Book Description

This volume offers diverse perspectives on the recently published "Memorandum" of Martha Moulsworth, a fascinating woman who in 1632 wrote one of the first autobiographical poems in the English language. Moulsworth's poem, which issues a startlingly early and radical call for educational equality, provides one of our best "inside views" of the life of a Renaissance woman, and the poem is also one of the few writings about widowhood written by an early modern widow. Yet the poem is also highly sophisticated as a work of art, and it has already proven its appeal to a wide variety of readers, including both beginning students and noted scholars and critics. The present book builds on the first edition of Moulsworth's poem - "My Name Was Martha": A Renaissance Woman's Autobiographical Poem (Locust Hill, 1993). The new volume offers extensive additional biographical information about Moulsworth herself, and it also presents readings of the poem as a poem and as a piece of autobiography. The book also considers such broader issues as the myth of the muses, the role of education in the Renaissance, the status of wives and widows, and the ideals and realities of early modern marriage. Moulsworth's poem emerges as an even richer work when viewed from so many different perspectives. Moulsworth, however, is hardly the only Renaissance woman writer examined in this volume. Many essayists use Moulsworth as a touchstone for discussing numerous other authors, including such figures as Roger Ascham, Anne Bradstreet, Margaret Cavendish (the Duchess of Newcastle), Lady Anne Clifford, An Collins, Queen Elizabeth I, Elizabeth Grymston, Lady Elizabeth Langham, Aemilia Lanyer, Bathsua Makin, ElizabethMelville, Richard Mulcaster, Katherine Philips, Mary Sidney (the Countess of Pembroke), Rachel Speght, Hester Wiat, and Lady Mary Wroth (to name a few).