scholarly journals “The True Forme of Love”: Transforming the Petrarchan Tradition in the Poetry of Lady Mary Wroth (1587–1631)

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-26
Author(s):  
Tomáš Jajtner
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
Lady Mary Wroth ◽  
Female Poets

Abstract The following article deals with the transformation of the Petrachan idea of love in the work of Lady Mary Wroth (1587-1631), the first woman poet to write a secular sonnet sequence in English literature, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. The author of the article discusses the literary and historical context of the work, the position of female poets in early modern England and then focuses on the main differences in Wroth’s treatment of the topic of heterosexual love: the reversal of gender roles, i.e., the woman being the “active” speaker of the sonnets; the de-objectifying of the lover and the perspective of love understood not as a possessive power struggle, but as an experience of togetherness, based on the gradual interpenetration of two equal partners.

Doubtful Readers

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin A. McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
William Shakespeare ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
English Literature ◽  
John Donne ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Aemilia Lanyer ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Early Modern Poetry ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Over Time

Doubtful Readers: Print, Poetry, and the Reading Public in Early Modern England focuses on early modern publishers’ efforts to identify and accommodate new readers of verse that had previously been restricted to particular social networks in manuscript. Focusing on the period between the maturing of the market for printed English literature in the 1590s and the emergence of the professional poet following the Restoration, this study shows that poetry was shaped by—and itself shaped—strong print publication traditions. By reading printed editions of poems by William Shakespeare, Aemilia Lanyer, John Donne, and others, this book shows how publishers negotiated genre, gender, social access, reputation, literary knowledge, and the value of English literature itself. It uses literary, historical, bibliographical, and quantitative evidence to show how publishers’ strategies changed over time. Ultimately, Doubtful Readers argues that although—or perhaps because—publishers’ interpretive and editorial efforts are often elided in studies of early modern poetry, their interventions have had an enduring impact on our canons, texts, and literary histories.

scholarly journals Women, Marriage, Property and Law: Contextualizing The Witch of Edmonton

Early Theatre ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Stretton
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Personal Relations ◽  
Marital Property ◽  
The Witch

Changes in marital property and marriage negotiations, the economy, and personal relations in early modern England form the backdrop for key elements of The Witch of Edmonton. This essay draws on recent scholarship surrounding these changes to provide historical context for analyzing the play. It argues that the commercialization of economic relations and the emergence of trusts facilitated a shift away from customary arrangements (such as dower) towards more contractual ones (such as jointures). Meanwhile, increased reliance on credit and legal instruments, such as bonds, produced record levels of litigation, contributing to legalistic thinking and cynicism about legal agreements. 

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Erin A. McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Lyric Poetry ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Multiple Agents ◽  
Social Form ◽  
Print Publication ◽  
Book Publication

This chapter introduces Doubtful Readers: Print, Poetry, and the Reading Public in Early Modern England. Early modern lyric poetry was a social form, but print publication made poems available to anyone who either had the means to a buy a book or knew someone who did, radically expanding the early modern reading public. The study focuses on the period between the maturing of the market for printed English literature in the 1590s and the emergence of the professional poet following the Restoration to acknowledge changes in both the economics and aesthetics of poetry book publication. It argues that publication in its broadest sense is a form of mediation between multiple agents and material forms. Because print did not change poetry in a single way, this book presents a series of case studies. This chapter concludes with a brief overview of each.

‘Love ye therefore the strangers’: immigration and the criminal law in early modern England

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW LOCKWOOD
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTThis article offers a comprehensive examination of the relationship between foreign residents and the criminal law in early modern England, as well as an investigation of trials ‘de medietate lingue’, trials with half-English and half-foreign juries, in theory and practice. Because England witnessed both a series of foreign migrations and a series of geo-political crises in the years between 1674 and 1750, the article charts patterns of foreign prosecutions across the period in order to place them in their proper historical context. The article concludes that the protections offered by English law to foreign residents were real and significant and that these protections were especially important at points of geo-political stress.

An Ocean Untouched and Untried

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John-Mark Philo
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Vernacular Literature ◽  
Ab Urbe Condita ◽  
The Status ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
Modern Era

This is a study of the translation and reception of the Roman historian Livy in early-modern England. The work examines the four Tudor translations of Livy’s history of Rome, the Ab Urbe Condita, into the English vernacular during the sixteenth century and their engagements with the most pressing political and cultural debates of the day, from Henrician appropriations of Hannibal to arguments over the status of women. The first chapter examines Livy’s initial reception into print in Europe, outlining the attempts of his earliest editors to impose a critical order onto his enormous work. The subsequent chapters consider the respective translations undertaken by Anthony Cope, William Thomas, William Painter, and Philemon Holland, situating them among the wider trends in Classical Reception during the early-modern era. Each translation is compared in detail with the Latin original, highlighting the changes Livy’s history experienced in the process of translation. The study considers how these translations responded to and were shaped by the most recent developments in European scholarship on Livy’s history and classical historiography more generally. So too the study examines Livy’s impact on more popular forms of English literature during the Renaissance, especially the works of Shakespeare. Ultimately this research demonstrates that Livy played a fundamental though underexplored role in the development of vernacular literature, historiography, and political thought in early-modern England.

scholarly journals Underestimating Women in the Early Modern Atlantic World

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsey Bauman
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Native Peoples

This essay examines the limiting gender roles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as depicted through the detailed account of Catalina de Erauso, a Spanish woman who ran away from a convent. Disguising herself as a man, Catalina eventually journeyed to Chile, joined the militia, and took part in fighting against the native peoples of the region. Noted as being an exemplary warrior in the midst of battle, she was not detected as a woman until she exposed herself. By taking historical context into account, this essay argues that patriarchal society’s view of women is what enabled Catalina to impersonate a man so successfully. As women were stereotyped as characteristically similar and, therefore, interchangeable, they were underestimated and overlooked in these roles.

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