Transnational Perspectives from the Late Middle Ages to the Dawn of the Modern Era
Alicia MONTOYA, Anke GILLEIR, Suzan van DIJK (dir.)
Leiden, Brill, 2010.
Interest in early modern women writers is on the rise. However, familiarity with their works varies greatly from one country to another, and resources to assess their historical significance remain insufficient. Yet empirical evidence suggests that women writers who are no longer well-known today played surprisingly varied roles in the literary field of early modern Europe. The papers collected in this volume address early modern female authorship from the late Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century, ranging geographically from Portugal to Russia, and from Italy to Denmark. In particular, they focus on three themes: the creation of female spaces or communities; women’s appropriation of existing or developing literary genres; and transnational perspectives on early modern women’s writings. Table of contents
Introduction: Toward a New Conception of Women’s Literary History
ANKE GILLEIR AND ALICIA C. MONTOYA
Female Spaces, Female Communities
‘To Promote God’s Praise and her Neighbour’s Salvation’. Strategies of Authorship and Readership among Mystic Women in the Later Middle Ages
MADELEINE JEAY AND KATHLEEN GARAY
Gendering Place: The Role of Place in Anne Krabbe’s Ballad Works
ANNE-MARIE MAI
‘To Make Frequent Assemblies, Associations, and Combinations Amongst Our Sex.’ Nascent Ideas of Female Bonding in Seventeenth-Century England
INA SCHABERT
Women and Literary Sociability in Eighteenth-Century Lisbon
VANDA ANASTACIO
Appropriating Literary Genre
Female Writing and the Use of Literary Byways. Pastoral Drama by Maddalena Campiglia (1553–1595)
PHILIEP BOSSIER
Prescriptions for Women: Alchemy, Medicine and the Renaissance Querelle des Femmes
MEREDITH K. RAY
The Appropriation of the Genre of Nuptial Poetry by Katharina Lescailje (1649–1711)
NINA GEERDINK
Madame de Maintenon au miroir de sa correspondance: réhabilitation du personnage et redécouverte d’une écriture féminine
CHRISTINE MONGENOT AND HANS BOTS
French Women Writers and Heroic Genres
PERRY GETHNER
Transnational Perspectives
The Tartar Girl, The Persian Princess, and Early Modern English Women’s Authorship from Elizabeth I to Mary Wroth
BERNADETTE ANDREA
A Cloistered Nun Abroad: Arcangela Tarabotti’s International Literary Career
LARA LYNN WESTWATER
Traveller, Pedagogue and Cultural Mediator: Marie-Elisabeth de La Fite and her Female Context
INEKE JANSE
Translation and Intellectual Reflection in the Works of Enlightened Spanish Women: Inés Joyes (1731-1808)
MÓNICA BOLUFER
‘Nous voudrions que les femmes s’occupent de la littérature’: Traductions des romancières françaises en Russie autour de 1800
ELENA GRETCHANAIA
Index
Anke Gilleir, Ph.D. (1992) in German, is Associate Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Leuven (Belgium). She has published on German women’s literature, including Johanna Schopenhauer und die Weimarer Klassik. Betrachtungen über die Selbstpositionierung weiblichen Schreibens (2000).
Alicia C. Montoya, Ph.D. (2005) in French, is Rosalind Franklin Fellow / Assistant Professor of Romance Languages at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). She has published on female authorship in the 18th century, including Marie-Anne Barbier et la tragédie post-classique (Champion, 2007).
Suzan van Dijk, Ph.D. (1988), is a specialist of French and comparative literature. She has published widely on women writers and has co-edited several volumes on the subject, including Writing the History of Women’s Writing. Toward and International Approach (Amsterdam, 2001).