Elizabethan women and the poetry of courtship
By: Ilona Bell.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Cambridge, U.K; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 262
Subjects: English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism; Love poetry, English -- History and criticism; Women and literature -- England -- History -- 16th century; English poetry -- Women authors -- History and criticism; Man-woman relationships in literature; Authorship -- Sex differences -- History -- 16th century; Courtship in literature
Description: "This book offers an original study of lyric form and social custom in the Elizabethan age. Ilona Bell explores the tendency of Elizabethan love poems not only to represent an amorous thought, but to conduct the courtship itself. Where recent studies have focused on courtiership, patronage and preferment at court, her focus is on love poetry, amorous courtship, and relations between Elizabethan men and women. The book examines the ways in which the tropes and rhetoric of love poetry were used to court Elizabethan women (not only at court and in the great houses, but in society at large) and how the women responded to being wooed, in prose, poetry and speech. Bringing together canonical male poets and recently discovered women writers, Ilona Bell investigates a range of texts addressed to, written by, read, heard or transformed by Elizabethan women, and charts the beginnings of an early modern female lyric tradition."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 230-257) and index.