Early Modern Women’s Writing and the Rhetoric of Modesty

Early Modern Literature in History General Editors: Cedric C. Brown, Professor of English and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Reading; Andrew Hadfield, Professor of English, University of Sussex, Brighton International Advisory Board: Sharon Achinstein, University of Oxford; Jean Howard, University of Columbia; John Kerrigan, University of Cambridge; Richard McCoy, CUNY; Michelle O’Callaghan, University of Reading; Cathy Shrank, University of Sheffield; Adam Smyth, University of London; Steven Zwicker, Washington University, St Louis. Within the period 1520–1740 this series discusses many kinds of writing, both within and outside the established canon. The volumes may employ different theoretical perspectives, but they share a historical awareness and an interest in seeing their texts in lively negotiation with their own and successive cultures. Titles include: John M. Adrian LOCAL NEGOTIATIONS OF ENGLISH NATIONHOOD, 1570–1680 Robyn Adams and Rosanna Cox DIPLOMACY AND EARLY MODERN CULTURE Jocelyn Catty WRITING RAPE, WRITING WOMEN IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Unbridled Speech Patrick Cheney MARLOWE’S REPUBLICAN AUTHORSHIP Lucan, Liberty, and the Sublime David Coleman DRAMA AND THE SACRAMENTS IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND Indelible Characters Katharine A. Craik READING SENSATIONS IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Bruce Danner EDMUND SPENSER'S WAR ON LORD BURGHLEY James Daybell (editor) r EARLY MODERN WOMEN’S LETTER-WRITING, 1450–1700 James Daybell and Peter Hinds (editors) MATERIAL READINGS OF EARLY MODERN CULTURE Texts and Social Practices, 1580–1730 James Daybell THE MATERIAL LETTER IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Manuscript Letters and the Culture and Practices of Letter-Writing, 1512–1635 Matthew Dimmock and Andrew Hadfield (editors) THE RELIGIONS OF THE BOOK Christian Perceptions, 1400–1660 Maria Franziska Fahey METAPHOR AND SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA Unchaste Signification Mary Floyd-Wilson and Garrett A. Sullivan Jr (editors) ENVIRONMENT AND EMBODIMENT IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Kenneth J.E. Graham and Philip D. Collington (editors) SHAKESPEARE AND RELIGIOUS CHANGE Teresa Grant and Barbara Ravelhofer ENGLISH HISTORICAL DRAMA, 1500–1660 Forms Outside the Canon Johanna Harris and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (editors) THE INTELLECTUAL CULTURE OF PURITAN WOMEN, 1558–1680 Constance Jordan and Karen Cunningham (editors) THE LAW IN SHAKESPEARE Claire Jowitt (editor) r PIRATES? THE POLITICS OF PLUNDER, 1550–1650 Gregory Kneidel RETHINKING THE TURN TO RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE Edel Lamb PERFORMING CHILDHOOD IN THE EARLY MODERN THEATRE The Children’s Playing Companies (1599–1613) Katherine R. Larson EARLY MODERN WOMEN IN CONVERSATION Jean-Christopher Mayer SHAKESPEARE’S HYBRID FAITH History, Religion and the Stage Scott L. Newstok QUOTING DEATH IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND The Poetics of Epitaphs Beyond the Tomb Patricia Pender EARLY MODERN WOMEN’S WRITING AND THE RHETORIC OF MODESTY Jane Pettegree FOREIGN AND NATIVE ON THE ENGLISH STAGE, 1588–1611 Metaphor and National Identity Fred Schurink (editor) r TUDOR TRANSLATION Adrian Streete (editor) r EARLY MODERN DRAMA AND THE BIBLE Contexts and Readings, 1570–1625 Marion Wynne-Davies WOMEN WRITERS AND FAMILIAL DISCOURSE IN THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE Relative Values The series Early Modern Literature in History is published in association with the Early Modern Research Centre at the University of Reading and the Centre for Early Modern Studies at the University of Sussex Early Modern Literature in History Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–333–71472–0 (Hardback) 978–0–333–80321–9 (Paperback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Early Modern Women’s Writing and the Rhetoric of Modesty Patricia Pender University of Newcastle, Australia © Patricia Pender 2012 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-36224-6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-34858-9 DOI 10.1057/9781137008015 ISBN 978-1-137-00801-5 (eBook) This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 For my mother and my father This page intentionally left blank Contents ix Acknowledgements Introduction – Authorial Alibis: Early Modern and Late Modern 1 2 From Self-Effacement to Sprezzatura: Modesty and Manipulation Sola Scriptura: Reading, Speech, and Silence in The Examinations of Anne Askew I Askew reading II Reading Bale reading III Reading Bale reading Askew IV Between ‘sygne’ and ‘substance’: the figurality of modesty 3 ‘A worme most abjecte’: Sermo Humilis as Reformation Strategy in Katherine Parr’s Prayers or Medytacions I Prayers or Medytacions: textual composition and critical reception II Parr’s modesty rhetoric: generic and gendered, public and private III Submission and survival: rhetoric as praxis 4 Mea Mediocritas: Mary Sidney, Modesty, and the History of the Book I Mea Mediocritas: ‘my Muse offends’ II ‘But soft my muse’: the exigencies of inexpressibility III Exercises in subjection: modesty rhetoric as counter discourse IV The ghost and the machine: Philip and Mary Sidney V ‘I weav’d this webb to end’: women writers in the history of the book 5 ‘This triall of my slender skill’: Inexpressibility and Interpretative Community in Aemilia Lanyer’s Encomia I The challenge of the chiastic contract II ‘The first fruits of a womans wit’: novelty and license III Trouble in paradise: Aemilia Lanyer’s interpretative communities vii 1 16 36 39 44 48 52 64 67 72 85 92 95 100 104 108 114 122 125 130 137 viii 6 Contents ‘To be a foole in print’: Anne Bradstreet and the Romance of ‘Pirated’ Publication I ‘To super-adde in praises’: John Woodbridge’s paratexts II ‘Simple I, according to my skill’: the rhetoric of renunciation III ‘Men can do best and women know it well’: disavowal and its discontents IV ‘No rhetoricke we expect’: rewriting women’s literary history 149 152 158 161 164 Notes 171 Bibliography 194 Index 213 Acknowledgements This book has taken shape in a variety of different contexts and has benefited from a bounty of wonderful interlocutors. It is my pleasure to acknowledge some of them here. This research began as a doctoral dissertation under Stephen Orgel’s expert guidance. His patience, generosity, and good humor are rivaled only by his remarkable erudition and critical acumen. Jennifer Summit introduced me to methods of teaching and research that have been extraordinarily instructive and generative. Her attentive, thorough, and incisive readings of my work have helped shape this project in important and ongoing ways. Patricia Parker’s pioneering scholarship in early modern rhetoric and gender provided the initial inspiration for my research. Her theoretical savvy and moral support proved valuable assistance through my graduate studies. Andrea Lunsford’s arrival at Stanford was one of the chief blessings of my time there. Her energy, enthusiasm, activism, and compassion have invigorated my commitment to scholarship and pedagogy. At Pace University in New York, I am fortunate in counting many of my former colleagues firm friends. The ideas in this book have benefited from conversations with Sid Ray, Catherine Zimmer, Tom Henthorne, Jonathan Silverman, Nancy Reagin, and Martha Driver. At the University of Newcastle, where this book found its final form, I have received vital encouragement and support from Rosalind Smith, Dianne Osland, Hugh Craig, Keri Glastonbury, Brooke Collins-Gearing, Hamish Ford, Philip Dwyer, and Camilla Russell. I am particularly grateful for the generosity and insight with which Mark Gauntlet has read these chapters, often several times over. For their helpful feedback on research presented at various points in this project I would like to thank Paul Salzman, Susan Wiseman, Sarah Ross, Suzanne Trill, Danielle Clarke, Margaret Hannay, Mary Ellen Lamb, Jennifer Richards, and Fred Schurink. In Kate Lilley I am privileged to have a mentor and friend who has continued to inspire and refine the research I first commenced under her tutelage. The completion of this book would not have been possible without the stimulation and distraction offered by treasured friends and colleagues. In Australia Jane Shadbolt, Gina Laurie, Michelle Swift, kylie valentine, and the late, lamented Kylie Quinane kept me connected during my travels. ix x Acknowledgements In the US, Didi de Almeida, Skye Patrick, Jason Hill, Cat and George Luedtke, James Bourne, Stephen Donovan, Falu Bakrania, Benjamin Kolowich, Sean Keilen, Marty Rojas, Jenn Fishmann, Sara Hackenberg, and the Hackenberg family provided camaraderie, conviviality, and many fine food adventures. Ed Wright, Peter Shadbolt, Kirsten Tranter, and Russell Ward have all extended crucial friendship from their various ports of exile and repatriation. My family’s patience and support during the long gestation of this project has been nothing short of heroic. The siblings – David, Siobhan, and Sebastian – have endured erratic emails and phone calls, and provided a welcome retreat from the world of the academy. The formidable Pender women, Maimie, Emily, Maggie, and Ness have kept me strong when I needed to be and made me laugh when I didn’t think I could. My parents, to whom this book is dedicated, provided the foundation of love, curiosity, scepticism, and encouragement without which it might never have reached completion. A number of institutions and organizations provided financial support for this project at different stages of its development. In particular I wish to thank the Fulbright Foundation, the Australian Federation of University Women, the Stanford Institute for Research on Women and Gender, the Mabelle McLeod Lewis Memorial Fund, and the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Earlier versions of Chapter 2 have appeared in ‘Reading Bale Reading Anne Askew: Contested Collaboration in The Examinations,’ Huntington Library Quarterlyy 73.3 (2010): 507–23 and ‘Between “Sygne” and “Substance”: Rhetorics of Figurality in The Examinations of Anne Askew’ in Paul Salzman, ed., Expanding the Canon of Early Modern Women (Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholar’s Press, 2010), 222–33. Sections of Chapter 3 have appeared in ‘The Ghost and the Machine in the Sidney Family Corpus,’ SEL 1500–1900 0 51.1 (Winter 2011): 65–85 and ‘Mea Mediocritas: Mary Sidney and the Early Modern Rhetoric of Modesty’ in Susan Thomas, ed., What is the New Rhetoric?? (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007), 104–25. A portion of Chapter 6 has been reproduced from ‘Disciplining the Imperial Mother: Anne Bradstreet’s A Dialogue Between Old England and New’ in Jo Wallwork and Paul Salzman, eds, Women’s Writing, 1550–1750, Meridian: The La Trobe University English Review w 18.1 (2001): 115–31. I am grateful to these publishers for permission to include versions of this material here.