Voicing women
Subtitle: gender and sexuality in early modern writing
By: edited by Kate Chedgzoy, Melanie Hansen, and Suzanne Trill.
Contributors: Chedgzoy, Kate.; Hansen, Melanie.; Trill, Suzanne.
Series: Renaissance texts and studies
Publisher: Duquesne University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Pittsburgh, Pa
Language: eng
Number of pages: 200
Subjects: English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism.; Feminism and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 16th century.; Feminism and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century.; Women and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 16th century.; Women and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century.; English literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; Gender identity in literature.; Sex role in literature.
Description: This volume represents an important contribution to the growing field of feminist criticism and theory in relation to Renaissance texts. As well as offering fresh, theoretically inspired readings of women writers, it also brings new material to light, in some cases offering the first major critical discussion of the works of such lesser-known writers as Dionys Fitzherbert.

Thematically, the essays reflect a variety of perspectives. Contributors examine the material constraints on the expression of women's voices in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, illustrating both the difficulties with which the women were faced and their capacity to overcome them. Attention is paid to issues of gender in representation, with chapters on the use of female voices in male-authored texts and the different ways in which the body is portrayed by male and female writers.

Finally, women's voices are placed in a religious and political context, with chapters considering texts by historically significant male writers such as Knox and Bunyan.
Notes: Includes index.