Mediatrix : women, politics, and literary production in early modern England

Resource Information

The work Mediatrix : women, politics, and literary production in early modern England represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in European University Institute. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Mediatrix : women, politics, and literary production in early modern England

Title remainder

women, politics, and literary production in early modern England

Statement of responsibility

Julie Crawford

Creator

• Crawford, Julie, 1968-

Subject

• Authors and patrons -- Europe -- History -- 17th century
• Bedford, Lucy Russell, Countess of, -1627
• English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism
• English literature -- Women authors | History and criticism
• Hoby, Margaret, Lady, 1570 or 1571-1633
• Authors and patrons -- Europe -- History -- 16th century
• Pembroke, Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of, 1561-1621
• Women and literature -- England -- History -- 16th century
• Women and literature -- England -- History -- 17th century
• Wroth, Mary, Lady, approximately 1586-approximately 1640
• Literary patrons -- England

Language

eng

Summary

Mediatrix is about four interrelated communities in which politically influential women, or "mediatrixes, " played central roles, and the literary work they produced. The first focuses on Mary Sidney Herbert, the Sidney circle and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia; the second on Margaret Hoby's community of readers in recusant Yorkshire and the godly texts this reading kept alive; the third on the circle surrounding Lucy Harrington Russell, Countess of Bedford, and John Donne's verse letters, occasional poems and Holy Sonnets; and the fourth on Mary Wroth, the Sidney-Herbert alliance, and The Countess of Montgomery's Urania. While many of these women are familiar figures in feminist literary history, Mediatrix looks at their contributions less in terms of their gender or seemingly discrete roles as writers, patrons, or readers, than in terms of their religious and political affiliations and commitments. The four communities were related to each other not only by birth and marriage, but by their engagement with the cause loosely identified as militant Protestantism, invested in a limited monarchy, and advanced in no small part by what has been called "practically active" humanism, particularly the production and circulation of literary texts. By looking at the work these communities produced, as well as the places in and the means by which they did so, I argue not only that women played a central role in the production of some of England's most important literary texts, but that the work they produced was an essential part of the political, as well as the literary, culture of early modern England.--

Assigning source

Provided by Publisher

Cataloging source

NhCcYBP

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• dictionaries
• bibliography

Series statement

University Press Scholarship eBooks