page_title: Lady Hester Pulter
section_title: The Unfortunate Florinda
hierarchical_section_title: Lady Hester Pulter / Literary works / The Unfortunate Florinda
context_page_description: Lady Hester Pulter was a seventeenth-century poet and writer, whose manuscript was rediscovered in 1996 in the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds. Her major works include "Poems Breathed Forth By the Noble Hadassas", "The Sighes of a Sad Soule Emblematically Breath'd Forth by the Noble Hadassas", and "The Unfortunate Florinda."
context_section_description: The last section of the Leeds manuscript was titled "The Unfortunate Florinda." A prose romance, it was left unfinished and was transcribed during March and December 1661. It seemed to be written after "Poems breathed forth by the Noble Hadrassas." Furthermore, the romance seems to have been a second thought, even though in the same script as the original manuscript. The volume was reversed and it began from the back. The apparent lack of preparations could mean that Hester didn't consider "The Unfortunate Florinda" to be equal to "Poems Breathed Forth By the Noble Hadrassas."
  "The Unfortunate Florinda" is not like her poetry in their Royalist themes. Lady Pulter takes the historical legend of the Islamic conquest of Spain to express her opinion of the sexual corruption of King Charles II's court. Furthermore, she seems to rethink her own political ideas and challenges the ideas of medieval England. Lady Pulter challenges Christianity by presenting pagans in a sympathetic light, sexual violence by upholding the Augustine idea that rape is the fault of the rapist, rather than that of the victim, and race through the virtue of African women as opposed to the corruption of the Spanish women. The romantic characteristics of the manuscript include shipwrecks and pirates, usurped kingdoms and disguised princesses,’’ to which one can add miraculous reunions, cross-dressing, and the ultimate triumph of true love. There are also various references to the Rape of Lucretia.
caption: "The Unfortunate Florinda" had many references to the Rape of Lucretia in it.
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