Early Modern Women Poets

This title represents a reexamination of modern women poets based on archival research in manuscripts and early modern printed books. It contains selections from important poets such as Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips, and Aemilia Lanyer. It aims to introduce the reader to a conspectus of the verse written by women from 1520 to 1700, at all social levels from the verse of court elite to working-class women's aphorisms, libels, and charms. All genres of verse used by early modern women are represented; as are all languages in which women's verse survives: Classical Greek and Latin, French, Italian, English, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Irish. Each woman's work is accompanied by a headnote which combines biographic information with some guidance as to the context, intended audience, and genre of her work. The collection is organized chronologically. It should be possible to see what early modern women wrote, how they wrote it, who they wrote for, and what they said This book is intended for readers and scholars or early modern literature and poetry; readers of women's poetry.

... impressive ... fascinating work ... ground-breaking collection. This rich and original book will change the landscape of early modern women's writing., The biographies are a constant delight: full of information on the importance of the writer, often containing new research on better-known poets, and always written in an engaging manner., The first anthology of women's poetry in this period to give a prominent place to dozens of poets writing in languages other than English in the British Isles: Irish, Scots Gaelic, Lowland Scots, Welsh, French, Latin and Greek., The editors of this anthology of early modern women's poetry have achieved a remarkable feat: they have provided examples of the work of nearly two hundred female poets, forever putting to rest the claim that not many women in this period wrote poetry., ... This impressive anthology should quickly become a staple in the women's literature and Renaissance literature classrooms.

Jane Stevenson is Senior Lecturer, Centre for British and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of WarwickPeter Davidson is Reader, Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick