Sharpening Her Pen: Strategies of Rhetorical Violence by Early Modern English Women Writers

This chapter analyses early-modern English women writers and the number and patterns of their publication of religious and secular texts between 1640 and 1680. The chapter’s focus is on the impact of the English Civil War and Cromwellian Republic on women’s political thought, particularly their ideas about temporal monarchy and the highest magistrate, or God. The women writers featured include the puritan and parliamentarian writers Eleanor Davies, Mary Pope, Katherine Chidley and Mary Cary, and the Catholic, Anglican and royalist writers Helen More, Elizabeth Major, Dorothy Pakington and Rachel Jevon. Quakers examined include Margaret Fell, Dorothy Burch and Priscilla Cotton. Margaret Cavendish’s work is classified as uniquely secular at a time when women’s political thinking was almost entirely shaped by religion.

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"But Why No Women Write, I Pray?" Sarah Jinner’s Defence of Women’s Public Voice in Her Almanacs

Sederi ◽

10.34136/sederi.2013.4 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 79-94

Author(s):

Susana Oliveira

Keyword(s):

Women Writers ◽

Seventeenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Medical Advice ◽

Devotional Literature ◽

Scientific Background ◽

Early Modern English ◽

Woman Author ◽

Public Voice ◽

Specific Education

In seventeenth century England women writers had already been able to move beyond the two genres of writing that had initially been approved for them: translation and devotional literature. It is noteworthy, however, to acknowledge women as authors of almanacs, considering that these writings required a scientific background based upon a specific education in medicine and astrology usually inaccessible to women. Between 1658 and 1664, Sarah Jinner emerged as the first woman author of almanacs. Besides the anticipated prophecies and medical advice, this London astrologer also advocated women’s public voice in her works: “But why no women write, I pray?” Jinner used these popular and widely read Early Modern English texts to publicise her defence of women. This paper focuses on Jinner’s open challenge to the Aristotelian perspective on women and her defence of women’s public voice.

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