Renaissance Women Poets

(Paperback)

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Description

This edition makes available all of the poetry by the three key Renaissance women poets: Isabella Whitney (fl. 1567-73), Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621) and Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1640). Each of the poets is an innovator: with genre, language, poetical form, social and political meaning. Whitney uses print to challenge patriarchal assumptions through the very forms that carry those assumtions (Ovidian verse epistle). Sidney takes a traditional method (translation) and traditional subject matter (psalms) to produce political critique. Lanyer forges a new form in order to celebrate an ideal of female community while questioning what tradition says about women.

Author Bio

Born into the Cheshire gentry, Isabella Whitney (c.1550-) went into service in London and published two volumes of poetry.
Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621) worked in close literary collaboration with her brother, Sir Philip Sidney, and continued to write after his death.
Aemelia Lanyer (1569-1645), a devotional poet, was raised in the Countess of Kent's household and married an Italian musician.
Danielle Clarke is a lecturer in English at University College, Dublin.