Women Writers in Renaissance England

An Annotated Anthology

Randall Martin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317862901
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Critique littéraire

Of all the new developments in literary theory, feminism has proved to be the most widely influential, leading to an expansion of the traditional English canon in all periods of study. This book aims to make the work of Renaissance women writers in English better known to general and academic readers so as to strengthen the case for their future inclusion in the Renaissance literary canon. This lively book surveys women writers in the sixteenth century and early seventeenth centuries. Its selection is vast, historically representative, and original, taking examples from twenty different, relatively unknown authors in all genres of writing, including poetry, fiction, religious works, letters and journals, translation, and books on childcare. It establishes new contexts for the debate about women as writers within the period and suggests potential intertextual connections with works by well-known male authors of the same time. Individual authors and works are given concise introductions, with both modern and historical critical analysis, setting them in a theoretical and historicised context. All texts are made readily accessible through modern spelling and punctuation, on-the-page annotation and headnotes. The substantial, up-to-date bibliography provides a source for further study and research.

1

PREAMBLE: WOMEN’S SELF-IMAGE AS WRITERS

MARGARET TYLER (?–c. 1595)

EPISTLE TO THE READER, FROM DIEGO ORTÚÑEZ DE CALAHORRA’S THE MIRROR OF PRINCELY DEEDS AND KNIGHTHOOD

(c. 1578)

Introduction

In this Epistle to the Reader Margaret Tyler affirms the intellectual equality of early modern women readers. It is the first such declaration by an Englishwoman to appear in print, and it prefaces her translation of Diego Ortúñez de Calahorra’s The Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthood (c. 1578), the first full rendering of a Spanish prose-romance into English. In order to justify writing and publishing as a woman, Tyler uses the traditional hierarchical valuation of literary genres to her advantage. She draws attention to the derivative and supposedly less complex nature of translation (a ‘matter of more heed than of deep invention or exquisite learning’), suggesting that as a creative enterprise it poses no challenge to the priority of male-authored original compositions. Her work is therefore an acceptably subordinate literary activity for a woman. Yet Tyler does not defend herself merely by adopting deferential roles. The nature of her subject was bound to arouse controversy, because instead of translating a religious text she chose a work of Continental romantic fiction, a genre routinely denounced as immoral during the sixteenth century. English Protestants were suspicious of its Catholic origins, while Renaissance humanists objected to its typical courtly-love narratives in which passionate relationships between men and women occur outside marriage – and by implication women possess considerable power over men (Krontiris 1992: 23–6). For example, Juan Luis Vives, the leading early sixteenth-century proponent of classical education for women, forbade them the reading of romances. Despite persistent attacks, the genre nonetheless grew steadily in popularity, particularly amongst female readers to whom three of the greatest English romances – John Lyly’s Euphues (1579), Sidney’s Arcadia (c. 1580) and Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590ff.) – were formally dedicated (Hull 1982: 75–6). Prohibitions on women writing romantic fiction remained unchallenged until Lady Mary Wroth published The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania in 1621. The fact that Tyler prefixes her feminist arguments to a Spanish romance at this date, when women were restricted largely to translating devotional or classical works and romantic fiction had yet to be socially rehabilitated, makes her work courageous and prescient.

Regrettably we know little about the writer herself except for what can be gleaned from this Epistle and a Dedication to Lord Thomas Howard that precedes it. Tyler had been a member of his parents’ household and may have been educated there according to humanist theories, but with the unusual addition of Spanish, a language not commonly studied in England at the time. Its inclusion in the household curriculum may owe something to family tradition, since Lord Thomas’s grandfather, the Earl of Surrey, was a celebrated poet who knew Italian and Spanish and hired the distinguished scholar Hadrianus Junius to tutor his family (Williams 1964: 6). Tyler’s knowledge of Spanish may also be related to the Howard family’s Catholic connections. Thomas Howard’s father, the 4th Duke of Norfolk, although outwardly a conforming Protestant, had been discussed as a possible husband to Mary Queen of Scots and was imprisoned for his association with the Northern Rebellion (1569) which attempted to place Mary, a Catholic, on the English throne. He was later executed for treason in 1572 for his links to the Ridolfi plot, another attempt to overthrow Elizabeth and restore Catholicism. As a result the Howard family was temporarily attainted (i.e. legally deprived of titles and status), so Tyler’s published praise of Lord Thomas and his father in her Dedication could be construed as seditious. Another theory proposed by Louise Schleiner is that Tyler translated The Mirror of Princely Deeds during readings aloud for the Duke’s second wife, Margaret (Audley) Howard, who employed her until 1564 or 1567. Schleiner has also discovered a short will written in 1595 by a ‘Margaret Tyler late of Castle Campes’ near Cambridge. While it seems likely to be the translator’s, the document unfortunately does not shed much additional light on her life (Schleiner 1992: 1–6). Finally, Moira Ferguson (1985: 51) suggests that Tyler’s real name may have been Tyrrell, changed to disguise her religion (or, if she was related to the Howards by marriage, to suppress obvious links to them).

After these somewhat unsatisfactory personal speculations, one turns with greater confidence to the Epistle itself, which boldly sets out to vindicate Tyler’s rights as a female reader and writer. Besides strengthening her position by praising Ortúñez’s ingenuity and moral integrity, she defends her choice of a work dealing largely with chivalry on the grounds that it represents a legitimate exercise of the creative imagination in which first-hand experience is no more necessary for men than for women. Besides, she argues, the impact of war on both sexes gives them a mutual – if grim – interest in the subject. Moreover, though Tyler could have chosen a merely entertaining text from among the many issued by men, this would be an empty justification of her own skills and intelligence. Instead her defence ‘is by example of the best’ authors: men habitually dedicate books to women on all kinds of subjects, sacred and secular; if they may do so, then women may read in any of these areas without reproach. And if reading is permissible, why not also deeper study of them, through the art of translation? Indeed, Tyler concludes, if women’s opinions and reputations can be valued by men in their dedications, ‘it is all one for a woman to pen a story as for a man to address his story to a woman’. Meanwhile Tyler tempers her possible over-assertiveness in several ways. She claims that translating secular material was essential to avoid being drawn into theological controversy (traditionally another male domain), and that the socially questionable step of printing her work is excused by her age (she writes as a mature woman, and has been reading Ortúñez for some time). She likewise reassures her readers that this is her only attempt to publish, and that close friends or relations had urged her to make public use of her talents. While male authors often used the last of these pretexts to signal conventional literary modesty, for women it became almost an obligatory element of their prefatory defences when venturing into the restrictive zone of masculine print culture.

Editions:

The Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthood (c. 1578). STC 18859, reel 1029. The Paradise of Women, ed. Betty Travitsky (Westport, Conn., 1981, brief excerpts). First Feminists: British Women Writers 1578–1799, ed. Moira Ferguson (Bloomington, 1985).

ANNE DOWRICHE (?–1638)

EPISTLE TO THE READER, FROM THE FRENCH HISTORY

(1589)

Introduction

Anne Dowriche cites a well-known passage from Corinthians to justify her enterprise: ‘What is to be done then, brethren? when ye come together, according as every one of you hath a psalm, or hath doctrine, or hath a tongue, or hath revelation, or hath interpretation, let all things be done unto edifying’ (14.26). ‘Edify’ means to build up, and Dowriche implies that her verse-histories will deepen her readers’ moral knowledge and fortify their community. What is perhaps less obvious to us but Dowriche is certain to have known is that this same chapter of Corinthians contains St Paul’s endlessly repeated prohibition on female public speech: ‘Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they ought to be subject’ (14.34). Many modern scholars now regard this verse as a post-Pauline interpolation, but for Dowriche it created a dilemma, contradicting the liberating exhortation to edify. From a wider perspective, therefore, this Epistle addresses a cultural paradox faced by all female writers during this period, the implications of which extend Dowriche’s ‘only purpose’ beyond its narrowly stated aims. On the one hand, male authorities barred women from exercising their intellectual and prophetic gifts in clerical or many secular offices. On the other hand, Renaissance theologians affirmed their equal capacity for moral growth and spiritual insight, which spurred Protestant female reformers to assert their right to interpret scripture as their consciences guided them, and publicly to defend – and die for – Reformation doctrines. Dowriche’s solution is similar to that arrived at by other women of the time: to subordinate Pauline-inspired restrictions on female speech (while never being free to ignore them) and to foreground the larger context of Corinthians which authorises both women and men to act for worthy common causes. As her main work unfolds we receive a strong impression of her passionate delight in being able to write in support of militant Protestantism.

We begin to sense a measure of this personal commitment here as Dowriche outlines her reasons for versifying prose accounts of Huguenot (French Protestant) sufferings during the sixteenth-century wars of religion. Though she at first depreciates her skill and experience, this is token modesty, since her ambition to raise the moral standard of poetry is hardly compatible with shrinking amateurism. As Elaine Beilin observes, ‘hesitantly … [Dowriche] presents herself as a poet; yet her artistic goals are no less than to write God’s truth, to regenerate poetry, and to move a wide audience with [its] power’ (1987: 102). In putting forward her work as a model for imitation, Dowriche hopes that it will establish her public reputation and grant her an authoritative speaking-position comparable to male writers such as Christopher Marlowe, whose Massacre at Paris (c. 1592) depends upon the same sources and sectarian viewpoint as The French History. Dowriche makes it clear she is aware of what is at stake when towards the end of her Epistle she promises the reader ‘more excellent actions’ if her present work finds approval. Her final arguments for writing again begin unassumingly but develop important implications: using re-creations of topical speeches and events to engage readers’ imaginative and emotional sympathies, while offering solidarity to those persecuted for their religious beliefs. Given the continuing material involvement of the Elizabethan government and certain powerful families such as the Sidneys in Continental religious conflicts, Dowriche’s subject inevitably touches on national policies, though she does not explicitly offer political advice – conventionally an exclusively masculine discourse – until the end of her volume, where she exhorts the Queen to heed Huguenot pleas for aid and to repel Catholic attempts to undermine English interests.

(For further discussion see the selection from The French History below.)

Editions:

The French History (1589). STC 7159, reel 289. The Paradise of Women, ed. Betty Travitsky (Westport, Conn., 1981, brief excerpts).

ANNE DOWRICHE

FROM THE FRENCH HISTORY

(1589)

EPISTLE TO THE READER

Amongst many excellent precepts which St Paul gave unto the church, this is to be considered: let all things be done unto edifying. If this had been of all men well considered, many things which now fly abroad might well have been spared. That my only purpose in collecting and framing this work was to edify, comfort, and stir up the godly minds unto care, watchful...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 PREAMBLE: WOMEN’S SELF-IMAGE AS WRITERS
• 2 PROSE
• 3 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
• 4 VERSE
• Textual Notes
• Bibliography