses, cousins and queens :women's alliances in early modern England /edited by Susan Frye and Karen Robertson. Oxford University Press Primo search (c1991.) Reading Mary Wroth :representing alternatives in early modern England /edited by Naomi J. Miller and Gary Waller. University of Tennessee Press Primo search (2005.) Reconceiving the Renaissance :a critical reader /Ewan Fernie ... [et al.]. Oxford University Press Primo search (1985.) Silent but for the word : Tudor women as patrons, translators and writers of religious works /edited by Margaret Patterson Hannay. Kent State University Press Primo search (1986.) Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance :literary and historical perspectives /edited, with an introduction, by Mary Beth Rose. Syracuse University Press Primo search Beilin, Elaine V. (c1987.) Redeeming Eve :women writers of the English Renaissance /Elaine V. Beilin. Princeton University Press Primo search Chalmers, Hero. (2004.) Royalist women writers, 1650-1689 /Hero Chalmers. Clarendon Press Primo search Dowd, Michelle M. (April 2007) Genre and Women's Life Writing in Early Modern England Ashgate Publishing, Limited Primo search Ezell, Margaret J. M. (1987.) The patriarch's wife : literary evidence and the history of the family /Margaret J.M. Ezell. University of North Carolina Press Primo search Ezell, Margaret J. M. (c1993.) Writing women's literary history /Margaret J. M. Ezell. Johns Hopkins University Press Primo search Jardine, Lisa. (1983.) Still harping on daughters :women and drama in the age of Shakespeare /Lisa Jardine. Harvester Wheatsheaf Primo search Krontiris, Tina (1992.) Oppositional voices :women as writers and translators of literature in the English Renaissance /Tina Krontiris. Routledge Primo search Mendelson, Sara Heller (1987.) The mental world of Stuart women :three studies /Sara Heller Mendelson. Harvester Primo search Mendelson, Sara Heller (1998) Women in early modern England, 1550-1720 /Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford. Clarendon Press Primo search Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish (1999.) Paper bodies :a Margaret Cavendish reader /Margaret Cavendish ; edited by Sylvia Bowerbank and Sara Mendelson. BRAD Primo search Rose, Mary Beth. (2002.) Gender and heroism in early modern English literature /Mary Beth Rose. University of Chicago Press Primo search Schleiner, Louise. (c1994.) Tudor and Stuart women writers /by Louise Schleiner ; with translations from Latin by Connie McQuillen, from Greek by Lynn E. Roller. Indiana University Press Primo search Waller, Gary (Sept. 1993) The Sidney Family Romance:Mary Wroth, William Herbert and the Early Modern Construction of Gender Wayne State University Press Primo search

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6