Constructing Families: Associative Networks in the Seventeenth-century Cases of Mary and Katherine Hampson

Wills and other evidence related to the married Mary Hampson and her sister-in-law the never married Katherine Hampson place each within associative networks and detail their financial and emotional situations throughout their lives. Mary Hampson’s printed autobiography and legal documents detailing years of marital abuse reveal the loss of her small fortune and her financial destitution that contributed to her inability to maintain her familial and class associations. In contrast, her sister-in-law the never married Katherine Hampson died possessed of wealth that increased dramatically under her financial management. Katherine Hampson’s detailed will illustrates a complex associative network that reveals her familial connectedness and emotional well-being throughout her life. The cases of these two women challenge normative conceptions of the relationship between marital status and financial, social, and emotional stability in early modern England

Elizabeth Russell's textual performances of self

Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell (b. 1528) was a scholar and courtier whose close association with the powerful Cecils allowed her a great deal of influence in the political arena during the reign of Elizabeth I. Her first husband was Sir Thomas Hoby, a scholar and diplomat. Together they had four children: Edward, a successful courtier under James I; Thomas Posthumous, who was to serve successfully as a representative of the government in regional affairs in East Yorkshire; and two daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, who died in childhood

Review: What is literature, by Arthur Gibson

Gibson’s exploration of literature in this ambitious work positions itself as a response to Jean-Paul Sartre’s series of essays published as What is Literature? in 1947. Gibson claims that the nature of literature is not, as Sartre asserts, ‘finite and particular’ but rather a ‘series of infinite qualities’ (479). He explains that literature opens up meaning continually and in surprising ways. The concept of surprise is fundamental to Gibson’s contention that literature is ‘counter-intuitive’. Thus the main thesis of the book is contained in Gibson’s assertion that ‘great literature directs attention to new ways of seeing’ (19). This statement could be just as usefully applied to Gibson’s own book. In it he proposes a myriad of positions from which to consider the infinite and surprising nature of literature

Social space in the writings of early modern women

Henri Lefebvre in his work, The Production of Space describes “representational space” as being “alive. It speaks... It embraces the loci of passion, of action and of lived situations.” Manuel Castells reiterates this view of spatiality when he argues, “Space is not a reflection of society, it is society.” This work explores the way in which the texts of five early modem women insert into the dynamics of spatial production alternative constructions and possibilities. Aemilia Lanyer accesses the discourse of the country house, inserting alternatives to authoritarian cultural constructs in her poem “The Description of Cooke-ham.” Isabella Whitney draws upon discourses of the city to create both a celebration and a complaint of her experience of London. Her poem, “The Maner of her Wyll & What She Left To London...” uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to represent the social spaces of the city and the place of the individual within it. The diary of Margaret Hoby reveals another kind of relationship to social space. This diary is explored using the concepts of body-ballet and time/space routine. What is revealed is Hoby’s subjective representation of a personal geography. The elegiac poetry of Elizabeth Russell is inscribed in the sacred spaces of the culture, on the monuments of her husband and children. Through this spatial act Russell sought to mediate the damage death wrought upon her and her “house” or family. Her poetry also serves as a vehicle through which she performs her construction of self-identity. Jane Seager, in her gift book to Queen Elizabeth, seeks to appropriate deities of space, the sibyls, in order to enter imaginatively into the social spaces of the Queen. In this way she seeks to secure some form of agency. The writing of each of these women draws upon what Lefebvre terms representational space, as a means to explore the spatiality of their period and insert alternative constructions into a spatial dialogue that was increasingly focused on conceptual spaces of emerging mathematical processes, cartographic imaging and methods for the measurement and traversing of space

Thomas of Erceldoune’s Lady: The Scottish Sibyl

The prophetic lady in the early fifteenth-century romance Thomas of Erceldoune has received little attention in discussions surrounding this romance text. This essay discusses the affinities this lady shares with the sibyls of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as later manifestations of the sibyls in medieval theology, prophecy, and romance. By drawing upon imagery associated with the prophetic narratives nationhood circulating in the British Isles, the eschatological prophecies of the sibyls Erythraea, Tiburtine, and Cumae, and the many romance Sebiles, the poet validates the Scottish prophecies contained in the text. Allusions to the medieval sibylline tradition also place the narrative and prophecies in this romance within the wider prophetic tradition of medieval Europe. Erceldoune’s lady is a composite character who is heavily dependent upon sibylline allusions. Through these allusions, the lady becomes conduit through which the importance and validity of the Scottish prophecies are communicated in this narrative

Textual Construction of Space in the Writing of Renaissance Women: "In" Habiting Place

This book examines complex constructions of social space in the texts of four Renaissance women. In the rapidly transforming social space of 16th and early 17th century England, Isabella Whitney, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Hoby Russell and Margaret Hoby created alternative spatial narratives that participated in, as well as challenged, the influential forces of their changing environment. These forces included the elevation of linear perspective, mathematical advances, and developing concepts of private ownership of property. Amidst these developments the women discussed offered alternative constructions of social spaces through their texts that directly confronted the many social restrictions women faced in contemporary life. This work places the texts examined within a theoretically informed discussion of the social spaces of Renaissance England, both physical and imagined. It challenges many ideas concerning a “woman’s place” offering instead a more complete and complex account of the spaces and places lived and imagined by Renaissance women

Isabella Whitney, "Sister Eldershae," and Cheshire Recusancy

This essay discusses the biographical essay written by R. J. Fehrenbach about writer Isabella Whitney. It mentions the dedication by George Whitney, brother of Isabella, and an emblem to physician Richard Eldershawe. It also provides information on the family connections of the Whitney family to families in Cheshire, England