Jennifer Summit
Engl. 214a, Spring 1999
http://www.stanford.edu/class/engl214a
summit@leland.stanford.edu
This course introduces bibliographical and theoretical approaches to the study of early women writers (from the 15th through the 17th centuries) from primary, textual materials and a variety of other sources. Rather than offering a survey of major women writers as such, the seminar investigates women's writing as a material practice, situating it within the particular forms, media, and genres in which it participated in order to understand better the range of positions available to the woman writer within late medieval and early modern literary culture. As much as possible, we will be examining women's writing from original sources; this course therefore offers an introduction to the bibliographical methodologies that make this kind of examination possible--paleography, the study of early printed sources and visual materials, and a growing range of on-line sources. Our examination will also necessarily engage some of the larger, theoretical issues that early women's writing raises for literary study more broadly: in what specific, material ways have acts or artifacts of writing been gendered in the late medieval and early modern periods? what role has "the woman writer" played in the history of reading, writing, authorship, and the book? what meanings and values have been made to define "women's writing" at different historical moments? and how have women writers employed the various media, genres, and materials of writing to different ends and effects?
This course does not assume prior experience with archival sources; however, it does assume a strong, working knowledge of late medieval and early modern literary cultures and genres, as well as a high level of tolerance for large amounts of material in sometimes challenging prose and eye-straining writing or print, so be forewarned. Course enrollment is limited to 12.
(*please note: It is not necessary to purchase all of the texts below; indeed, given that many of our primary sources are available either on-line or on microfilm, you could get by with making very few book purchases. While some texts might be useful for medievalists or Renaissance specialists to own, nearly all will be available either on library reserve or through special arrangement.)
One short transcription exercise (due April 9); a 15-minute presentation on a topic of your choice (sign-up before week 2); a seminar paper (15-20 pages, due June 9)
Please read before the first class:
Woolf, from "A Room of One's Own," Ezell, "A Tradition of Our Own: Writing Women's Literary History in the Twentieth Century," Foucault, "What is an Author?" King, "Bibliography and a Feminist Apparatus of Literary Production"
April 2: Introduction: The Female Author and the Woman's Hand
Topics: the history of "the author" and the challenge of writing by women
Materials: female signatures and handwriting (handout); introduction to paleography
April 9: Lyric Poetry in Manuscript
Topics: is a woman writing? what happens to the female author in the manuscript miscellany?
Read: manuscript poetry from Findern Manuscript, Devonshire Manuscript, Lady Anne Southwell's Commonplace Book (handouts)
Due today: using English Handwriting, 1400-1650 as a guide, select and carefully transcribe a poem from one of the 15th, 16th, or 17th-century manuscripts we will be reading for this week and come prepared to talk about the questions it raises about gender and writing: what difference does it make to imagine whether woman or a man is writing? If there is a signature, what relation does it bear to the poem? what does this poem say about the "place" (social, textual, sexual, etc.) of female authorship?
Presentation (sign up):
gender, authorship, and the manuscript miscellany
Secondary reading:
Ezell, "Women Writers: Patterns of Manuscript Circulation and Publication" (Reader 2)
Marotti, from "Lyrics and the Manuscript System" (Reader 2)
Boffey, "Women Authors and Women's Literacy" (Meale)
Hackett, "Courtly Writing by Women" (Wilcox)
Greetham, "Paleography" (*optional)
April 16: From Manuscript to Print: the Case of Christine de Pizan
Topics: what happens to the female author in the shift from manuscript to early print culture?
Read: Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
Supplementary materials: illuminations from B.L. Harley MS 4431; prologue and selected sections from The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes (Henry Pepwell, 1521) (Reader 1)
Presentations:
--The female author in illuminated manuscripts
--The female author in early print culture
Secondary reading:
Quilligan, "The Name of the Author" (Reader 2)
Hindman, "With Ink and Mortar" and "The Composition of the Manuscript..." (Reader 2)
Greetham, "Typography" (*optional)
April 23: Women and Devotion/ Pre-Reformation
Topics: women's visions and prayers, medieval devotional culture of images and indulgences
Read: The Book of Margery Kempe
Supplementary materials: The XV Oes (Caxton); opening, The Orcharde of Syon; selections from Katherine of Siena and "A Shorte Treatyse of Comtemplacyon ...taken out of the boke of Margery kempe ancresse of Lynne" (1521); devotional woodcuts (Reader 1)
In class: look at books of hours, Legenda Aurea from Special Collections
Presentations:
--Visual culture of devotion
--Books of hours
--Prayer and indulgences
Secondary reading:
Hamburger, "Patterns of Piety--Protocols of Vision" (Reader 2)
Penketh, "Women and Books of Hours" (Reader 2)
Riddy, "Women Talking About the Things of God" (Meale)
April 30: Women and Devotion/ Post-Reformation
Topics: women as objects and agents of Reformation; the Reformation of female prayer
Read: The Examinations of Anne Askew; Elizabeth I, trans., A Godly Meditation of the Christian Soul
Supplementary materials: selections from Elizabeth's manuscript; selections, Bentley, Monument of Matrons; manuscript prayers from the commonplace book of Elizabeth, Lady Huntington (1633) (Reader 1)
In class: look at Foxe, Acts and Monuments
Presentations:
--Reformation and censorship
--Female martyrs of the Reformation
--Elizabeth I and Katherine Parr
Secondary reading:
Willen, "Women and Religion in Early Modern England" (Reader 2)
Trill, "Religion and the Construction of Femininity" (Wilcox)
May 7: Female Authorship Between the Lines: Mary Sidney
Topics: mourning, loss, and the apparitional female author
Read: Mary Sidney, The Tragedie of Antonie (in Cerasano and Wynne-Davies); Psalms; Triumph of Death; "Lay of Clorinda" (Reader 1)
Presentations:
--Gender and the Sidney circle
--Mary Sidney's Tragedie of Antonie and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra
Secondary reading:
Goldberg, "Posting Sidneys" and "The Countess of Pembroke's Literal Translation" (Reader)
May 14: Women Instructing in Prose
Topics: the development of the female pedagogical "voice"; instruction, gender, and class; the construction or transgression of the female sphere of knowledge
Read: selections, "Dame Julian Berners," The Book of Hunting and Fishing; Elizabeth Joceline, The Mothers Legacie to her Unborn Child; Jane Sharp, The Midwives Book; Hannah Wolley, The Queene-Like Closet (Reader 1); Wolley, "The Cook's Guide" (http://www.wwp.brown.edu/rwo/TROO366.html); see also "Hannah Wolley," "The Gentlewoman's Companion: or, a Guide to the Female Sex" (on-line: http://chaucer.library.emory.edu/wwrp/unedit_web/wolley/ue21.html)
Presentations:
--The female pedagogue
--Cooking and midwifery as female vocations
--The cookbook as female instruction
Secondary reading:
Travitsky, "The Possibilities of Prose" (Wilcox)
May 21: Diaries and Autobiography
Topics: the female self in public and private; writing as feminine self-fashioning
Read: autobiographical writings by Anne Clifford, Anna Trapnel, Margaret Cavendish, Susanna Parr, Alice Thornton (from Her Own Life); Margaret Cavendish, The Life of the thrice noble High and Puissant Prince, William Cavendish, Duke, Marquess, and Earl of Newcastle ... (1667) (in special collections: SCRB 900524 00005); Margaret Cavendish, Sociable Letters (1664) (in special collections: SCRB 890509 00018)
Presentations:
--The history of the private diary
--Female autobiography
Secondary reading:
Graham, "Women's Writing and the Self" (Wilcox)
May 28: Women and Drama
Topics: performing femininity; theatres of desire
Read: Lady Mary Wroth, Love's Victory; Lady Jane Cavendish and Lady Elizabeth Brackley, The Concealed Fancies (in Cerasano and Wynne-Davies); Margaret Cavendish, The Convent of Pleasure (on-line: http://www.wwp.brown.edu/rwo/TROO326.05.html)
Possibly we might be able to see a videotaped production of The Convent of Pleasure: watch this space!
Presentation:
--Women and the English theatre (as spectators, writers, performers)
Secondary reading:
Thompson, "Women/'Women' and the Stage" (Wilcox)
Ballaster, "The First Female Dramatists" (Wilcox)