Spring 2012
ENG (WGS) 710: Studies in English Renaissance Literature
Early Modern Women’s Writing
Dr. Michelle Dowd
M 6:30-9:20
MHRA 3209
Office: 3123 MHRA
Office Hours: M 4-6PM, and by appt.
Office Phone: 334-5384
mmdowd@uncg.edu
Course Description and Objectives:
This seminar (cross-listed with WGS) offers graduate students a broad overview of the writings of early
modern Englishwomen, with primary emphasis on seventeenth-century texts. We will pay particular
attention to formal development and experimentation as we examine texts from a wide variety of genres,
including poetry, polemic, drama, and even early science fiction. Students in the course will also engage with
central topics of debate in the scholarship on early modern women writers, including such issues as literacy,
domesticity, religious difference, the construction of the self, and manuscript vs. print publication.
Student Learning Goals:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
 Demonstrate familiarity with early modern women’s writing in a range of genres
 Analyze the various social, historical, and literary contexts in which these texts were written
 Critically evaluate secondary sources on early modern women’s writing
 Develop and hone critical writing skills, research methods, and the skills of oral communication
 Demonstrate understanding of the complex ways that gender, culture, class, religion, race, and
sexuality function in early modern society and literature
Required Texts:
Bowerbank, Sylvia and Sarah Mendelson, eds. Paper Bodies: A Margaret Cavendish Reader. Broadview, 2000.
Clarke, Danielle, ed. Isabella Whitney, Mary Sidney, and Aemilia Lanyer: Renaissance Women Poets. Penguin, 2001.
Hodgson-Wright, Stephanie, ed. The Tragedy of Mariam. By Elizabeth Cary. Broadview, 2000.
Roberts, Josephine A., ed. The Poems of Lady Mary Wroth. LSU, 1992.
Additional primary and secondary readings on Blackboard (BB)—some under “Course Documents” and
others under “E-Reserves”—and online via Jackson Library (O)
Schedule of Readings and Assignments: (Note: this schedule is subject to change)
Jan. 9:
Introduction
Jan. 16:
Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday. No Class.
Jan. 23:
Early Modern Women and Writing
Isabella Whitney, selections from A Sweet Nosgay and The Copy of a Letter, in
Clarke. Please also take a look at the images of A Sweet Nosgay and The Copy of a Letter
available on Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Margaret Ferguson, “Renaissance Conceptions of the Women Writer” (BB)
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (excerpt) (BB)
Margaret J.M. Ezell, “The Myth of Judith Shakespeare” (BB)
Jan. 30:
Lyric Modes 1: Forms of Poetic Authority
Martha Moulsworth, “Memorandum” (BB)
EM Women’s Writing Syllabus, Spring 2012- 2
Katherine Philips, “Upon the Double Murder of King Charles,” “Friendship’s Mystery,”
“To My Excellent Lucasia,” and “To Mrs. M.A. at Parting” (BB)
John Donne, “The Sun Rising” (BB)
Mary Sidney, “‘Even now that Care,’” “To the Angell spirit…,” and “Thenot and Piers in
praise of Astrea,” in Clarke.
Brief excerpts from Hayden White, Felicity Nussbaum, and Joan Scott (BB)
Shannon Miller, “Mary Sidney and Gendered Strategies for the Writing of Poetry” (BB)
Sasha Roberts, “Women’s Literary Capital in Early Modern England,” Women’s Writing 14.2
(2007): 246-269 (O)
Presentations on 1) early modern authorship; 2) coterie literature
Feb. 6:
Lyric Modes 2: Gender and the Sonnet Sequence
Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, in Roberts.
Jeff Masten, “‘Shall I turn blabb?’ Circulation, Gender, and Subjectivity in Lady Mary
Wroth’s Sonnets” (BB)
David Juan Gil, “The Currency of the Beloved and the Authority of Lady Mary Wroth,”
Modern Language Studies 29.2 (1999): 73-92 (O)
Thomas Wyatt, “Whoso list to hunt” and “I find not peace”; Philip Sidney, Sonnet 1 from
Astrophil and Stella; and William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 (BB)
Book review workshop
Presentations on 1) Petrarchanism; 2) early modern manuscript culture
Feb. 13:
Polemics and Debates 1: The Querelles des Femmes
Joseph Swetnam, The Arraignment of Lewd, idle, forward, and unconstant women (BB)
Esther Sowernam, Esther Hath Hanged Haman (BB)
Rachel Speght, A Mouzzel for Melastomus (BB)
Danielle Clarke, “The Renaissance Debate about Women” (pp.49-53; 58-79) (BB)
Christina Luckyj, “A Mouzell for Melastomus in Context: Rereading the Swetnam-Speght
Debate,” ELR 40.1 (2010): 113-131. (O)
Presentations on 1) Humanism; 2) Renaissance rhetoric
Feb. 20:
Polemics and Debates 2: Mothers’ Advice Books
Dorothy Leigh, The Mothers’ Blessing (BB)
Elizabeth Clinton, The Countess of Lincoln’s Nursery (BB)
Kristen Poole, “‘The Fittest Closet for All Goodness’: Authorial Strategies of Jacobean
Mothers’ Manuals,” SEL 35.1 (1995): 69-88. (O)
Valerie Wayne, “Advice for Women from Mothers and Patriarchs” (BB)
BOOK REVIEWS DUE
Feb. 27:
Religious Writing 1: Patronage and Christian Epic
Aemilia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, in Clarke.
Erica Longfellow, “Ecco Homo: The Spectacle of Christ’s Passion in Salve Deus Rex
Judaeorum” (BB)
Kimberly Coles, “‘A Womans writing of diuinest things’: Aemilia Lanyer’s Passion for a
Professional Poetic Vocation” (BB)
Presentations on 1) women, piety, & religious practice; 2) literary patronage
March 5:
Spring Break. No class.
March 12:
Religious Writing 2: Women and the Fall
John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 9 (BB)
Lucy Hutchinson, Order and Disorder, Canto 4 (BB)
EM Women’s Writing Syllabus, Spring 2012- 3
Anne Southwell, “All Married Men” (BB)
Mary Roper, “The Creation of Man” and “Man’s Shameful Fall” (BB)
Dorothy Calthorpe, “A Description of the Garden of Eden” (BB)
Michelle Dowd and Thomas Festa, “Adam’s Rib, Eve’s Voice” (BB)
Shannon Miller, “Serpentine Eve: Milton and the Seventeenth-Century Debate Over
Women,” Milton Quarterly 42.1 (2008): 44-68. (O)
ABSTRACT AND ANOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE
Presentation on 1) typology and biblical exegesis
March 19:
Closet Drama 1: Marriage, Tyranny, and Social Conflict
Elizabeth Cary, The Tragedy of Mariam, in Hodgson-Wright.
Nancy Guttierez, “Valuing Mariam: Genre Study and Feminist Analysis,” Tulsa Studies in
Women’s Literature 10.2 (1991): 233-51 (O)
Danielle Clarke, “‘This domestic kingdome or Monarchy’: Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam and
the Resistance to Patriarchal Government,” Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 10
(1998): 179-200 (BB)
Presentations on 1) closet drama; 2) the state-family homology
March 26:
Closet Drama 2: Female Community, Gender Play, and Comic Form
Margaret Cavendish, The Convent of Pleasure, in Bowerbank.
Julie Crawford, “Convents and Pleasures: Margaret Cavendish and the Drama of Property”
(BB)
Horatio Sierra, “Convents as Feminist Utopias: Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure
and the Potential of Closeted Dramas and Communities,” Women’s Studies 38.6 (2009):
647-69 (O)
Presentations on 1) female friendship & homoeroticism; 2) Cavendish & Civil War
politics
April 2:
Science Fiction and Royalist Aesthetics
Margaret Cavendish, The Description of a New World Called the Blazing World, in Bowerbank.
Queen Elizabeth, “Speech to the Troops at Tilbury” (BB)
Catherine Gallagher, “Embracing the Absolute: Margaret Cavendish and the Politics of the
Female Subject in Seventeenth-Century England” (BB)
Rachel Trubowitz, “The Reenchantment of Utopia and the Female Monarchical Self,” Tulsa
Studies in Women’s Literature 11.2 (1992): 229-45 (O)
Presentation on 1) women & the new science; 2) theories of women’s rule
April 9:
Seminar Presentations
April 16:
Seminar Presentations
April 23:
Dinner at Michelle Dowd’s house
Friday, April 27: SEMINAR PAPERS DUE by 5PM
Course Requirements and Grading:
Book Review
Context Presentation
Seminar Paper Presentation
Class Participation
Seminar Paper
15%
10%
5%
20%
50%
EM Women’s Writing Syllabus, Spring 2012- 4
Attendance: Excellent attendance is expected in a graduate seminar and is essential to your success in this
course. I expect you to attend every class meeting, to arrive on time, and to participate actively in our
discussions. Please inform me if you will be unable to attend class because you are participating in a
conference or if you have a serious illness or emergency. A student who misses three or more classes may
not receive a passing grade. In cases of adverse weather, classes will meet unless the Chancellor closes the
University.
Participation: Active and thoughtful class participation is one of your most important assignments in this
course, and it represents a significant part of your grade. In order to participate fully, you will need to come
to class prepared – that is, having read the material, having thought about it critically, and having brought it
with you. You will also need to come to class ready to share your ideas with your classmates and engage in
rigorous, intellectual discussion. I expect you to be prepared with specific questions and observations about
our readings as well as particular passages that you want to discuss.
To this end, I ask that as part of your preparations for each class meeting, you complete what I am informally
calling a 3-2-1 assignment. That is, please come to class with three questions for class discussion, two
specific passages you wish to discuss, and one close-reading or detailed analysis of a passage to share with the
class. This is not a formal graded assignment and you will not hand in your notes, but your comments and
questions will form the basis for our conversation at each class meeting and will factor into your participation
grade for the course as a whole.
Book Review: Each student will write a book review on a recent anthology of early modern women’s
writing. You will be assigned either Female and Male Voices in Early Modern England (ed. Travitsky and Prescott)
or Reading Early Modern Women (ed. Ostovich and Sauer), both of which I have put on 3-day reserve at Jackson
Library. See the “Book Review Assignment” on Blackboard for more details.
Context Presentation: During the semester, each of you will give a brief (10-15 minute) presentation on a
topic pertaining to the author, text, or genre under consideration. You should draw on at least four scholarly
or historical sources for your presentation. Your presentation needs to be accompanied by a handout that
includes a brief outline of the talk (e.g. bullet points or a similar format) and full bibliographic references for
all sources you have cited and consulted. If you wish, your handout may also include some brief, additional
material that adds substantively to the presentation, but it should not contain lengthy narrative descriptions or
summaries. I have chosen topics that will provide important context to supplement our discussions, but I am
open to modifying these topics based on your interests. At least a week prior to your presentation, you need
to consult with me either in person or via email to discuss your topic and approach, and I will provide you
with some suggestions for sources. See the “Guidelines for Oral Presentations” on Blackboard for more
details.
Seminar Paper Presentation: At the end of the semester (as scheduled on the syllabus) you will each
presentation a short (approximately 10 minute) version of your final seminar paper to your classmates, who
will then respond to your presentation with comments, questions, and suggestions. See the “Guidelines for
Oral Presentations” on Blackboard for more details.
Seminar Paper: Your final paper will be a 15-20 page research paper on a topic of your choice. You will
also be responsible for producing an abstract and annotated bibliography of your final project, due in class on
March 12.
Academic Integrity: Violations of academic integrity are serious academic offenses that will not be
tolerated in this class. I expect every student to review the guidelines and list of violations at
http://academicintegrity.uncg.edu and to abide by the UNCG Academic Integrity Policy. When you use
sources such as books, web pages, articles, or primary documents in your writing, you must identify them to
your reader. If you quote a source directly, you must put the borrowed material in quotation marks and
EM Women’s Writing Syllabus, Spring 2012- 5
include a proper citation. If you take an idea from another source but put it in your own words (i.e.
paraphrase it), you must still give proper credit to the source. Please use MLA or Chicago style
documentation to document any sources used in written work. All suspected violations of the academic
integrity policy will be reported to the Dean of Students, and proven violations will result in serious
repercussions. Because this is a graduate seminar, a single violation of academic integrity will result
in failure of the entire course. Repeated offenses can cause you to be expelled from the University. If you
are unsure about how to give credit to your sources or have any questions about what constitutes an act of
plagiarism, please ask me!
Technology:
E-mail: Email is the fastest way to contact me, and I will occasionally use e-mail to contact you. All
messages will be sent to UNCG email accounts, so you need to check your UNCG account regularly. You
are required to hand in paper copies of all written work; I will not accept assignments handed in via email.
Blackboard: I have set up a Blackboard website for the course where you can find copies of the syllabus,
readings, assignments, announcements, and useful links. Please note that you are responsible for printing out
copies of all texts, handouts, and assignment sheets and bringing them to class as needed. If you are absent,
please check Blackboard for any updates or assignments you may have missed.
Laptops and Cellphones: This is an interactive discussion class, and I expect your engaged attention and
participation. You may not use laptops in this class, except in documented cases of medical need.
Cellphones and other electronic equipment must be turned off at all times.