Early Modern Women Poets: An Anthology [Paperback]

Jane Stevenson (Editor), Peter Davidson (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0199242577 | ISBN-13: 978-0199242573 | Publication Date: May 3, 2001 | Edition: First Edition

Early Modern Women Poets represents a complete reexamination of the field, based on extensive archival research in manuscripts and early modern printed books. While it contains lavish selections from important poets such as Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips, and Aemilia Lanyer, almost half of the material included is previously unpublished and uncollected. It aims to introduce the reader to a conspectus of the verse written by women from c.1520 to 1700, at all social levels from the verse of court elite to working-class women's aphorisms, libels, and charms. All genres of verse used by early modern women are represented; as are all languages in which women's verse survives: Classical Greek and Latin, French, Italian, English, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Irish. Each woman's work is accompanied by a headnote which combines biographic information with some guidance as to the context, intended audience, and genre of her work. The collection is organized chronologically. It should be possible, as never before, to see what early modern women wrote, how they wrote it, who they wrote for, and what they said.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The editors of this anthology of early modern women's poetry have achieved a remarkable feat: they have provided examples of the work of nearly two hundred female poets, forever putting to rest the claim that not many women in this period wrote poetry.... This rich and original book will change the landscape of early modern women's writing."--Notes and Queries

"Jane Stevenson, Peter Davidson, and their associates have performed a signal service by further amplifying the corpus of recovered verse by early modern women. For Early Modern Women Poets: An Anthology solidly and neatly extends the field of recovered women's poetry for our study.... Early Modern Women Poets has succeeded in demonstrating the variety of poems by early modern English women and in making them available in an attractive volume that is a must for the shelves of both beginning and advanced students of the early modern woman writer."--Renaissance Quarterly

About the Author

Jane Stevenson is Reader in English at Kings College, University of Aberdeen. Peter Davidson is Regius Chalmers Professor of English at the University of Aberdeen.

Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; First Edition edition (May 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199242577
• ISBN-13: 978-0199242573
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,403,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)