From Library Journal
These 17 scholarly essays should provoke a reconsideration of what Travitsky calls "gendered assumptions" about political, literary, and economic representations of Renaissance women. Grouped in five sections, these impeccably documented essays examine outspokenness, politics, drama, the private sphere, and writers of the Sidney family. A variety of feminist revisionist approaches are used. Half the essays examine works by women writers (e.g. Elizabeth Cary, Mary Wroth, Mary Sidney, and Elizabeth Egerton). Others, like Judith Bronfman's "Griselda, Renaissance Woman" and Constance Jordan's reading of the Siena portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, analyze male canonical works as cultural productions. Elaine Beilin's descriptive bibliography on works by women writers of the period is commendable. This is a vital contribution to Renaissance scholarship.
- Susanna Bartmann Pathak, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Susanna Bartmann Pathak, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
