This timely volume represents one of the first comprehensive, student-oriented guides to the under-published field of early modern women's writing. Brings together more than twenty leading international scholars to provide the definitive survey volume to the field of early modern women's writing Examines individual texts, including works by Mary Sidney, Margaret Cavendish and Aphra Behn Explores the historical context and generic diversity of early modern women's writing, as well as the theoretical issues that underpin its study Provides a clear sense of the full extent of women's contributions to early modern literary culture

Featuring the most frequently taught female writers and texts of the early modern period, this Companion introduces the reader to the range, complexity, historical importance, and aesthetic merit of women's writing in Britain from 1500–1700. Presenting key textual, historical, and methodological information, the volume exemplifies new and diverse approaches to the study of women's writing. The book is clearly divided into three sections, covering: how women learnt to write and how their work was circulated or published; how and what women wrote in the places and spaces in which they lived, worked, and worshipped; and the different kinds of writing women produced, from poetry and fiction to letters, diaries, and political prose. This structure makes the volume readily adaptable to course usage. The Companion is enhanced by an introduction that lays out crucial framework and critical issues, and by chronologies that situate women's writings alongside political and cultural events.

A History of Early Modern Women's Writing is essential reading for students and scholars working in the field of early modern British literature and history. This collaborative book of twenty-two chapters offers an expansive, multifaceted narrative of British women's literary and textual production in the period stretching from the English Reformation to the Restoration. Chapters work together to trace the contours of a diverse body of early modern women's writing, aligning women's texts with the major literary, political, and cultural currents with which they engage. Contributors examine and take account of developments in critical theory, feminism, and gender studies that have influenced the reception, reading, and interpretation of early modern women's writing. This book explicates and interrogates significant methodological and critical developments in the past four decades, guiding and testing scholarship in this period of intense activity in the recovery, dissemination, and interpretation of women's writing.

In Spain, the two hundred years that elapsed between the beginning of the early modern period and the final years of the Habsburg Empire saw a profusion of works written by women. Whether secular or religious, noble or middle class, early modern Spanish women actively composed creative works such as poetry, prose narratives, and plays. The Routledge Research Companion to Early Modern Spanish Women Writers covers the broad array of different kinds of writings – literary as well as extra-literary – that these women wrote, taking into consideration their subject positions and the cultural and historical contexts that influenced and were influenced by them. Beyond merely recognizing the individual women authors who had influence in literary, religious, and intellectual circles, this Research Companion investigates their participation in these circles through their writings, as well as the ways in which their texts informed Spain’s cultural production during the early modern period. In order to contextualize women’s writings across the historical and cultural spectrum of early modern Spain, the Research Companion is divided into six sections of general thematic interest: Women’s Worlds; Conventual Spaces; Secular Literature; Women in the Public Sphere; Private Circles; Women Travelers. Each section is subdivided into chapters that focus on specific issues or topics.

Women played a central role in literary modernism, theorizing, debating, writing, and publishing the critical and imaginative work that resulted in a new literary culture during the early twentieth century. This volume provides a thorough overview of the main genres, the important issues, and the key figures in women's writing during the years 1890–1945. The essays treat the work of Woolf, Stein, Cather, H. D. Barnes, Hurston, and many others in detail; they also explore women's salons, little magazines, activism, photography, film criticism, and dance. Written especially for this Companion, these lively essays introduce students and scholars to the vibrant field of women's modernism.

This exciting collection of original essays on early modern women’s writing offers a range of approaches to a growing field. As a whole, the volume introduces readers to a number of writers, such as Mirabai and Liu Rushi, who are virtually invisible in Anglophone scholarship, and to writers who remain little known, such as Elizabeth Melville, Elizabeth Hatton, and Jane Sharpe. The volume also represents critical strategies designed to open up the emergent canon of early modern women’s writing to new approaches, especially those that have consolidated the integration of literary and intellectual history, with an emphasis on religion, legal issues, and questions of genre. The authors expand the methodological possibilities available to approach early modern women who wrote in a diverse number of genres, from letters to poetry, autobiography and prose fiction. The sixteen essays are a major contribution to an area that has attracted the interest of a number of fields, including literary studies, history, cultural studies, and women’s studies.

Over the past three decades scholars have transformed the study of women and gender in early modern Europe. This Ashgate Research Companion presents an authoritative review of the current research on women and gender in early modern Europe from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The authors examine women’s lives, ideologies of gender, and the differences between ideology and reality through the recent research across many disciplines, including history, literary studies, art history, musicology, history of science and medicine, and religious studies. The book is intended as a resource for scholars and students of Europe in the early modern period, for those who are just beginning to explore these issues and this time period, as well as for scholars learning about aspects of the field in which they are not yet an expert. The companion offers not only a comprehensive examination of the current research on women in early modern Europe, but will act as a spark for new research in the field.