Overview of Topic

Hello all, and welcome to my blog. I’ve really enjoyed being able to study Renaissance texts this semester, and I’ve particularly enjoyed being able to focus on gender roles within the texts we have read. The first insight I want to share with you is how, by taking this course and reflecting on the texts, I have begun to feel connected to a time period that I used to feel some disdain towards. I had an impression about the early modern era that it was full of witch hunts and oppressed women and vicious hierarchy. Although it did have all these things, what I’ve come to understand is that I come from this tradition.

Modern feminism and western individualism has come from the people who lived in the early modern era and their ancestors. And if you look closely at the period, indicators are everywhere that presage modern feminism, capitalism, secularism, and individualism. I’ve also found a new literary hero – the Duchess in The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster. My interest in her voice had to do with how self-assertive she was. She died for her self-assertion, but did not suffer defeat. I’ve chosen to primarily explore self-assertion in the early modern period on this blog.

As I mentioned before, I held an incorrect preconception about women of this era – that they accepted the boundaries given to them and had not yet begun to question. This is far from the truth. As pamphlet literature became accessible to all, misogynistic ideas reached more and more people. In response to this, women began to speak out and publish about themselves in a way that had never been done before. But, women still needed to be careful in their outspokenness. The Jacobean period was a conservative one, and King James was not known for being sympathetic to a shift from the traditional role of women. This led to women putting disclaimers and apologies within the texts they published. Furthermore, most of the texts published were in defense of the status quo of women. Most of the pamphlets did not argue for a radical shift I gender role, but rather for a halt to the demonization of women and praise for their role in society.

Women also felt more comfortable publishing their more radical views about gender if they justified in in the common cause of godly endeavor. Invoking divine right to further push the boundaries of what they could do (specifically as jobs or hobbies) was harder for others to condemn. Although, defending women in the name of religion is a tricky thing to do. Religious bias for female inferiority was perhaps the greatest hurdle to overcome for feminism in the Renaissance.

There were many pamphlets published by both men and women which embraced women as the inherently inferior sex, oftentimes citing numerous biblical passages. Despite difficulties in getting their voices heard, women found a middle ground and created room for self-expression amidst a rigid patriarchy by tempering their radicalism with perhaps feigned feminine modesty, and invoking divine right. Self-assertive women of the period were not modern feminists, but as stated previously, they helped build that foundation.

Pamphlets that attacked women had the habit of moving from the specific to the general. That is, one pamphlet might be discussing the story about a woman who murdered her husband, but would quickly move on to the nasty, murderous tendencies of all women. This made it easy to dehumanize the entire female sex. Other literature reversed this tendency. John Webster’s, The Duchess of Malfi, provides an intimate look into the life of a woman killed for going after simple human desires. The audience can’t help but feel sympathy with the woman and question the own rigid systems within their society that kept women from achieving individual identity.

I invite you to explore the texts and websites I have listed here. I urge you to pay special attention to the primary texts – as they’ll allow you to get to know the brave, intelligent women that began the fight for the freedoms women enjoy today.


Works Cited

Anger, Jane. “Jane Anger, her Protection for Women.” c. 1589 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 171-88. Print.

Bartels, Emily C. "Strategies Of Submission: Desdemona, The Duchess, And The Assertion Of Desire." Studies In English Literature (Rice) 36.2 (1996): 417. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

Felch, Susan M. "Noble Gentlewomen Famous For Their Learning": The London Circle Of Anne Vaughan Lock." Anq 16.2 (2003): 14-19. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

Hannay, Margaret P. "Constructing A City Of Ladies." Shakespeare Studies 25.(1997): 77. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

Henderson, Katherine U., and Barbara F. McManus. Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. Print.

Swetnam, Joseph. “The Arraignment of Lewd, idle, forward, and unconstant women or the vanity of them, choose you whether.” c. 1615 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 189-216. Print.

Taylor, John. “A Juniper Lecture, With the description of all sorts of women, good and bad: From the modest to the maddest, from the most Civil to the scold Rampant, their praise and dispraise compendiously related.” c. 1639 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 290-304. Print.

Woods, Susanne. "Shifting Centers And Self Assertions: The Study Of Early Modern Women." Shakespeare Studies 25.(1997): 67.Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.



Wednesday, April 8, 2015

The Witch of Edmonton

And why on me? Why should the envious world
Throw all their scandalous malice upon me?
'Cause I am poor, deformed and ignorant,
And like a bow buckled and bent together
By some more strong in mischiefs than myself
Must I for that be made a common sink
For all the filth and rubbish of men's tongues
To fall and run into? Some call me witch,
And, being ignorant of myself, they go
About to teach me how to be one, urging
That my bad tongue, by their bad usage made so,
Forspeaks their cattle, doth bewitch their corn,
Themselves, their servants and their babes at nurse

 This is my favorite passage in the play, because of its powerful, complicated language and striking characterization of Elizabeth Sawyer.

 Elizabeth compares herself to a sink, or a vessel that must catch the dirtiest parts of society. She is poor, destitute, old, ugly, and uneducated. She is at the bottom of society, and her lack of power and any attractive quality makes her an easy scapegoat. It makes her easy to be made into a monster. Yet Elizabeth is no monster and she is no witch. She only becomes one (and not a particularly fearsome one compared to the monsters that the characters around her become) after she is accused and conjured into one by her society.

The playwrights are making complicated comments upon what the power of truth and perception within society. In the same way that the townspeople conjure Elizabeth Sawyer into becoming a witch (and, being ignorant of myself, they go about to teach me how to be one ), Elizabeth conjures the devil dog into being, causing mischief among the townsfolk. The devil-dog plays a part in Frank's murder of Susan, but given Frank's characterization that we see before this event unfolds, we get the sense that incompetent, fickle Frank acted in part of his own volition.

What is believed to be true may become true. Elizabeth is believed to be a witch, and due to these abstractions of human thought (so easily changed and negotiated around human motivation/ego/fear), suffers the very real penalty of death. Societal truths are arbitrary truths, yet people may die because of their existence. They get their power from people believing in their truth.

Therefore, the authors seem to be saying three things: an element of the supernatural shapes our world, social perceptions founded on nothing concrete shape our world, and free will shapes our world as well.

Following is a list of my reflections on the monsters that we conjure today.

~post 9/11 Islamophobia
~successful, independent, intelligent women
~particular body types
~mental illness

This play and my reflections about fear's role in our current society make me seek wisdom. Seek the wisdom to not act out because I fear change, seek the wisdom to understand the position and humanity of those at the bottom of our society. I want to find this wisdom because although the face and name of the witch has changed, as a culture we are still often conjuring one.

Islamophobia

body shaming
Ferdinand in Duchess of Malfi needed more compassion for the mentally ill. In this time period, mad, insane people were viewed as funny and a source of entertainment.

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