Women and Epistolary Agency in Early Modern Culture, 1450-1690 is the first collection to examine the gendered nature of women's letter-writing in England and Ireland from the late-Elizabethan period through to the Restoration. The essays collected here represent an important body of new work by a group of international scholars who together look to reorient the study of women's letters in the contexts of early modern culture. The volume builds upon recent approaches to the letter, both rhetorical and material, that have the power to transform the ways in which we understand, study and situate early modern women's letter-writing, challenging misconceptions of women's letters as intrinsically private, domestic and apolitical. This interdisciplinary collection draws on historical, literary, palaeographic, linguistic, material and gender-based methodologies to explore diverse issues at play within early modern women's correspondence. Topics addressed include rhetorical and persuasive skills and the importance of gendered epistolary strategies; gender and the materiality of the letters as a physical form; female agency, education, knowledge and power; epistolary networks and communication technologies. The study of women's letters in this volume is not confined to writings by women; contributors examine not only the collaborative aspects of letter-writing but also explore how men addressed women in their correspondence as well as analyzing important examples of how women were constructed in and through the letters of men. As a whole, the book stands as a valuable reassessment of the complex gendered nature of early modern women's correspondence.
- ISBN13 9781472478276
- Publish Date 28 June 2016 (first published 20 June 2016)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Imprint Ashgate Publishing Limited
- Edition New edition
- Format eBook
- Pages 288
- Language English