Women's Art
Anicka Yi at the Tate Modern, 2021
Emilia Bassano
Emilia Bassano Lanier (Lanyer), born in 1569, died 1645, was an English poet during the Elizabethan period. Her 1611 volume Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (Hail, God, King of the Jews) has made her considered as Britain's first professional female poet, noted for potentially feminist themes in her work.
A contemporary of William Shakespeare, attempts have been made to identify her with Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" or even with Shakespeare himself.
Details of her life derive from her letters, poetry, and medical and legal records, and in sources for the social contexts in which she lived. Researchers have found interactions with Lanier in astrologer Dr. Simon Forman's professional diary, the earliest known casebook kept by an English medical practitioner. She visited Forman many times in 1597 for consultations that incorporated astrological readings, as was usual in the medical practice of the period. The evidence from Forman is incomplete and sometimes hard to read; however, his notes show she was an ambitious woman keen to rise into the gentry class.
Emilia Bassano
Church records show Lanier was baptised Aemilia Bassano at the parish church of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, on 27 January 1569. Her mother, Margaret Johnson, was an Englishwoman, possibly the aunt of court composer Robert Johnson. She died when Aemilia was 18.
Lanier's sister, Angela Bassano, married Joseph Hollande in 1576, but neither of her brothers, Lewes and Phillip, reached adulthood.
It has been suggested, and disputed, that Lanier's family was Jewish or of partly Jewish descent. Susanne Woods calls the evidence for it "circumstantial but cumulatively possible." Leeds Barroll says Lanier was "probably a Jew," her baptism being "part of the vexed context of Jewish assimilation in Tudor England."
Baptiste Bassano died in 1576, when Emilia was seven years old. His will instructed his wife that he had left young Emilia a dowry of £100, to be given to her when she turned 21 or on the day of her wedding, whichever came first. Forman's records indicate that Bassano's fortune might have waned before he died.
Emilia Bassano
Forman's records also indicate that after the death of her father, Lanier went to live with Susan Bertie, Countess of Kent. Some scholars question whether Lanier went to serve Bertie or be fostered by her, but there is no conclusive evidence for either possibility.
It was in Bertie's house that Lanier was given a humanist education. Bertie greatly valued and emphasized the importance of girls receiving the same level of education as young men. This probably influenced Lanier and her decision to publish her writings. After living with Bertie, Lanier went to live with Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland and Margaret's daughter, Lady Anne Clifford. Dedications in Lanier's own poetry seem to confirm this information.
Not long after her mother's death, Lanier became the mistress of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, a Tudor courtier and cousin of Queen Elizabeth I. At the time, Lord Hunsdon was Elizabeth's Lord Chamberlain and a patron of the arts and theatre, but he was 45 years older than Lanier, and records show he gave her a pension of £40 a year.
Records indicate that Lanier enjoyed her time as his mistress. An entry from Forman's diary reads, "[Lanier] hath bin married 4 years/The old Lord Chamberlain kept her longue She was maintained in great pomp ... she hath 40£ a yere & was welthy to him that married her in monie & Jewells."
Emilia Bassano
In 1592, when she was 23, Lanier became pregnant with Hunsdon's child, but he paid her off with a sum of money. Lanier was then married to her first cousin once removed, Alfonso Lanier. He was a Queen's musician; church records show the marriage taking place at St Botolph's Aldgate on 18 October 1592. In 1593 Lanier gave birth to a son.
Forman's diary entries imply that Lanier's marriage was unhappy. The diary also relates that Lanier was happier as Lord Hunsdon's mistress than as Alfonso's bride, for "a nobleman that is ded hath Loved her well & kept her and did maintain her longe but her husband hath delte hardly with her and spent and consumed her goods and she is nowe... in debt."
Another of Forman's entries states that Lanier told him about having several miscarriages. Lanier gave birth to a daughter, Odillya, in 1598, but the child died at ten months old.
In 1611, Lanier published her volume of poetry, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. Lanier was the first woman in England to declare herself a poet. People who read her poetry considered it radical, and many scholars today refer to its style and arguments as protofeminist.
Emilia Bassano
After her husband's death in 1613, Lanier supported herself by running a school. She rented a house from Edward Smith to house her students, but disputes over the rental led to her being arrested twice between 1617 and 1619. Parents then proved unwilling to send their children to a woman with a history of arrest and Lanier's aspirations of running a prosperous school came to an end.
Lanier's son eventually married Joyce Mansfield in 1623; they had two children, Mary (1627) and Henry (1630). Henry Carey died in October 1633. Later court documents imply that Lanier may have been providing for her two grandchildren after their father's death.
Little else is known of Lanier's life between 1619 and 1635. Court documents state that she sued her husband's brother, Clement, for money owed to her from the profits of one of her late husband's financial patents. The court ruled in Lanier's favor, requiring Clement to pay her £20. Clement could not pay immediately, and so Lanier brought the suit back to court in 1636 and in 1638. There are no records to say whether Lanier was ever paid in full, but at the time of her death, she was described as a "pensioner," i. e. someone who has a steady income or pension.
Lanier died at the age of 76 and was buried at Clerkenwell, on 3 April 1645.
Emilia Bassano
In 1611, at the age of 42, Lanier published a collection of poetry called Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (Hail, God, King of the Jews). At the time it was still highly unusual for an Englishwoman to publish, especially in an attempt to make a living.
Lanier was only the fourth woman in the British Isles to publish poetry. Previously, Isabella Whitney had published a 38-page pamphlet of poetry partly written by her correspondents, Anne Dowriche, who was Cornish, and Elizabeth Melville, who was Scottish.
Lanier's book is the first book of substantial, original poetry written by an Englishwoman. She wrote it in the hope of attracting a patron. It was also the first potentially feminist work published in England, as all the dedications are to women and the title poem "Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum," about the crucifixion of Christ, is written from a woman's point of view.
Her poems advocate and praise female virtue and Christian piety, but reflect a desire for an idealized, classless world.
Emilia Bassano
Source analysis shows that Lanier draws on work that she mentions reading, including Edmund Spenser, Ovid, Petrarch, Chaucer, Boccaccio, Agrippa, as well as protofeminists like Veronica Franco and Christine de Pizan. Lanier makes use of two unpublished manuscripts and a published play translation by Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke.
She also shows a knowledge of stage plays by John Lyly and Samuel Daniel. The work of Samuel Daniel informs her Masque, a theatrical form identified in her letter to Mary Sidney and resembling the Masque in The Tempest.
The title poem "Salve Deus Rex Judæorum" is prefaced by ten shorter dedicated poems, all for aristocratic women, beginning with the Queen. There is also a prose preface addressed to the reader, containing a vindication of "virtuous women" against their detractors. The title poem, a narrative work of over 200 stanzas, tells the story of Christ's passion satirically and almost entirely from the point of view of the women who surround him. The title comes from the words of mockery supposedly addressed to Jesus on the Cross.
Emilia Bassano
Her views have been interpreted as "independent of church tradition" and heretical. Other scholars including A. L. Rowse view Lanier's conversion as genuine and her passionate devotion to Christ and to his mother as sincere. Still, comparisons have been made between Lanier's poem and religious satires that scholars have studied in Shakespearean works, including the poem The Phoenix and the Turtle and many of the plays.
In the central section of Salve Deus Lanier takes up the Querelle des Femmes by redefining Christian doctrine of "The Fall," and attacking Original Sin, which is the foundation of Christian theology and Pauline doctrine about women causing it.
Lanier defends Eve and women in general by arguing that Eve is wrongly blamed for Original Sin, while no blame attached to Adam. She argues that Adam shares the guilt, as he is shown in the Bible as being stronger than Eve, and so capable of resisting the temptation. She also defends women by noting the dedication of Christ's female followers in staying with him through the Crucifixion and first seeking him after the burial and Resurrection.
Emilia Bassano
In Salve Deus, Lanier also draws attention to Pilate's wife, a minor character in the Bible, who attempts to prevent the unjust trial and crucifixion of Christ. She also notes the male apostles that forsook and even denied Christ during His Crucifixion. Lanier repeats the anti-Semitic aspects of the Gospel accounts: hostile attitudes towards the Jews for not preventing the Crucifixion – such views were the norm for her period.
There is no scholarly consensus on the religious motivation of the title poem. Some call it a genuinely religious poem from a strong, female angle. Others see it as a piece of clever satire. Although there is no agreement on intent and motive, most scholars note the strong feminist sentiments throughout Salve Deus Rex Judæorum.
Lanier's book ends with the "Description of Cookham," commemorating Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland and her daughter Lady Anne Clifford. This is the first published country-house poem in English.
Emilia Bassano
Lanier's inspiration came from a stay at Cookham Dean, where Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland, lived with her daughter Lady Anne Clifford, for whom Lanier was engaged as tutor and companion. The poem is notable for its arresting use of similes. The Clifford household possessed a significant library, some of which can be identified in the painting The Great Picture, attributed to Jan van Belcamp. Helen Wilcox asserts in her book, 1611: Authority, Gender, and the Word in Early Modern England, that the poem is an allegory of the expulsion from Eden.
Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum has been viewed by many as one of the earliest feminist works in English literature. Academic Barbara Kiefer Lewalski calls Lanier "defender of womankind" in the article "Writing Women and Reading the Renaissance." Lewalski believes Lanier initiates her ideas of the genealogy of women with the first few poems in the collection, as dedications to prominent women. This follows the idea that "virtue and learning descend from mothers to daughters."
Academic Marie H. Loughlin argues that Lanier advocates the importance of knowledge of the spiritual and the material worlds in women's connection, and that Lanier seems to argue that women must focus on the material world and their importance in it, to complement their life in the spiritual world.
Emilia Bassano
Some have speculated that Lanier was Shakespeare's "Dark Lady." The identification, first proposed by historian A. L. Rowse, has been repeated by several authors since.
Although the color of Lanier's hair is not known, records exist of her Bassano cousins being referred to as "black," a common term at the time for brunettes or people with Mediterranean coloring. Since she came from a family of Court musicians, she fits Shakespeare's picture of a woman playing the virginal in Sonnet 128. Shakespeare claims that the woman was "forsworn" to another in Sonnet 152, which has been speculated to refer to Lanier's relations with Shakespeare's patron, Lord Hunsdon.
The theory that Lanier was the Dark Lady is doubted by other scholars. The Emilia Lanier theory of Shakespeare authorship contends that Lanier is the actual author of at least part of the plays and poems attributed to William Shakespeare. As is the case with the dozens of other candidates suggested to be the author of Shakespeare's works, this idea is not accepted by the large majority of Shakespeare scholars.
Dark Lady sonnets
The Dark Lady is a woman described in Shakespeare's sonnets (sonnets 127–152), so called because the poems make it clear that she has black wiry hair, and dark, "dun"-colored skin.
The description of the Dark Lady distinguishes itself from the Fair Youth sequence by being overtly sexual. Among these, Sonnet 151 has been characterized as "bawdy" and illustrates the difference between the spiritual love for the Fair Youth and the sexual love for the Dark Lady.
As with the Fair Youth sequence, there have been many attempts to identify her with a real historical individual. A widely held scholarly opinion, however, is that the "dark lady" is nothing more than a construct of Shakespeare's imagination and art, and any attempt to identify her with a real person is "pointless."
Emilia Bassano videos
Renaissance Women Writers: "Shakespeare's Sisters" (Folger 2011)
First Folio
Published in 1623, seven years after his death, Shakespeare’s First Folio (Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies) is the first collected edition of his plays. Compiled by colleagues John Heminge and Henry Condell, it saved 18 plays from being lost, including Macbeth and The Tempest. It contains 36 plays; without it, 18 of Shakespeare's works might have been lost forever.
Compiled by his fellow actors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, to preserve the texts, which were often based on promptbooks or original manuscripts. It was printed in 1623 in a large "folio" format (folded once to make large pages). Approximately 750 copies were printed, with only about 235 known to survive today. Included for the first time were Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, As You Like It, and Antony and Cleopatra.
One of the most expensive and rare books in the world, a copy sold for nearly $10 million in 2020.
Founded in 1932 by Henry and Emily Folger, the Folger Shakespeare Library preserves rare books, manuscripts, and art, while serving as a hub for theater, education, and research into early modern European culture. It holds over 80 First Folios (about one-third of the world's surviving copies), making it the most significant repository for Shakespearean research. Situated on Capitol Hill near the U.S. Capitol, it operates as a private non-profit institution in trust of Amherst College.
Videos
Love Poetry by Women--Folger
Who Were Shakespeare's Sisters--Folger
Women Writers in Tudor England
Lady Mary Wroth
Lady Mary Wroth was the first Englishwoman to write a complete sonnet sequence as well as an original work of prose fiction. Wroth openly transgressed the traditional boundaries by writing secular love poetry and romances. Her verse was celebrated by the leading poets of the age, including Ben Jonson, George Chapman, Josuah Sylvester, and others. Despite the controversy over the publication in 1621 of her major work of fiction, The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania, Wroth continued writing a second part of her romance and composed a five-act pastoral drama, Love’s Victory.
The eldest daughter of Sir Robert Sidney and Lady Barbara Gamage, Wroth belonged to a prominent literary family, known for its patronage of the arts. Her uncle, Sir Philip Sidney, was a leading Elizabethan poet, statesman, and soldier, whose tragic death in the Netherlands elevated him to the status of national hero.
Wroth was influenced by some of her uncle’s literary works, including his sonnet sequence, Astrophil and Stella (1591); a prose romance, intermingled with poetry, The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (existing in two distinct versions, the second of which was published in 1590); and a pastoral entertainment, The Lady of May, (written in 1578 or 1579).
Lady Mary Wroth
Wroth’s father, Sir Robert Sidney, was also a poet (his verse survived in a single manuscript and did not appear in print until 1984). Following the death of Philip, Robert was appointed to fill his brother’s post as governor of Flushing in the Netherlands, where he served throughout much of Wroth’s childhood. He kept in close touch with his family through visits and letters; his friend and adviser Rowland Whyte wrote Sidney frequent reports concerning his eldest child, whom he affectionately nicknamed “little Mall.”
One of the most powerful forces in shaping Wroth’s literary career was her aunt and godmother, Mary Sidney, married to Henry Herbert, second Earl of Pembroke. Her country estate at Wilton served as a gathering place for a diverse number of poets, theologians, and scientists. The countess of Pembroke wrote poetry and translations from French and Italian, but even more important, she boldly published her works at a time when few women dared: her Antonius, a translation of Robert Garnier’s French drama, appeared in print in 1592. She also assumed an active role as editor of the surviving works of her brother Philip and as a literary patron.
Lady Mary Wroth
One of her crowning achievements was the completion of the metrical version of the Psalms she had begun as a joint project with Philip; she heavily revised his first 43 psalms and then added 107 of her own. Her experiments in a variety of metrical and verse forms probably helped inspire Wroth’s own interest in lyrical technique. Wroth offered highly sympathetic portraits of her aunt as the Queen of Naples in the Urania, where she is described as “perfect in Poetry, and all other Princely vertues as any woman that ever liv’d,” and as Simena (an anagram for Mary Sidney) in Love’s Victory.
Wroth’s education was largely informal, obtained from household tutors under the guidance of her mother. Rowland Whyte reported in 1595 that “she is very forward in her learning,writing, and other exercises she is put to, as dawncing and the virginals.” Whyte’s letters make frequent reference to her musical education; he reassured her absent father that the children “are kept at ther bookes, they dance, they sing, they play on the lute, and are carefully kept unto yt.” It is also likely that Wroth learned French during her childhood trips to the Lowlands with her family.
Lady Mary Wroth
Negotiations for her marriage began as early as 1599, and she eventually married Sir Robert Wroth, the son of a wealthy Essex landowner, at Penshurst on September 27, 1604. Disagreements between the couple began almost immediately. In a letter Sir Robert Sidney described his unexpected meeting in London with the bridegroom, who was greatly discontented with his new wife. Fundamental differences of temperament and interests quickly became apparent.
Sir Robert Wroth, knighted by James I in 1603, rapidly advanced in the king’s favor because of his skill in hunting. He maintained country homes at Durrance and Loughton Hall, which the king visited on hunting expeditions with his friends. Unlike his wife, who served as an important patron of the arts, Wroth appears to have had few literary interests. During his entire career, only one book was dedicated to him—a treatise on mad dogs.
Ben Jonson in his conversations with William Drummond succinctly observed that Mary Wroth was “unworthily maried on a Jealous husband.” More unflattering testimony is offered by Sir John Leeke, a servant of Mary Wroth’s, who described a relative’s husband as“the foulest Churle in the world; he hath only one vertu that he seldom cometh sober to bedd, a true imitation of Sir Robert Wroth.” Indeed, the experience of an unhappy marriage seems to have inspired many episodes in Mary Wroth’s prose fiction, especially those involving arranged marriages established primarily for financial reasons.
Lady Mary Wroth
On the other hand, her husband’s favor with James I helped place Mary Wroth in the center of court activities. She gained one of the most coveted honors, a role in the first masque designed by Ben Jonson in collaboration with Inigo Jones, The Masque of Blackness, performed at Whitehall on January 6, 1605. She joined Queen Anne and 11 of her closest friends in disguising themselves as Black Ethiopian nymphs.
She also appeared with the queen in The Masque of Beauty, performed at Whitehall on January 10, 1608. She may have acted in other court masques for which the performance lists are incomplete.
By 1613 Wroth had begun her writing career. Her poems apparently circulated in manuscript long before their publication in 1621. Ben Jonson refers to “exscribing,” or copying out, her verses in one of his poems addressed to her. An early version of her sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus survives in a single manuscript, neatly copied in Wroth’s own formal italic hand, now at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Lady Mary Wroth
This autograph version of Wroth’s sequence consists of 110 songs and sonnets, plus 7 miscellaneous pieces. The sequence opens with the dream vision of Pamphilia, whose name means “all-loving,” in which she describes the triumph of Venus and Cupid over her heart. The first section of 55 poems reveals Pamphilia’s conflicting emotions as she attempts to resolve the struggle between passionate surrender and self-affirmation.
The Petrarchan model of the male lover wooing a cold, unpitying lady posed a genuine challenge to Wroth, who could not simply reverse the gender roles. Instead of presenting her female persona inactive pursuit of Amphilanthus, whose name means “lover of two,” Wroth completely omits the Petrarchan rhetoric of wooing and courtship. She addresses most of the sonnets to Cupid, night, grief, fortune, or time, rather than directly to Amphilanthus, whose name appears only in the title of the sequence.
Mary Sidney (Folger)
During her life, Mary Sidney was one of the most famous women in England, celebrated for her writing, particularly her translation of the biblical Psalms into English poems. Her brother, Sir Philip Sidney, had translated approximately one third of the Psalms, and she completed them after his death. The title on the Bodleian Library's Rawlinson manuscript calls them “more rare, and excellent, for the method and varietie then ever yet hath been done in English” because the Sidneys used so many different verse forms, including the sonnet.
Mary Sidney was also a scholar who consulted virtually every Psalm version and commentary available to her in English, French, and Latin, and she may have even studied a little Hebrew, or at least talked with Hebrew scholars. In her Psalms versions, she adds wordplay and expands metaphors. Such expansions frequently reflect her own experience, like the bride in an arranged marriage, or a woman who has experienced childbirth. The delight she took in writing these poems is evident in her version of Psalm 75:
And I secure shall spend my happy times in my, though lowly, never-dying rhymes, singing with praise the God that Jacob loveth.
Here she combines humility (her own “lowly” rhymes) with confidence in the importance of these “never-dying rhymes” that praise God.
Mary Sidney (Folger)
Shakespeare performed for the Pembroke household, but he probably used the servants’ entrance. Actors did not have the status of Mary Sidney Herbert, countess of Pembroke, who was the daughter of Sir Henry Sidney, governor of Ireland and Wales; the sister of the famous author Sir Philip Sidney, celebrated as a Protestant martyr; and the wife of Henry Herbert, earl of Pembroke, one of the richest men in England.
Her London house, Baynards Castle, once a royal palace, spread out over several city blocks in the most fashionable district along the Thames River. From there she travelled by boat to the court of Queen Elizabeth and later King James.
At her country estate of Wilton House she encouraged poets and scholars, so that her home was known as a "little university."
Katherine Philips
Katherine Philips (1632-1664) is best known today for some 140 poems she wrote on a variety of topics. Most popular among modern readers are a series of friendship poems, many of which Philips addressed to women whose sobriquets she took from literary texts popular in her own time–names such as Lucasia, Rosania, and Ardelia. Philips’s own sobriquet was Orinda, a name she apparently crafted for herself, modifying female names such as Dorinda and Florinda to create a female name which resembles (perhaps even challenges) the names of male heroes such as Shakespeare’s Orlando and the Greek god Orion.
Philips also wrote a series of letters, published in 1705 as Letters from Orinda to Poliarchus. In addition, she is important to literary history as the first female dramatist whose plays were produced in public theaters in both Dublin and London. (Unlike Aphra Behn, who is known for being the first woman to write professionally for the English stage, Philips was—as far as we know—not paid for either of her plays. What she says in her letters to Poliarchus (Sir Charles Cotterell) suggests that it was produced and then printed by aristocratic friends, rather than as commercial enterprises for which she would be paid.)
The Clifford Women: Patrons, Readers, and Writers (Folger)
Lady Anne Clifford (1590–1676) was a great reader and powerful noblewoman who spent much of her life trying to recoup the large properties that she was prevented from inheriting as a woman. She was aided by her mother, Margaret Clifford, countess of Cumberland (1560–1616). This pious and intelligent woman encouraged her daughter’s education by hiring the poet and historian Samuel Daniel as Lady Anne’s tutor. She also gave support and encouragement to Aemilia Lanyer, one of England’s first published women poets. Lanyer remembers her happy time with the Clifford women at the country estate of Cookham, “where many a learned Booke was read and skand.” Lady Anne kept a detailed diary through much of her life, and collected a large library.
Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus is dedicated to a group of women who supported writers, including both Lady Anne and her mother, Margaret Clifford; Lucy, countess of Bedford; and Mary Sidney, countess of Pembroke, herself a poet. The central portion of Aemilia Lanyer’s work, “Hail God King of the Jews,” is a religious poem in which she comments on Christ’s passion from a woman’s point of view, focusing on Pilate’s wife and on a defense of Eve. This was a bold move on Lanyer’s part, since women were not encouraged to interpret scripture at all. Lanyer also included a poem at the end titled “The Description of Cooke-ham,” an early country-house poem telling of her days at the Clifford estate.
Margaret Cavendish, English Playwright (Folger)
Cavendish’s life was shaped by the trauma of the English civil wars. She was a maid of honor to the unpopular Queen Henrietta Maria, with whom she fled into exile. In exile, she married England’s most eligible bachelor, William Cavendish, later Duke of Newcastle, with whom she lived in Paris and Antwerp for sixteen years before returning to London in 1660.
With no children and all the resources of her husband’s literary and scientific salon, Cavendish threw herself into the emerging discipline of science, even as she produced 14 volumes of plays, poems, biographies, scientific treatises, romances, and satire. Hers was a mind on fire—so much so that she would wake her scribe in the middle of the night to take dictation. Her compulsive writing compensated for her pathological shyness.
In her books she engaged and challenged her age’s leading thinkers. She satirized the Royal Society, the court, and social conventions. She forwarded copies of her lavish folio volumes to universities and members of the aristocracy. Remarkably, she arranged for an invitation to attend a meeting of the Royal Society, the only woman of her era allowed entrance into this circle of men.
Margaret Cavendish, English Playwright (Folger)
The plays in this volume were written in exile between 1656 and 1660. They revisit the conflicts of the English civil wars, depicting both physical battles and the battles within a divided mind. She probes the incongruity between the external world and the mind’s inner world, between lives of action and contemplation, engagement and retreat. Some of her heroines set out to change the world, defying social conventions by cross-dressing and becoming soldiers; one is even offered a Cardinal’s hat.
Other heroines retreat from the world in resignation by creating a monastic life for themselves. Cavendish typically includes both types of heroines within the same play, reflecting her own profound ambivalence about the proper relation between mind and world. In the frontispiece—based on a painting by the Dutch painter Abraham van Diepenbeeck — we see Cavendish situated between two gods of wisdom. On the left is Athena, carrying a shield with Medusa’s head on it; on the right is Apollo, holding his lyre. Both gods gaze on Cavendish. Her gaze, however, eyes the reader, inviting and perhaps even challenging the reader to open the book.
Isabella Whitney (Ebsco)
Isabella Whitney is best known as the first English woman to have written secular poetry for publication. She was a pioneer because she wrote original marketable poetry designed to appeal to the general public at a time when devotional writings and translations of the works of men where considered the only appropriate literary work for women.
Little is known about Whitney’s life other than she was born sometime in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and that she likely was the descendant of a family who had settled on a small estate near Nantwich, England. Whitney may best be described as a member of the minor gentry who was forced into menial labor as a servant because the family lacked financial means. Other female poets of Whitney’s era were aristocratic women. However, Whitney was likely of the middle class, and she probably lived in London because her poetry reflects a knowledge of the city.
Whitney’s writings remained relatively obscure because women in her era, including those of a more privileged class, were denied a formal education, especially in the area of rhetoric. Although the Renaissance marked a meager beginning for women’s education, there is no evidence that Whitney derived any benefit from this enlightenment. This makes her lively poetry all the more extraordinary.
Isabella Whitney (Ebsco)
Whitney’s two collections of poems were published by Richard Jones, who specialized in popular works. The first collection, The Copy of a Letter, Lately Written in Meeter (c. 1567), consists of three letters and an “Admonition by the Author, to All Young Gentlewomen and to All Other Maids in General to Beware of Men’s Flattery,” all written in the female voice. “The Copy” is a retort written by a spirited young woman to a former lover; although it is both true and false, the poem is nonetheless realistic. In her poetry, Whitney reduces the unfaithfulness of men to a cruel sport which draws unsuspecting women into a deliberate deceit.
Whitney’s second collection of poems, A Sweet Nosgay, or Pleasant Posye (1573), is her more important work, especially her poem “The Will and Testament.” Several scholars have remarked on Whitney’s poem “A Sweet Nosegay,” which certainly is within the tradition of other poets of the era. It reflects certain knowledge of the style and poetry of other more widely known Elizabethan poets. It brings 16th century London alive in her descriptions of the city’s inhabitants and is reminiscent of the stage comedies produced in the early 17th century. In total, Whitney’s poems express her concern for the lack of women’s social and economic power and their dependence on the vagaries of men.
Aphra Behn, The Widow Ranter (Folger)
Aphra Behn was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors.
Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, Behn declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming poem to the new king William III. She died shortly after
The Widow Ranter was the last play written by Aphra Behn, England’s first professional female playwright. This play was probably written in 1688, but was first performed a few months after Behn’s death in 1689. It is the first surviving play to be set in a North American colony; it takes place in and around Jamestown, Virginia in 1676. As a young woman, Behn may have spent some time in another British colony, Surinam, and she may have drawn on that experience in this play.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Anti-Stratfordians—a collective term for adherents of the various alternative-authorship theories—believe that Shakespeare of Stratford was a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for some reason—usually social rank, state security, or gender—did not want or could not accept public credit.
Although the idea has attracted much public interest, all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe theory and for the most part acknowledge it only to rebut or disparage the claims.
Shakespeare's authorship was first questioned in the mid 19th century when adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time had become widespread. Some aspects of his life, particularly his humble origins and relative obscurity while he was alive, seemed incompatible with his poetic eminence and reputation for genius. This aroused suspicion that Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him. The controversy has since spawned a vast body of literature, and more than 80 authorship candidates have been proposed, the most popular being Sir Francis Bacon; Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford; Christopher Marlowe; and William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
Supporters of alternative candidates argue that theirs is the more plausible author and that William Shakespeare lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility, or familiarity with the royal court that they say is evident in the works. Those Shakespeare scholars who have responded to such claims hold that biographical interpretations of literature are unreliable in attributing authorship and that the convergence of documentary evidence used to support Shakespeare's authorship—title pages, testimony by other contemporary poets and historians, and official records—is the same as that used for all other authorial attributions of his era. No such direct evidence exists for any other candidate, and Shakespeare's authorship was questioned neither during his lifetime nor for centuries after his death.
Despite the scholarly consensus, a small but highly visible and diverse assortment of supporters, have questioned the conventional attribution. They work for acknowledgement of the authorship question as a legitimate field of scholarly inquiry and for acceptance of one or another of the various authorship candidates.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
The anti-Stratfordians attempt to disqualify William Shakespeare as the author and offer supporting arguments for a substitute candidate. They often postulate some type of conspiracy that protected the author's true identity, which they say explains why no documentary evidence exists for their candidate and why the historical record supports Shakespeare's authorship.
They suggest that the Shakespeare canon exhibits broad learning, knowledge of foreign languages and geography, and familiarity with Elizabethan and Jacobean court and politics; therefore, no one but a highly educated individual or court insider could have written it. Apart from literary references, critical commentary and acting notices, the available data regarding Shakespeare's life consist of mundane personal details such as vital records of his baptism, marriage and death, tax records, lawsuits to recover debts, and real estate transactions. In addition, no document attests that he received an education or owned any books. No personal letters or literary manuscripts certainly written by Shakespeare of Stratford survive. To sceptics, these gaps in the record suggest the profile of a person who differs markedly from the playwright and poet.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
At the core of the argument is the nature of acceptable evidence used to attribute works to their authors. Anti-Stratfordians rely on what has been called a "rhetoric of accumulation," or what they designate as circumstantial evidence: similarities between the characters and events portrayed in the works and the biography of their preferred candidate; literary parallels with the known works of their candidate; and literary and hidden allusions and cryptographic codes in works by contemporaries and in Shakespeare's own works.
Supporters of alternative candidates argue that theirs is the more plausible author and that William Shakespeare lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility, or familiarity with the royal court that they say is evident in the works. Those Shakespeare scholars who have responded to such claims hold that biographical interpretations of literature are unreliable in attributing authorship and that the convergence of documentary evidence used to support Shakespeare's authorship—title pages, testimony by other contemporary poets and historians, and official records—is the same as that used for all other authorial attributions of his era. No such direct evidence exists for any other candidate, and Shakespeare's authorship was questioned neither during his lifetime nor for centuries after his death.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
In contrast, academic Shakespeareans and literary historians rely mainly on direct documentary evidence—in the form of title page attributions and government records such as the Stationers' Register and the Accounts of the Revels Office—and contemporary testimony from poets, historians, and those players and playwrights who worked with him, as well as modern stylometric studies.
Gaps in the record are explained by the low survival rate for documents of this period. Scholars say all these converge to confirm William Shakespeare's authorship. These criteria are the same as those used to credit works to other authors and are accepted as the standard methodology for authorship attribution.
Nearly all academic Shakespeareans believe that the author referred to as "Shakespeare" was the same William Shakespeare who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and who died there in 1616. He became an actor and shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), the playing company that owned the Globe Theatre, the Blackfriars Theatre, and exclusive rights to produce Shakespeare's plays from 1594 to 1642. Shakespeare was also allowed the use of the honorific "gentleman" after 1596 when his father was granted a coat of arms.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
Shakespeare scholars see no reason to suspect that the name was a pseudonym or that the actor was a front for the author: contemporary records identify Shakespeare as the writer, other playwrights such as Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe came from similar backgrounds, and no contemporary is known to have expressed doubts about Shakespeare's authorship. While information about some aspects of Shakespeare's life is sketchy, this is true of many other playwrights of the time. Of some, next to nothing is known. Others, such as Jonson, Marlowe, and John Marston, are more fully documented because of their education, close connections with the court, or brushes with the law.
The historical record is unequivocal in ascribing the authorship of the Shakespeare canon to a William Shakespeare. In addition to the name appearing on the title pages of poems and plays, this name was given as that of a well-known writer at least 23 times during the lifetime of William Shakespeare of Stratford. Several contemporaries corroborate the identity of the playwright as an actor, and explicit contemporary documentary evidence attests that the Stratford citizen was also an actor under his own name.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
In 1598, Francis Meres named Shakespeare as a playwright and poet, referring to him as one of the authors by whom the "English tongue is mightily enriched." He names twelve plays written by Shakespeare, including four which were never published in quarto: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Won, and King John, as well as ascribing to Shakespeare some of the plays that were published anonymously before 1598—Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry IV, Part 1. He refers to Shakespeare's "sug[a]red Sonnets among his private friends" 11 years before the publication of the Sonnets.
After Shakespeare's death, Ben Jonson explicitly identified William Shakespeare, gentleman, as the author in the title of his eulogy, "To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us,, published in the First Folio (1623). Other poets identified Shakespeare the gentleman as the author in the titles of their eulogies, also published in the First Folio: "Upon the Lines and Life of the Famous Scenic Poet, Master William Shakespeare" by Hugh Holland and "To the Memory of the Deceased Author, Master W. Shakespeare" by Leonard Digges.
Both explicit testimony by his contemporaries and strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships with those who interacted with him as an actor and playwright support Shakespeare's authorship.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
In literature, the Shakespeare authorship question is a centuries-long debate about whether English playwright William Shakespeare—considered the greatest writer in history—wrote the poems and plays attributed to him.
The conspiracy theory dates back to the eighteenth century, nearly two hundred years after Shakespeare's death. It stems from a lack of historical records about Shakespeare, who resided at Stratford-upon-Avon. Doubters claim Shakespeare's works reveal a high level of education and worldly experience, which do not seem compatible with his modest origins.
Those who believe Shakespeare authored the works in his name are called Stratfordians. Doubters who think another writer or writers penned Shakespeare's works are called Anti-Stratfordians.
The most popular alternative candidates who may have written Shakespeare's compositions are Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford; Sir Francis Bacon; and Christopher Marlowe. Another theory posits that a group of authors collaborated on Shakespeare's plays.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. The Elizabethan actor and businessperson is credited with writing over thirty plays and one hundred sonnets before he died in 1616. His most famous works include Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
The Shakespeare authorship question does not dispute the existence of a man named William Shakespeare. The doubters question whether the man from Stratford authored the works in his name or was used as a front for the real author or authors.
Anti-Stratfordians focused on the disconnect between the genius author's dazzling literary works and his lack of education to support their case. Shakespeare is believed to have been educated at the King Edward VI Grammar School at Stratford but did not attend a university. Yet, his works feature an immense vocabulary that suggests higher learning.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
Little information exists about Shakespeare's life from 1585 to 1592, called the "lost years." The missing period preceded his first poem, Venus and Adonis, published in 1593. Only six signatures remain in Shakespeare's handwriting; all are nearly illegible and look different from one another. Shakespeare's last name also was spelled numerous ways: Shakespear, and Shake-speare.
The earliest claim against Shakespeare's authorship occurred in 1785. English scholar James Wilmot, failed to find any evidence to show that Shakespeare was an author — no manuscripts, papers, or books he owned. More than two hundred years later, no letters in Shakespeare's handwriting or books have been found.
In the mid-nineteenth century, American author Delia Bacon spearheaded the Shakespeare authorship controversy. Bacon was convinced that Shakespeare had not authored his works, and she believed instead that a group of writers had penned them. Bacon asserted that Shakespeare lacked the education and experience to write the plays and poems credited to him. His compositions convey a keen knowledge of the royal court's workings, geography, and foreign languages, yet Shakespeare never traveled outside the country.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
Shakespeare scholars largely dismiss the idea that someone else authored Shakespeare's poems and plays. Stratfordians argue that his name appears in more than forty official documents and dozens of literary references during his lifetime.
They also point to the First Folio, the complete set of Shakespeare's works published after his death in 1623, as confirmation of the author's identity. The cover identified the contents as "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories & Tragedies." The title page featured a portrait of a balding man alleged to be Shakespeare. The man had a mustache and a patch of facial hair under the lower lip, and he was shown wearing a starched collar and doublet.
The collection includes a forward by playwright Ben Jonson, one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, who identifies the man on the cover as Shakespeare. In an elegy, Jonson calls Shakespeare the "Sweet Swan of Avon." Another poem in the book refers to Shakespeare's dual careers as an actor and a writer. These references indicate that the man from Stratford was also the playwright.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
If Shakespeare did not write his own plays, Anti-Stratfordians believe various candidates could have written them. The leading candidate is Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. A poet and patron of the arts, de Vere was well-learned, well-traveled, and a favorite at Queen Elizabeth's court. Oxfordians, as his supporters are called, argue that he would have had the proper learning and experience. His death in 1604, however, came before Shakespeare's later plays, including The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.
Sir Francis Bacon was born in 1561 and died in 1626, which means he lived throughout Shakespeare's lifetime. The educated Bacon was a philosopher, a statesman, and an author. He had the political experience necessary for Shakespeare's compositions.
Christopher Marlowe was a poet and playwright born the same year as Shakespeare, murdered in 1593, but Marlovian supporters believed he faked his death and wrote Shakespeare's later plays.
Shakespeare Authorship Question
Another theory holds that a group of writers was responsible for Shakespeare's works. Delia Bacon believed Sir Walter Raleigh led the group, which included Francis Bacon. Rylance, a former director of Shakespeare's Globe Theater, also believes in the group theory. Other writers believed to have collaborated with Shakespeare include John Donne, Mary Sidney, and even Queen Elizabeth.
The Shakespeare authorship question has spurred a long-lasting debate that continued to fascinate the public in the twenty-first century. Although some researchers and literary world figures argued another person or people had to be responsible for the work attributed to Shakespeare, the consensus of those in the academic world remained firmly attached to the theory that Shakespeare had indeed been the sole author of his catalog. Stratfordians believed that the theories of Anti-Stratfordians were akin to conspiracy theories.
The debate continued to fascinate the literary world as the subject delves into the nature of genius of the world's greatest writer while generating passionate discourse from both sides of the controversy.
Shakespeare Authorship Question (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)
Shakespeare got into print with "Venus and Adonis," his narrative poem, the most popular poem of the age, the poem that made his name. That was printed by Richard Field, a fellow schoolboy from the grammar school in Stratford.
Throughout his life, a range of people refer to Shakespeare as a writer, and indeed as a great writer. A book, called Wits Commonwealth, published in 1598, so quite early in Shakespeare's career, was written by Francis Meres, who was very keen on literature. He wanted to give a sense of the greatness, the dignity, of all the new English literature being written in the 1590s, in his time. He wants to say that British writers are as good as those of classical antiquity.
So we find him here, for example, saying that just as the Latin tongue, the Latin language was glorified by great writers like Virgil, and Ovid, and Horace, so the English language has been glorified by the wonderful poetry of Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, William Warner, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Chapman. So Shakespeare is there, in the company of other writers. And indeed, Meres goes on a few pages later to say that "The greatness of Shakespeare as a writer was the range of his work." Not only his poems, which Meres suggests are like those of the Roman poet Ovid, but also his comedies and tragedies.
Shakespeare Authorship Question (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)
"Shakespeare, among the English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage," both comedy and tragedy. "For comedy, witness his Two Gentlemen of Verona, his Comedy of Errors, Love's Labours Lost, Love's Labours Won" (that's a lost play) "Midsummer Night's Dream, Merchant of Venice. And for tragedy, his Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV, King John, Titus Andronicus, and Romeo and Juliet."
Shakespeare Authorship Question (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)
Shakespeare was very concerned with the fact that his father's reputation had decayed as a result of financial problems. And Shakespeare was very keen to restore the good name of his family. So acting on behalf of his family, he managed to get a coat of arms for the family so he could call himself a gentleman. And there's a long process, getting a coat of arms. You had to go to an office called the heralds' office. But he duly got it, and the coat of arms is reproduced here. But one of the officials in the heralds' office who gave out these coats of arms said that various people from vulgar backgrounds, sort of insufficiently high-class people, were getting coats of arms. And among them, he said, was Shakespeare the player.
Now, there were two other men in the heralds' office who disagreed, and they defended Shakespeare's right to have a coat of arms on the grounds that his father and mother had a good pedigree in Stratford-upon-Avon. So the complaint about the coat of arms for Shakespeare the player is intimately linked to the references back to Stratford. So nobody doubts that Shakespeare the player, came from Stratford, was the son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden.
Shakespeare Authorship Question (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)
But the really interesting thing is that one of the two men in the heralds' office who defended Shakespeare the player's right to a coat of arms also spoke about Shakespeare the writer, Shakespeare the poet and dramatist. And what's more, that man was William Camden, one of the most learned men in England. And he'd been Ben Jonson's schoolmaster at Westminster School. He knew the literary scene inside out. And in one of his books, which is a kind of overflow from his history of England – it was called "The Remains of a Greater History" – he talks about the great writers, the pregnant wits, as he calls them, of his own time. And there's a list of the writers there, and William Shakespeare is bang in the middle of it.
Camden defending Shakespeare the player, coat of arms, Camden saying Shakespeare the writer. That's the golden bullet.
Shakespeare Authorship Question (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)
Well, I think the way to begin an answer to that is to think about other conspiracy theories. Was there a second gunman assassinating John F. Kennedy? Was Marilyn Monroe secretly murdered? I think the answer is wherever there is great fame and a kind of cult, then inevitably, heresies, alternative views, conspiracy theories tend to emerge. Elvis is alive and well, and that kind of idea.