The Paradise of Women: Writings by Englishwomen of the Renaissance

Travitsky, Betty S.; Wright, Elizabeth C.

doi:10.33137/rr.v20i1.12222

Cited by 18 publications

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“…Henceforth, recusant writers were forced to publish their books secretly and under pseudonyms, and recusant literature was marginalized, if not neglected, until very recently. 7 See for example: Travitsky (1980;1990). Worth mentioning is also the anthology Kissing the Rod: An Anthology of Seventeenth Century Women's Verse (1988,1989) edited by Jeslyn Medoff, Germaine Greer, Susan Hastings, and Melinda Sansone.…”

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confidence: 99%

“For as we all differ in face, so do we differ in the manner of our exercises that are interior” Gertrude More's, Catherine Gascoigne's and Barbara Constable's religious writings through a feminist perspective on religious women’s agency and mysticism

Barnabè¹

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This thesis examines the religious writings of three seventeenth-century English nuns, Gertrude More (1606-1633), Catherine Gascoigne (1601-1676) and Barbara Constable (1617-1684), from a feminist perspective on agency and mysticism. All three women lived at the Benedictine monastery of “Our Lady of Consolation” in Cambrai (now in France), exiled from Anglican England because of their Catholic faith. It is argued that the texts of More, Gascoigne and Constable show that their agency was expressed not against or in spite of their religion, but rather through it. On the one hand, they rejected blind obedience to dominant superiors, though without violating religious monastic rule. On the other hand, they developed their own spirituality and mysticism based on medieval and contemplative teachings. More, Constable and Gascoigne, each in their own way, had a close spiritual relationship with their male spiritual instructor, David Baker, whose religious name was Augustine (1575-1641). Baker was a Benedictine monk best known for his writings on mystical spiritual contemplation. He played an important role in the lives of the three nuns, both in their personal and spiritual development. This thesis examines the extent to which More, Constable and Gascoigne mixed their own spiritual perspectives with those of Baker and how this affected their 'agentic capacity'. The study shows that Baker and each of the three nuns influenced each other in a positive way, leading to their personal and spiritual empowerment.

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Section: Relevance Of the Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“For as we all differ in face, so do we differ in the manner of our exercises that are interior” Gertrude More's, Catherine Gascoigne's and Barbara Constable's religious writings through a feminist perspective on religious women’s agency and mysticism

Barnabè¹

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Heresy Trials and English Women Writers, 1400–1670

Gertz

2012

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This book charts the emergence of women's writing from the procedures of heresy trials and recovers a tradition of women's trial narratives from the late Middle Ages to the seventeenth century. Analyzing the interrogations of Margery Kempe, Anne Askew, Marian Protestant women, Margaret Clitherow and Quakers Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers, the book examines the complex dynamics of women's writing, preaching and authorship under religious persecution and censorship. Archival sources illuminate not only the literary choices women made, showing how they wrote to justify their teaching even when their authority was questioned, but also their complex relationship with male interrogators. Women's speech was paradoxically encouraged and constrained, and male editors preserved their writing while shaping it to their own interests. This book challenges conventional distinctions between historical and literary forms while identifying a new tradition of women's writing across Catholic, Protestant and Sectarian communities and the medieval/early modern divide.

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Stuart's L'Ire de Dieu

Donawerth

2001

The Explicator

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The Paradise of Women: Writings by Englishwomen of the Renaissance

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

“For as we all differ in face, so do we differ in the manner of our exercises that are interior” Gertrude More's, Catherine Gascoigne's and Barbara Constable's religious writings through a feminist perspective on religious women’s agency and mysticism

“For as we all differ in face, so do we differ in the manner of our exercises that are interior” Gertrude More's, Catherine Gascoigne's and Barbara Constable's religious writings through a feminist perspective on religious women’s agency and mysticism

Heresy Trials and English Women Writers, 1400–1670

Stuart's L'Ire de Dieu

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