The Polemics & Poems of Rachel Speght (Women Writers in English 1350-1850) - Softcover

Speght, Rachel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195086155 ISBN 13: 9780195086157

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1996

Synopsis

Rachel Speght (1597?-?) is the first Englishwoman to identify herself, unapologetically and by name as a polemicist and critic of contemporary gender ideology. Her tract, A Mouzell for Melastomus (1617), is at once a spirited answer to Joseph Swetnam's very popular treatise attacking women (1617) and also a serious effort to stake women's claim to prevailing Protestant discourse of biblical exegesis, forcing it to yield a more expansive and more suitable concept of women's nature and role. Her volume of poetry, Mortalities Memorandum, with a Dreame Prefixed (1612), includes a long memento mori mediation and an allegorical dream vision that recounts her own rapturous encounter with learning. Both vigorously defend women's education and the encouragement of women's talent.

About this title

Review:

As is true in general of the editors in this series, Lewalski's edition of The Polemics and Poems of Rachel Speght is an informative and accessible text for both specialists and non-specialists. Her thoughtful commentary and notes open up the texts for scholars, providing insight into Speght's literary and social milieux and assistance with her vocabulary and sources. It is an important addition to the canon of pamphlets concerned with the formal controversy over woman in England during this period. (Seventeenth Century News)

Renaissance scholars and their students will welcome Barbara Lewalski's lucid introduction to Speght's works....Readers of Lewalski's earlier work will find the compressed rhetoric of the introduction compelling, appreciating the first appearance of this meticulously edited text. Her methodology is eclectic, drawing on formalist, generic, historical, and deconstructive terminology in the introductory material. (Renaissance Quarterly)

From the Back Cover:

Rachel Speght was the first Englishwoman to identify herself, unmistakably and by name, as a polemicist and critic of contemporary gender ideology. This edition includes her foray into the Jacobean gender wars and her collected poems.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0195086155
• ISBN 13: 9780195086157
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144