The gender system in Renaissance England (1475-1600) was structured differently to that of twentieth-century ‘Western’ nations, and so to understand the position of women in this period, we must be conscious of this social structuring. This period was a time when women were subordinate to men in almost all areas of society. However, gender was not the only factor which affected the reception of literature. Class was implicated as well, and there is a clear distinction between high-ranking and low-ranking women. In the first section, I will consider the definition of ‘Renaissance’ and look at how the position of women was constructed and confined to a private, domestic realm. This gestures to the unsuitability of the term ‘Renaissance’ as the majority of women were excluded from its effects. However, to avoid taking a generalised view, I will look at two contrasting paratexts which reflect two different approaches of women writing in this period. Mary Sidney’s dedicatory poem to her late brother, Philip Sidney, ‘Angell Spirit’ (1599) exemplifies the literary work of an elite woman justifying her writing by mediating the role of a grieving relative. In comparison, Aemilia Lanyer’s dedicatory letter to Mary Sidney herself ‘The Authors Dreame to the Lady Marie’ (1611), which also functions as a paratext, illustrates Lanyer’s plea for patronage as well as being a criticism of the class discrimination rife in these elite literary circles. These two texts demonstrate a clear distinction between those who experienced the Renaissance and those who did not, highlighting how we cannot read ‘Renaissance’ works solely in a gendered paradigm, but must also consider the constraints of class.
To consider the suitability of the term ‘Renaissance’, first we must evaluate what it means, and how critics have viewed the position of women and women’s literature in the Renaissance period. The term ‘Renaissance’ was not brought into popularized use until 1860, after the publication of Jacob Burckhardt’s book The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance. Burckhardt viewed the Renaissance as a clear definition of a historical age and a distinct cultural movement, calling it ‘not a mere fragmentary imitation or compilation, but a new birth’. However, this retrospective periodization does not take into account liminal transition at either side of the period. Travintsky asserts that the dates of Renaissance England are largely accepted as beginning with the Tudor victory at Bosworth Field in 1485, and ending with the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. This period of 175 years appears to be deemed culturally homogenous, through the rebirth of classical culture and humanist education. This is more precisely defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘the revival of the arts and high culture under the influence of classical models, which began in Italy in the 14th cent. and spread throughout most of Europe by the end of the 16th’.
The most compelling question which presents itself after establishing this definition of ‘Renaissance’ is whether or not this is an appropriate term to use for women and women’s literature produced in this period. The humanist movement and education was centred around males, with females being relegated to a position of silence, obedience and chastity. This structuring of society was deeply patriarchal, and education opportunities were hugely unequal. That is not to say that no women experienced a humanist education, but on the whole women did not have access to the same level of education, and a ‘humanist learning of the Renaissance was available to only a tiny minority of high-placed women’. The Renaissance was a period which reorganized society in a way which adversely affected women, resulting in contrasting Renaissance experiences for women and men.
The role of the Renaissance Englishwoman was to be subordinate to the men surrounding her, and to live her life in the domestic sphere. Restrictions that were both legal and conventional confined women to this private realm, and women were forced to live according to oppressive virtues: chastity, piety, obedience and silence – with a particular onus on chastity. This deeply patriarchal structure and the restrictions that came with it developed as the Renaissance period progressed, and women became increasingly private figures with economic and employment opportunities diminishing. Wages in female-dominated industries dropped, and women were prevented from working in more prestigious trades with higher wages, such as weaving. This reinforced the rigid hierarchization and inequalities in society, and Travintsky in her essay ‘Placing Women in the English Renaissance’ states that ‘Englishwomen of all classes were denied opportunities open to men’. This assertion of ‘all classes’ establishes a clear gender dichotomy that although no doubt apparent, nevertheless disregards the implication of class. My later contrasting analysis of high-ranking Mary Sidney and middle-class Aemilia Lanyer shows that this is not a straightforward gender divide, but that class was an important factor in the Renaissance, particularly in terms of how literature was received.
A rediscovering of women’s work from this period has resulted in an expanding of the term ‘Renaissance, because writers such as Lanyer were only revisited in the twentieth century as a feminist reinvestigation of early women’s writing emerged. This culminated in earlier claims of equality being discarded. Burckhardt in 1904 recognised a class distinction, yet failed to identify a society that was rigidly patriarchal, commenting that ‘women were regarded as equal to men […] the education of the women in the upper classes was essentially the same as that of the men’. On the other end of the scale, Joan Kelly in her 1984 essay ‘Did Women have a Renaissance?’ emphatically ascertains that women were refigured during the Renaissance as a subordinate figure that was both dependent on males, and incapable of being independent, with their function purely being ‘an aesthetic object dependent on men’. This overarching view ignores the issue of class amongst women, placing women within an inferior domestic sphere, and men in a superior, public sphere. This reflects a restructuring of the sexes whereby females are excluded from this male-dominated public sphere. However within this society, large numbers of low-ranking men, such as vagrants, would also be excluded from the Renaissance movement. This highlights the fact that the Renaissance was not a simple divide between men and women, since some high-ranking women such as Mary Sidney did experience a ‘Renaissance’.
Mary Sidney (1561-1621) was born into an elite circle, and spent much of her youth in the court of Queen Elizabeth I where she received an excellent humanist education, being schooled in rhetoric, scripture and the classics. Sidney therefore experienced the cultural rebirth of the Renaissance in a way that only a tiny minority of women did, which was enabled purely by her class as a high-ranking woman. Sidney entered the world of literary authorship through the death of her brother, Philip Sidney (1554-86), by writing her dedicatory poem ‘Angell Spirit’ which eulogized him. ‘Angell Spirit’ functions doubly as a paratext for the Psalmes (1599) which both expresses her grief as a mourning relative, as well as justifying her completion of the Psalmes left incomplete by Philip. Although Sidney was a high-ranking woman and her literary work was circulated within the elite, gender distinctions are evident because her literary career was overshadowed by that of Philip, and Mary found authorship through him.
In this dedicatory poem, Mary was writing within the confined boundaries which were imposed on women. ‘Angell Spirit’ maintains a humble tone throughout, which disguises how bold her move to enter the world of literary authorship is. Humility was a convention of dedicatory poems and creates a separation between the abilities of herself and Philip. This separation is most evident between stanzas five and six, where Mary physically separates herself from Philip by creating a break in the poetic form. The personal pronouns are divided across the stanzas, first-person ‘I’ referring to Mary Sidney and second-person ‘thy’ referring to Philip, however the use of enjambment keeps the last line of stanza five flowing into the first line of stanza six:
so press my thoughts my burthened thoughtes in mee,
To pay the debt of Infinits I owe
To thy great worth;
The meter also draws further attention to the distinction between Mary and Philip, as the iambic pentameter places stress on ‘thy’, whereas ‘I’ remains unstressed, indicating the importance of Philip and his ‘great worth’ compared to herself.
The humble tone is also noticeable in the excessive use of superlatives used to describe Philip, which both glorifies him and contrasts him with Mary, as he is presented as an almost-divine being. The following rhyming couplet, which ends with a one-syllable masculine rhyme, uses asyndeton to highlight Philip’s divine qualities:
wonder of men, sole borne perfections kinde
Phoenix thou wert, so rare thy fairest minde.
The superlative ‘fairest’ and the plural noun ‘perfections’ present an idealised image of Philip making his poetry akin to a divine creation. The legacy left behind by his writing is described in line 71 as ‘Immortal Monuments of thy faire fame’ which draws attention to the unattainable ‘immortal’ nature of his writing.
In further self-deprecation, Mary asserts in her paratext that her ability is not equal to the task of either praising her brother’s honour, or continuing his work. She calls the Psalmes ‘this halfe maim’d peece’, the adjective ‘maim’d’ evoking imagery of disfigurement and incompletion which is used to justify her own attempt at completing the Psalmes. Mary uses direct address which makes the poem private and personal, as she creates a dialogue solely between herself and Philip. The true privacy and intimacy of this poem, however, is questioned by the nature of Mary’s writing – by using the traditional female role of a private, mourning relative she creates a public, authorial persona for herself. The inclusion of the poem as prefatory material to the verse-translations of the Psalmes, which were presented to Queen Elizabeth, reveals how ‘Angell Spirit’ is in fact public writing, which is disguised as private.This mode of ‘private’ direct address works ‘both as a commemoration of his genius and as an apology for her contributions’. This is apparent at the beginning of stanza four, where Mary directly addresses Philip using the second person ‘thou’, ‘thy’, and instructs him to ‘behold’:
Yet here behold, (oh wert thou to behold!)
this finish’t now, thy matchless Muse begunne.
Alliteration of ‘m’ highlights Mary’s description of Philip as a ‘matchless Muse’, and the use of ‘Muse’ both has classical connotations and identifies Philip as Mary’s inspiration. A ‘Muse’, however, is an overtly feminine figure in classical literature, and so figuring Philip as a muse reverses classical tradition and places Mary clearly in the position of the typically ‘masculine’ author.
This poem shows how Mary only felt able to write using the guise and form of her brother, as she gives herself agency as an author through his death. She honours his work by expressing how Philip’s poetic ‘light’ illuminates others, including herself: ‘Thy lightning beames give lustre to the rest’. This continues the humble tone maintained throughout ‘Angell Spirit’ – Mary separates herself as ‘the rest’ from Philip’s ‘lightning beames’, yet also acknowledges how she can break into authorial circles. She is able to take on the role of poet herself by continuing his work as his literary heir and, as Fisken notes, ‘In honouring him she created herself’. However, this was only possible for Mary as a woman from a high-ranking family. Mary Sidney’s high class played a significant role in how her literary work was received, and this becomes even more apparent when we consider the work of middle-class Aemilia Lanyer, whose work was much shorter lived.
Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645), in contrast to Mary Sidney, was born into a lower-ranking family, which meant that in order for Lanyer to be part of literary circles she needed patronage from an elite figure such as Mary Sidney. Lanyer’s paratexts for Salve Deus Rex Iudaeorum (1611) contrast directly with Sidney’s dedicatory letter to Philip, as Lanyer’s eleven dedicatory poems functioned as a desperate bid for patronage. These paratexts highlight the struggle of a middle-class woman to get her literary work into print, and push beyond the boundaries of the private sphere into the public sphere. Shea observes that print was regarded as both problematic and provocative for women, as print required the author to ‘put themselves on sale’ and be in places of trade. This means that women’s published works were associated with promiscuity, whereas privilege was attached to circulated public works, such as the manuscript form of ‘Angell Spirit’. Lanyer was a marginalised member of society, the daughter of an Italian immigrant, and was using these dedicatory letters as an outsider trying to enter elite literary circles, in a bid for her works to be published. For Lanyer, writing was associated with the concept of a profession – this would have been alien to the aristocracy, for whom writing was a leisure activity.
The dedicatory letter which I am going to look at is ‘The Authors Dreame to the Lady Marie’, in which Lanyer address Mary Sidney in the form of a dream vision poem. By using this form, Lanyer places herself in the same world as Mary Sidney and removes the rigid hierarchy of the Renaissance period. She reimagines the patronage relationship in a hypothetical world, in which she is able to promote a feminist agenda, without class barriers. The dynamic between the imagined Lanyer and Sidney in the dreamworld of ‘Authors Dreame’ is similar to that between Mary and Philip in ‘Angell Spirit’, as the dedicator in both poems is keen to maintain a humble tone to honour and revere their dedicatee. In Lanyer’s case, this is to secure patronage rather than to justify her writing.
Lanyer endeavours to establish literary authority through her use of rhetorical tropes which align her poem with the Renaissance tradition and highlight her classical knowledge. In stanza five, Lanyer places Morpheus within the dream vision and this is the first overt signal the reader gets that this is a hypothetical dream narrative. Morpheus is a staple in classical dream narratives, and his inclusion places Lanyer’s poem in a long tradition of classical allusion, ‘God Morphy came and tooke me by the hand’. Lanyer also uses the classical duo Apollo and Phoebe (or Phoebus and Dictina) – who represent the sun and moon – within the poem. The use of both Roman and Greek classical names demonstrates Lanyer’s depth of classical knowledge. The inclusion of these figures aligns Philip Sidney with Apollo, the sun, and Mary Sidney with Phoebe, the moon, which results in an unfavourable representation of Mary:
Shee deckt her selfe with all the borrowed light
That Phoebus would afford from his faire face
And made her Virgins to appeare so bright.
The imagery of ‘borrowed light’ reflects Lanyer’s association of Mary’s literary reputation which is achieved through Philip’s reputation, or ‘light’. The fricative alliteration ‘Phoebus would afford from his faire face’ (emphasis my own) draws the reader’s attention to how the light comes from Phoebus, or Philip, and that Mary’s reputation is not achieved solely through her own work. This is a hidden textual critique of the way such patronage circles function, which discriminate on the basis of class rather than ability. This reveals undertones of Lanyer’s own jealousy, but is reminiscent of Mary Sidney’s ‘Angell Spirit’ where ‘thy lightning beame gives lustre to the rest’. The reuse of this imagery implies that Lanyer thinks that Mary should be willing to share her ‘light’ with others, in the form of patronage for Lanyer, in the way that Philip shared his ‘light’ with her. Lanyer is only able to criticize these patronage circles through the use of this hypothetical dream world, as it can break down the typical class barriers of society prevalent in the physical world.
Akin to ‘Angell Spirit’, Lanyer also gestures to the humility of her own work calling it a ‘Shepheards weed’ and stating that Mary’s ‘faire mind on worthier workes is plac’d’. In the final three stanzas, Lanyer uses polyptoton ‘worthier’, ‘unworthily’, ‘worthiness’, ‘unworthy’, which creates a dichotomy between Lanyer as ‘unworthy’ and Mary as ‘worthy’. The use of this rhetorical literary technique has a double function, as it demonstrates Lanyer’s classical ability as an author yet also reestablishes a humble tone at the end of her dedicatory poem, in a final plea for patronage. Despite Lanyer’s clear disdain for the elite circles, she concludes her dedicatory poem by conforming to the expected dynamic by aligning herself with unworthiness against Mary’s worthiness. This shows the class divide that led to Lanyer’s work being less well known, compared to the high profile of Mary Sidney’s poems.
These two texts written by authors from different backgrounds illustrate how the Renaissance period was not experienced equally within the constraints of gender, which were also intersected by the constraints of class. In the first section, I outlined how ‘Renaissance’ expands in reference as more work is discovered and considered through a feminist lens. Taking ‘Renaissance’ to mean a ‘rebirth of Classical culture’ and an experience of a humanist education, few women were able to be a part of this movement. Even highly educated women could not benefit from or be fully included in the Renaissance period as their work was overlooked if they were not born into elite circles. This is illustrated by Sidney’s approach to writing and authorship compared with Lanyer’s, whose writing was driven by patronage since class dictated how literary work was received. Although the parameters of ‘Renaissance’ are expanding as the work of more women is reevaluated by contemporary critics, it is still not a wholly suitable term as it ostracised so many women and created such a rigidly patriarchal society. Nevertheless, a small percentage of women did experience the Renaissance, as exemplified by the high-born Mary Sidney. However, her writing still shows signs of a gender divide as she could only justify and develop her work through the elevated position of her late brother. Aemilia Lanyer, in contrast, was denied a lasting place in the Renaissance movement, purely due to her being outside such elite circles. These contrasting paratexts highlight the different authorial motivations for women, which are not just defined by gender but also by class.