1st Edition

Rhetoric, Women and Politics in Early Modern England

Edited By Jennifer Richards, Alison Thorne Copyright 2007
    264 Pages
    by Routledge

    264 Pages
    by Routledge

    Rhetoric has long been a powerful and pervasive force in political and cultural life, yet in the early modern period, rhetorical training was generally reserved as a masculine privilege. This volume argues, however, that women found a variety of ways to represent their interests persuasively, and that by looking more closely at the importance of rhetoric for early modern women, and their representation within rhetorical culture, we also gain a better understanding of their capacity for political action.

    Offering a fascinating overview of women and rhetoric in early modern culture, the contributors to this book:

    • examine constructions of female speech in a range of male-authored texts, from Shakespeare to Milton and Marvell
    • trace how women interceded on behalf of clients or family members, proclaimed their spiritual beliefs and sought to influence public opinion
    • explore the most significant forms of female rhetorical self-representation in the period, including supplication, complaint and preaching
    • demonstrate how these forms enabled women from across the social spectrum, from Elizabeth I to the Quaker Dorothy Waugh, to intervene in political life.

    Drawing upon incisive analysis of a wide range of literary texts including poetry, drama, prose polemics, letters and speeches, Rhetoric, Women and Politics in Early Modern England presents an important new perspective on the early modern world, forms of rhetoric, and the role of women in the culture and politics of the time.

    Acknowledgements.  List of Contributors.  1. Introduction  2. Spelling Backwards  3. Caught in Medias Res: Female Intercession, ‘Regulation’ and ‘Exchange’  4. Speaking Women: Rhetoric and the Construction of Female Talk  5. Letter Writing Lucrece: Shakespeare in the 1590s  6. ‘Prebyterian Sibyl’: Truth-telling and Gender in The Third Advice to a Painter  7. Exemplarity, Women and Political Rhetoric  8. The Rhetoric of (In)fertility: Shifting Responses to Elizabeth I’s Childlessness  9. Women’s Letters of Recommendation and the Rhetoric of Friendship in Sixteenth-Century England  10. Embodied Rhetoric: Quaker Public Discourse in the 1650s.  Afterword.  Bibliography

    Biography

    Jennifer Richards, Alison Thorne