Religion, Reform, and Women's Writing in Early Modern England

An important study reclaiming the importance of women in Protestant literary culture.

Kimberly Anne Coles (Author)

9780521130127, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 February 2010

264 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.39 kg

'… this is a fine piece of research that is compellingly argued and genuinely sheds new light on our understanding of early modern women's writing and its influence.' Literature and History

Long considered marginal in early modern culture, women writers were actually central to the development of a Protestant literary tradition in England. Kimberly Anne Coles explores their contribution to this tradition through thorough archival research in publication history and book circulation; the interaction of women's texts with those written by men; and the traceable influence of women's writing upon other contemporary literary works. Focusing primarily upon Katherine Parr, Anne Askew, Mary Sidney Herbert, and Anne Vaughan Lok, Coles argues that the writings of these women were among the most popular and influential works of sixteenth-century England. This book is full of prevalent material and fresh analysis for scholars of early modern literature, culture and religious history.

Introduction: making sects: women as reformers, writers and subjects in Reformation England
1. The death of the author (and the appropriation of her text): the case of Anne Askew's Examinations
2. Representing the faith of a nation: transitional spirituality in the works of Katherine Parr
3. '[A] pen to paynt': Mary Sidney Herbert and the problems of a Protestant poetics
4. A New Jerusalem: Anne Lok's 'Meditation' and the lyric voice
5. 'A Womans writing of diuinest things': Aemilia Lanyer's passion for a professional poetic vocation
Afterword.

Subject Areas: History of religion [HRAX], Literary studies: general [DSB]