The rise of humanist studies in the Western world brought with it the Respublica litteraria,1 an intellectual community, real and imagined, crossing over time, social, and geographical boundaries, along with publications of a similar kind.2 Latin would remain the lingua franca. Yet, from the start in the fifteenth century, the rise in the learned use of vernacular languages made possible a new, more inclusive discourse about the literary act and its place in society. The advent of print fuelled the commercialization of literary products, by men and by women, which increased, particularly, in the seventeenth century.3 Such changes were initially influenced by Dante, who considered the vernacular as universal, and by Petrarch, who justified it by placing it in a classical context. Boccaccioâs first edition of Danteâs works also acted as a defence of vernacular poetry, and he transcribed the earliest redaction of Petrarchâs vernacular collection.4 Christine de Pizan, moreover, exemplified the humanist fascination with Graeco-Roman ancient culture from the conscious stance of a female author, in works that became key in the Querelle des femmes literary debate. Here is how Pizan fashioned Sappho:
Remarquablement écrits et composés, ses Åuvres et poèmes sont parvenus jusquâà nous, et demeurent des modèles dâinspiration pour les poètes et écrivains assoiffés de perfection. Sapho inventa plusieurs genres lyriques et poétiques: lais et dolentes élégies, curieux chants dâamour désespéré et autres poèmes lyriques dâinspiration différente, qui furent appelés saphiques pour lâexcellence de leur prosodie. Horace rappelle à ce sujet qu`à la mort de Platon, ce très grand philosophe et le maître même dâAristote, on trouva sous son oreiller un recueil des poèmes de Sapho.5
Her [Sappho] writings and poems have survived to this day, most remarkably constructed and composed, and they serve as illumination and models of consummate poetic craft and composition to those who have come afterward. She invented various lyrical and poetical genres, short narratives, tearful laments and strange lamentations about love and other emotions, which were so well made and so well ordered that these were named âSapphicâ after her. Horace recounts, concerning her poems, that when Plato, the great philosopher who was Aristotleâs teacher, died, a book of Sapphoâs poems was found under his pillow.
Pizan admits to learning about her through Boccaccio (presumably, De claris mulieribus), but Sappho had also served as an authoritative model for Catullus, Horace, Ovid, and Isidore of Seville (in Etymologiae; Libri XX, 1.39.7) â the Etymologiaeâs Augsburg editio princeps of 1472 stands as one of the earliest incunables.6 Leonardo Bruni, another best-selling author and model for humanists, recalls her authority to defend womenâs study of rhetoric in De studiis et litteris (ca. 1405â1429), whose print editions date from 1472.7 Sapphoâs âOde to Aphroditeâ, furthermore, was printed within Dionysiusâs De compositione verborum (XXIII) by Aldus Manutius in Venice in 1508, and again in 1556, this time in France by Henri Estienne as part of her âcompleteâ work. Fragment 31 (âHe is a god to meâ), for its part, appeared twice in 1554: first, in Basel by the scholar Francesco Robortello (in the pseudo-Longinian treatise On the Sublime), and then, in Venice by Marc-Antoine Muret (in his Catullus, et in eum commentaries M. Antonii Mureti); and for the first time in the vernacular, in 1556 by André Wechel (in Rémi Belleauâs French translation of Anacreonâs odes).8 Sapphoâs model was still being invoked and celebrated for its auctoritas, alongside modern female ones,9 throughout the seventeenth century: in her English translation of Book VI of Abraham Cowleyâs Plantarum libri sex (London, 1668), Aphra Behn added three verses (not in the original Latin) to Cowleyâs on the laurel wreath, singling out in a footnote that, in such verses, âthe translatress in her own person speaksâ (âLet me with Sappho and Orinda [Katherine Philips] be, / Oh ever Sacred Nymph, adornâd by thee; / And give my verses Immortalityâ).10 The tendency to take Sappho and other ancient women (i.e. Corinna and Aspasia) as models by and for learned women publicly, in fact, mirrors the male models of Virgil or Horace. By celebrating and reinforcing, in their own times, a sense of shared memories and of a common past, learned women and their peers document a group identity within the Respublica litteraria, as well as a reference frame of female literary agency.11
This chapter, therefore, reflects on the relation of scholarly identity, collective memory, and gender12 from an interdisciplinary, comparative perspective by focusing on published texts by Luisa Sigea (1522â1560) and Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623â1673). The aim is to illuminate the position of women within the learned world by interrogating secular self-fashioning and publishing strategies before and after the major commercialization of literature in the first four decades of the seventeenth century: to reconstruct the real place of any group identity within intellectual memory, we need to turn to the literary and material form(s) of their contributions.13
1 Luisa Sigea (1522â1560): Scholarly Identity in the Sixteenth Century
On 15 March 1551, Luisa Sigea addressed a Latin epistle to Pompeyo Zambecari, Bishop of Sulmona, then also apostolic nuncio in Lisbon. The epistle opens with a quotation that she attributes to Cicero (she evidently cites from memory, because the source is actually from Quintilian), conceding the idea that oneâs true thoughts never hide behind eloquent words.14 The epistle, in fact, shows her effort to attract sincere intellectual praise, one of the strongest stimulants to a passion for literature, and mentoring, after reaching renown as a polyglot through intellectual exchanges in person, correspondence, and publication:
Vidisti igitur heri quantum ab illa tua de me concepta opinione degenerem, quantumque a linguarum peritia qua me pollere audieras, cum nihil non plane rusticum atque obsoletum coram te dixerim. Nec me solatur benignitas qua in me commendanda es usus, cum abjectos aut submittentes se libenter allevemus, quia hoc facere tanquam majores videmur; et quoties discessit aemulatio succedit humanitas. Vellem potius talem me in vena exhibuisse talemque esse ut te timerem aemulum quam jactarem inscitiae meae habere defensorem.15
You saw yesterday how unworthy I showed myself of the opinion that you have of me and of my knowledge of languages â to which, according to what you had heard, I owed my renown â for everything I said in your presence was utterly clumsy and vulgar. And I find no consolation in the kindness that you employed to instil confidence in me, for we elevate the humiliated and the fallen voluntarily only because that gesture seems to make us feel better about ourselves. For, as soon as rivalry disappears, humanity follows. I wish I had shown to have such talent of myself and to be such to fear you as a rival, rather than to boast that I had you as a defender of my clumsiness.
To this end, Sigea stresses the role of rivalry in the pursuit of knowledge and the solace one finds in knowing that friendship develops from sharing values and intellectual practices; she also underlines being occupied by some serious writing. Crucially, the epistle concludes with a note of gratitude and a promise to be forever obliging, rooted in first-hand experience: Sigea thanks Zambecari for sending her a book by Vittoria Colonna, which she admits to appreciating more than light itself, both because of its author and its donor.
Sigea made not a single reference to her sex in this Latin epistle. That a woman humanist found her female condition irrelevant in an appeal for intellectual mentoring, in such an âintimately theatricalâ form,16 is of the utmost importance. It dismantles several preconceived ideas about women and the learned world: neither criticism nor the use of masculine generic linguistic terms, even in Latin (i.e. âviriâ), precluded Sigea from identifying with experiences depicted in male-authored texts, which substantiates the existence, power, and scope of ideologies other than patriarchal at the time.17 One vital finding of cognitive research on gender is the connection between raising consciousness and having schemata for a female perspective in literature; another, that a simple instruction to consider something differently can induce a change in a female readerâs outlook on that same thing.18 A case in point is Erasmusâs colloquy Abbatis et eruditae (Basel, 1524), which positively addresses the question, practices, and marital experiences of learned women as a contemporary social phenomenon in Spain, Italy, England, and Germany.19 In short, Renaissance20 learned women knew they could be considered on an equal footing to their male peers, thereby confirming that positive symbolic constructions about them â i.e. via factual paratexts: name, sex, hometown, cultural practices â 21 helped shifting readersâ outlooks on womenâs intellectual worth more thoroughly than has been thought.
Womenâs agency to act independently and exert authority from a female perspective22 in the Respublica litteraria was increasingly exemplified by those who, like Sigea, âformed intellectual relationships with men and were invited to participate in humanist life and practicesâ.23 In her humanist epistle, Sigea mentions Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, a poet in the Petrarchan tradition and an author of prose works, first written as epistles, who like Christine de Pizan, found success through vernacular manuscript. Colonna actively promoted the publication of Castiglioneâs Il Cortegiano (Venice, 1528), a social treatise that rapidly became an European best-seller, proving instrumental for the consolidation of womenâs secular authorship across borders: drawing on ancient and modern history, Castiglione prescribes a theoretical and practical view of female courtiers that closely matches that of the male courtier.24 Colonnaâs Rime de la Divina Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara (Parma, 1538) was printed, in the sixteenth century alone, nineteen times, twelve during the authorâs lifetime.25 This success stimulated the rising number of publishing women during the sixteenth century across borders â in England, for instance, she may have influenced Aemilia Lanyer.26
Not only was she perceived as an equal to the finest male poets of her age, but Colonnaâs consecration as an author also promoted a model for legitimate literary expression by secular women and a canon of female voices she herself headed.27 Such self-authorization strategies built on those of Boccaccio and Christine de Pizan: in the Introduction to Day 4 of the Decamerone (ca. 1353), Boccaccio places himself in a community of modern vernacular poets under the pretext âto defend [their] continued love for the ladiesâ; his larger strategy was to authorize himself by canonizing others.28
Poetry was regarded as the literary art par excellence.29 Colonna herself developed as an author through writing verse â Sapphoâs recognized expertise â, and this is representative of the early modern period across Europe. So is that she was labelled a âTenth Museâ, the title Plato accorded to Sappho for her superb literary skills, which turned her into an authoritative model: in Phaedrus, for instance, Sappho is used by Socrates as an authority to support his criticism of Lysiasâs speech on love.30 Indeed, many Renaissance and Baroque learned women were adorned with ancient names (i.e. Sappho, Corinna, and Minerva)31 and titles (âTenth Museâ, âFourth Graceâ), based on Platoâs authority and intent, and later those of his leading followers (i.e. Garcilaso de la Vega):
En los antiguos fue frequente llamar a las Damas doctas Décima Musa, o quarta Gracia [â¦]. Assà llamò Platón lib.1. Anthol. a Sappho Poetria de Grecia. Sappho Pierÿs est Decima [â¦]. Y nuestro Garci-Lasso en el Soneto 24. a la Marquesa de la Padula [â¦], Décima moradora del Parnaso. / Yo di el mismo atributo a [â¦] FENISA Dama q[ue] en este siglo merece ser referida con quantas acuerda la fama.
Among the ancient it became customary to call learned Ladies Tenth Muse, or fourth Grace [â¦]. This is how Plato called Sappho Poetria of Greece lib.1. Anthol.. Sappho Pierÿs est Decima [â¦]. So did our Garcilaso [de la Vega] in Sonnet 24 regarding the Marchioness of Padula [â¦], Tenth dweller of the Parnassus. / I gave the same attribute to [â¦] FENISA, a Lady, who in this century deserves to be recalled along with those fame concurs.32
Again, this echoed practices applied to learned men: in his depiction of Petrarch, Boccaccioâs use of epithets draws on the concept of the vir illustris, transmitted from Roman antiquity and based on the idea of coincidence of virtue and fame; in the seventeenth century, this also manifests in the presentation of authors as equivalents to ancient and the âfirstâ modern authorities, both implicitly and explicitly (i.e. Lope de Vega as Virgil, Petrarch, and Garcilaso; Ben Jonson as âthe English Horace, Martialâ).33 In both cases, the practice was financially worthwhile, too, given its special recurrence in the paratextual apparatus of print publications throughout the period, even when concerning religious authors (i.e. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz), precisely because this difference helped the publication to stand out.34
Luisa Sigea was also celebrated as a âTenth Museâ during her lifetime, an authoritative intellectual status, which was notably enlarged by the papal support she had; in 1546, she sent Pope Paulus III a Latin epistle (she had also done so in 1540), accompanied by a copy of her first work, Sintra, to which he responded positively in 1547.35 Sintra (c. 1546) is an ode, which shows a âstructural similarityâ with Sapphoâs âOde to Aphroditeâ.36 Specifically, it is a bucolic evocation in verse (with four epigrams) of the royal gardens of Sintra, Portugal, wherein a lake nymph addresses the humanist author by her name: Sigea is sitting nearby, and the nymph prophesizes on the fortunate future of Mary of Portugal, Duchess of Viseu, Sigeaâs very own patron and the richest woman in Renaissance Europe. Sigea and her sister were tutored by their Flemish father, Diego Sigeo, as did later the children of the fourth duke of Braganza; in 1542 Rainha Catherine of Austria, wife of John III of Portugal, invited Sigea to become a lady-in-waiting at her court, and soon she and her sister began to serve the Infanta Mary of Portugal, as her Latin and music tutors. Indeed, a number of payments are recorded in Livro de moradia of Rainha Catherine for âdonna Luisa de Sygea, latinaâ.37 The term latina could simply refer to learned ladies at court.38 Nonetheless, prioritising womenâs roles as teachers in female education had a long tradition at Portuguese courts, notably shown by their female patronage of two Portuguese translations of Pizanâs Le Livre des trois vertus à lâenseignement des dames.39 In Sigeaâs case, this role is deemed as factual (not verisimilar) in several contemporary letters and in a seventeenth-century biography of the Infanta.40
This promotion of gender complicity becomes all the more significant when considering that Sigea reached international renown as a humanist authority and a scholar,41 linked to the Infantaâs âUniversidade Femenina [Female University]â,42 as her literary academy was known. The phrase was perhaps inspired by womenâs attested connections with universities in Iberia and elsewhere,43 or indeed, by Pizanâs gendered discourse: in the Portuguese translations of her treatise on womenâs education â its print version, O Espelho de Cristina (Lisbon, 1518), was commissioned by the Infantaâs aunt, Rainha Eleanor of Viseu â , Pizan addresses her readers as âcolegio feminino [womenâs college]â and as âuniversidade das mulheres [womenâs university]â.44 In this regard, Erasmusâs influence may have played a part, too: in his colloquy Senatulus (1528), five female characters, bearing ancient and modern names (Cornelia, Margareta, Perotta, Julia, and Catarina), plan to form a women-only council and engage in public debates concerning womenâs lives.45
A year after addressing her epistle to Zambecari, Sigea married Francisco de Cuevas, an untitled noble, and completed her other major extant work, Duarum virginum colloquium de vita aulica et privata (c. 1552; its dedication dates from 1553), in prose and dialogue form, drawing on Plato, Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca, St Augustin, Petrarch, and Erasmus â in Phaedrus, as we remember, Socrates marshalled Sappho as an authority. In her colloquy, two young learned women (Flaminia and Blesilla) debate whether a public life at court is better than a private one in retirement within city walls, favouring the latter. It is, therefore, a small yet significant variation â it is based on gender â on the old debate between the active and the contemplative life with regards to the attainment of happiness.46
In her epistles, poetry, prose, and dialogues, Sigea represented a female voice in Latin to underscore her authority as a scholar, upholding the sense of friendship and camaraderie of the Respublica litteraria.47 The dedications to her female patron served this purpose, too, since her âsocial respectabilityâ48 as a humanist, like Petrarchâs, depended on patronage. In all such writings, Sigea exploited seemingly personal circumstances â being a learned woman was one â for the captatio benevolentiae, such as in the purportedly Ciceronian (in fact, Quintilian) quotation in the opening of the epistle addressed to Zambecari.49 Such efforts helped in her construction of an auctoritas suitable for the times: certainly, with her chosen signature âPer Loysam Sygeam Toletanamâ emulating others (i.e. âPer Des. Erasmus Roterodamusâ), Sigea fashioned herself as a known, recognizable, and confident scholarly woman author (âutility and noveltyâ),50 born to a learned, middle-class family of Flemish and Spanish origin, connected with Toledo (Charles Vâs main residence) and Portuguese courts.51 In Johannes Vasaeusâs Chronici rerum memorabilium Hispaniae (Salamanca, 1552),52 for instance, Sigea (and her sister) is praised as a contemporary learned referent of âpuellas aliquot & mulieresâ across nations with supportive fathers: the preliminaries include a laudatory poem by Francisco Sánchez de las Brozas, known as El Brocense, famous to this day for his editions and translations of classical and modern works. In 1553, she was praised alongside Aspasia, Sappho, the daughters of Thomas More, Angela of Foligno, Catherine of Siena, and Vittoria Colonna, in a French print publication by Guillaume Postel on the most admirable victories of modern women, dedicated to Margaret of Valois, who was born that year. Learned women as a group must have felt most appreciated, especially when reading about Sigeaâs accomplishments in the name of women â âà la Femme nâest rien impossibleâ [for a woman, nothing is impossible], as Postel added.53 But also when any such celebrated women allegedly experienced envy-driven ridicule and this was publicly undermined on gender and humanistic (erasmian) grounds:
But these men that so saye do in my jugement eyther regarde but lytell what they speke in this mater or els as they be for the more parte unlerned they envy it and take it sore to hert, that the other shulde have that precious jewell whiche they nother have theym selfe nor can fynde in their hertes to take the payne to gette [â¦]. I suppose nowe a dayes a man coude nat devyse a better waye to kepe his wyfe safe [â¦] than if he teche her the latyn and greke tonge and suche good sciences as are written in them.54
Two key examples are the vernacular publications of Gaspara Stampa and Louise Labé, which appeared shortly after that of Postel and those including Sapphoâs Fragment 31, as the products of âTenth Musesâ (i.e. âSaffo de nostri giorniâ, Sappho of our times)55 â Stampaâs book was published posthumously in Venice, but Labéâs collected works appeared in Lyon during her lifetime, following humanistic practices (i.e. âpar Lovïze Labé lionnoizeâ).56
In 1557, when their daughter was born, Sigea and her husband secured positions at the Valladolid court of Reina Mary of Hungary and Bohemia, sister of Charles V and an Erasmusâs correspondent, including the dedicatee of his De vidua christiana (Basel, 1529). A year later, she was praised as a âTenth Museâ in Salvador Solanoâs Poetica (Salamanca, 1558), whose preliminaries again include a laudatory poem by El Brocense.57 In 1559, while living on two pensions left to them by the late Reina Mary, Sigea sent a Latin epistle, in the form of a curriculum vitae, to Philip II of Spain, stressing her teaching work for the Infanta Mary of Portugal and her singularity as the then most celebrated woman scholar: Sigeaâs confidence may have seemed plausible enough, since print works (i.e. Domenichiâs all-women anthology, containing fifty-three women poets, Colonna and Stampa among them, was published then in Lucca) increasingly showcased learned women âas active in literary coteries, urban networks of literary women and men, and the republic of letters in generalâ.58 Around this time, too, her husband requested employment in writing for both, on the basis of a lack of funds and their former work; he as secretary and she âpor las habilidades que tiene y por haber enseñado a la Infanta de Portugalâ [for the abilities she has and for having taught the Infanta of Portugal].59 On 1 February 1560, again to no avail, Sigea applied for a position â based on shared intellectual interests â at the court of Elisabeth of Valois, a sister of Postelâs dedicatee, and the kingâs wife (since 1559) via Sébastien de lâAubespine, the French ambassador. Sigea died months later.60
Philip II conceded a life-long pension to Públia Hortênsia de Castro (1548â1595), another female humanist linked to Rainha Catherineâs Portuguese court, however. Furthermore, when Sigea approached him for work, Sofonisba Anguissola had just (in 1559) been appointed to serve his young wife as âartista de compañÃaâ [a lady-in-waiting and a painting teacher]: Anguissola stayed with Reina Elisabeth until 1573.61 In her epistle to de lâAubespine, Sigea speaks of patronage struggles as a societal problem in Spain, which she also exploits for aesthetic purposes in her vernacular poetry. Curiously, in the preface to his revised Part III of Le Vite (Florence, 1568), Giorgio Vasari dwells on such patronage struggles in Italy, too, while including a life and a portrait of the sculptor Properzia deâ Rossi, as well as references to the Spanish courtâs appreciation of Anguissola.62 In other words, Sigeaâs late frustration seems to have referred to her milieu, in which poets and artists alike struggled to climb the social hierarchy, rather than to personal (gender) reasons.63
Sintra was printed in 1566 by Denis du Pré in Paris. The paratextual apparatus includes Sigeaâs epistle to Pope Paulus III, laudatory poems by Portuguese and Italian humanists â Jorge Coelho (who compares her to Sappho), Gaspar Barreiros, André de Resende, Girolamo Britonio, and Claudio Monselli â, and two epistles on the printing arrangement that existed since October 1561 between her father and Jean Nicot, the French ambassador in Lisbon. In short, the print version documents a concerted effort to preserve and capitalize on Sigeaâs singularity, memory, and fame in Spain, France, and Italy. Below is Nicotâs epistle to Sigeaâs father, Diego Sigeo:
Eccum tibi, mi Sygaee, Aloysiae tuae carmen [â¦]. Nunc ad te redit ornatum Cl[audii]. Monselli peritissimi viri commendatione. Tu cura, ut Infans Maria, quid judicium de ejus alumna in Gallia factum fuerit, id vero intelligat. Aloysia, Sygaee, ex te denuo nascitur: immo vero prorsus numquam interiit. Vivet autem saeculis innumerabilibus hoc pulcherrimarum artium, quas illa studiosissime coluit, adjumento; ac tanquam fax nunc magis accensa non Hispanas modo feminas, sed ceteras quasvis etiam incredibile litterarum amore inflammabit.64
Here is for you, my Sigeo, the poem of your Luisa [â¦]. I am returning it now with the recommendation [and praises] of Claudio Monsello, the most outstanding expert in oratory. Do as much as you can so that Infanta Dona Maria appreciates this opinion for what it is worth, for never before had it been held in France a judgment of such calibre regarding a lady-in-waiting of hers. Luisa, dear Sigeo, is born once again thanks to you, although, in all truth, she had never died completely. She shall live for countless centuries thanks to the exquisite beauty of those arts that she cultivated with such great zeal. And now, like a torch, still all the more burning, she will set alight Spanish women and on all the others, with her wondrous love for the Letters.
2 Margaret Cavendish (1623â1673): Scholarly Identity in the Seventeenth Century
The endeavours of learned women continued to be celebrated as belonging to a group identity within the Respublica litteraria over the following century âi.e. Riberaâs Le Glorie inmortali de Trionfi, et Heroiche Imprese Dâottocento quarantacinque Donne Illustri antiche e moderne (Venice, 1609) â, despite the occasional male ridicule, which continued to materialize in self-evident envy and/or literary banter. Furthermore, the old idea that the Respublica litteraria was formed by all the writers âof all agesâ and âof all countriesâ resurfaced then in institutional, categorizable forms (i.e. dictionaries, catalogues), projecting dreams of social organization, liberty, and equality.65 One such example is the third volume of Schottusâs Hispaniae Bibliotheca (Frankfurt, 1608), which references (under the epigraph, âPOETRIAE ET FOEMINAE HISPANIAE / eruditione claraâ) sixteenth-century female humanists of international renown (i.e. Luisa Sigea, Oliva Sabuco de Nantes, and Juliana Morell), as well as the self-proclaimed unlearned, St Teresa, whose Vida in English translation would circulate from 1611.66 Similarly, when acknowledging Sigeaâs intellectual contributions in Louis Morériâs Le Grand Dictionaire Historique (Paris, 1681), her seventeenth-century French ridicule is put to an end immediately: âMais lâOuvrage quâon a publié sous son nom De arcarnis Amoris & Veneris est plus moderneâ [But the work that has been published under her name, De arcanis Amoris & Veneris, is more modern].67 The seventeenth-century Respublica litteraria also projected dreams of profit. Indeed, despite ongoing criticism â allegedly, for being improper and for degrading oneâs art â , the commercialization of the literary product during this century brought with it the professionalization of the writerâs career and a greater, more prominent role on the part of the (printer-)publisher in the publishing enterprise, making print and vernacular languages the favourite tools for dissemination.68 The transnational circulation of Bartoliâs DellâHuomo di lettere difeso et emendato Parti due (Rome, 1645) bears witness to some of these changes (âIt is a How to of starting the work of writingâ in the Baroque),69 both in terms of content and material form: âDo you realize that through the press you are speaking, not to a hundred, or a thousand, but to all the sages of the world as your reading audience?â,70 asks Bartoli in the English translation (London, 1660), whose title page defensively insists on âthe right of the Musesâ via Latin quotations from Aristotle, Seneca, and Sabellico; the Spanish one (Madrid, 1678) highlights its original language and existing vernacular translations (Latin, French, English, German, and Portuguese), while the censor authorizing it claims to choose print âpara hazer mas universalâ [to make it more universal].71
Authorial ambivalence, such as when a commercial author also makes self-negating statements (âthis incorrect Essay, written in the Country without the help of Books, or advice of Friendsâ),72 was certainly accentuated by the implied economics of print production and the rapid rise of common readers. Yet the struggle to invent an acceptable ethos was not new: to avoid being accused of vanity, Petrarch already presented himself as critical of his vernacular achievements, also via the category of the wondrous and miraculous.73 Seventeenth-century vernacular works often make novel claims, evince a disdain for pedantry, while evoking the idea of genius, or the naturally learned â hence the popular (albeit often misunderstood) practice of calling an author a âmiracleâ, a âmonster of natureâ, and âPhoenixâ.74 Furthermore, their paratexts â many in epistolary form â increasingly served as an important locus for self-promotion, often dressed as readings on religious, philosophical, and societal matters, such as the inspiration and encouragement learned women and men (i.e. Marie de Gournay and Ben Jonson)75 found in ancient and modern sources. In the case of women, this was fuelled by their rising roles in printing houses â a trade âprofoundly dependentâ76 on kinship, marriage, and the representation of domesticity â since roughly 1557 in London, or even from an earlier period onward, in Antwerp, Louvain, and Douai.77
Take, for instance, Margaret Cavendishâs words, below. She references the relation between the theory of humours and oneâs desire for contributing to cultural memory through intellectual fame and generic masculine terms (men and he) in vernacular print. Once again, this indicates an appreciation of literary conventions as embodying universal values and experiences, with which her book producers clearly concurred:
But there is no humor or passion so troublesome as desire, because it yields no sound satisfaction. For it is mixed most commonly with pleasing hopes, and hope is a greater pleasure than enjoyment [â¦]. But desire and curiosity make a man to be above other creatures [â¦]. And man, as he hath a transcendent soul to outlive the world to all eternity, so he hath a transcendent desire to live in the worldâs memory as long as the world lasts [â¦] that his works may beget another soul, though of shorter life, which is fame: for fame is like a soul, an incorporeal being.78
The passage is part of the preface, âOf Moral Philosophy and Moralistsâ, included in a single-authored publication, which appeared in folio in London in early 1653, subtly echoing the discipline of philosophy through the title (Poems and Fancies), authorial characterization (âby the right honourable, the Lady Margaret countesse of Newcastleâ), the printer (Thomas Roycroft, who had recently printed Thomas Hobbesâs De corpore politico), and the booksellers (Martyn and Allestry, the official publisher for the Royal Society from 1660).79 In fact, the publication has been described as a âconversation with Lucretiusâs De rerum naturaâ, which somewhat presumes readers familiarity with that work.80
Poems and Fancies illustrates how a mid-seventeenth-century vernacular female author, aided by her distinguished book producers,81 strived to fashion a scholarly identity to suit the demands of an increasingly nationalistic, diverse, even aggressive, reading public.82 It contains 280 self-identified philosophical poems (i.e. âA Dialogue betwixt the Body and the Mindâ),83 divided into five parts and brought to a close by a prose parable (The Animal Parliament) and a conclusion in the form of four poems. Dividing a work into various parts for having more dedicatees was not an innovation (i.e. Erasmus, Gessner), but in the seventeenth century this was also used for targeting different audiences more closely and at once.84 The six parts of Cavendishâs Poems and Fancies are intended for several interpretative communities: noble and worthy ladies, the common reader, natural philosophers, poets, writing ladies, and valiant soldiers.
Part 1, for instance, opens with a laudatory poem by the authorâs husband, William Cavendish, then Marquis of Newcastle. In it, the countess (now referred to as duchess) is praised as a highly-regarded noble poet for managing to rob Spenser, Jonson, and Shakespeare of their âglorious fameâ.85 This praise overtly situates the work within seventeenth-century courtly and commercial vernacular production by leading male poets, with pedagogical and philosophical (humanistic) ambitions â Spenser achieved a status equal to the Greek and Latin authorities (âour English Virgilâ),86 Shakespeare did similarly within the dramatic tradition, while Jonson, âthe most learned and judicious Poetâ,87 succeeded through wide-ranging compositions, encompassing the comedy of humours and the commonplace book.88 Such a strategy may have seemed reasonable enough, since the author wrote in the vernacular, was naturally learned (like Shakespeare, according to contemporary sources),89 with great intellectual ambitions (âthere are poetical fictions, moral instructions, philosophical opinions, dialogues, discourses, poetical romancesâ)90 â not to mention her husband was a courtier, a literary patron (i.e. for Jonson), and a poet himself.91
A dedication to her âNoble Brother-in-Lawâ, Sir Charles, signed by her initials (âM.N.â), follows, wherein the author humorously undermines womenâs traditional practices (âspinning with fingersâ), to emphasize the power of her natural inclination to study and write poetry (âspinning with the brainâ). Here, readers are directly confronted with her ambition to become a cultural icon: âI made my delight in the latter [â¦], which made me endeavor to spin a garment of memory to lap up my name, that it might grow in after-agesâ.92 Such paratexts had a commercial purpose â women authors had been self-identifying as âlearned wives, mothers, and equal partners in their household salonsâ from the late sixteenth century.93 The authorâs husband (since December 1645), like Sir Charles, his younger brother, had links with renowned philosophers (i.e. Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, Pierre Gassendi). By advertising learning within the family, âMargaret Newcastleâ hoped to reinforce a scholarly reading of her first printed work, and rightly so â the staged situation resonated with the learned womanâs supportive marital experiences described in Erasmusâs colloquy Abbatis et eruditae, while the literary work itself also conversed with seventeenth-century scientific thought (i.e. Thomas Hobbes and William Davenant).94
In âAll Noble and Worthy Ladiesâ, Cavendish states that she prefers the approval of women, allegedly the largest interpretative community, because she writes in verse, a practice most akin with women, and fame derives from great noise.95 Such authorial claims reinforced and celebrated lettered women as a powerful group within the learned world: in seventeenth-century Italy, for instance, womenâs power as an audience extended to the dissemination and authorization of scientific theory.96 Ultimately, the claims served to commercialize the work under the pretext of protecting her authorial reputation by targeting the authoritative interpretive community she represented, one firmly rooted in intellectual memory â the authorâs characterization in the title page already echoes those of Colonna in Rime and Wrothâs Urania, for example. Hence Cavendish only recalls, in a vague manner (i.e. Mary Wroth is not named), womenâs responses as authors and as literary characters to public disputes:
Therefore, pray strengthen my side in defending my books, for I know womenâs tongues are as sharp as two-edged swords and wound as much when they are angered. And in this battle, may your wit be quick, and your speech ready, and your arguments so strong as to beat them out of the field of dispute. So shall I get honor and reputation by your favours; otherwise, I may chance to be cast into the fire. But if I burn, I desire to die your martyr; if I live, to be / Your humble servant, / M. N.97
This gender complicity (for âarousing their feelingsâ),98 invested in womenâs publications, proved worthwhile within the fifteenth-century Querelle des femmes literary debate and thereafter. For instance, Chaine of Pearle (London, 1630), with which Cavendish and her book producers may have been familiar (The Animal Parliament draws on Elizabeth I, for instance),99 is overly promoted on class and gender grounds via its (full) title, author (Lady Diana Primrose), and audienceâs stance â it includes two dedications, âTo All Noble Ladies, and Gentle-Womenâ and âTo the Excellent Lady, the Composer of this Workeâ, signed by the author and some Dorothy Berry, respectively.100 Similar practices could also be found elsewhere. In the late 1630s and 1640s, gender complicity famously served MarÃa de Zayas, held as a âTenth Museâ, a âmiracleâ, and a ânew Safoâ, within the business of prose fiction: Aphra Behn would also achieve great success by following suit later in the century.101
The commercial importance of female authors to attract a female readership also explains the continuous role of women (in Iberia, since roughly 1588) in the print promotion of male-authored works: Zayas, for instance, was able to take on this role thirteen years before she had her first major work (a volume of novellas) printed, concerning Pérez de Montalbánâs Orfeo en lengua castellana (Madrid, 1624), for which she joined Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina, among others.
And the array of paratexts of Poems and Fancies continues in a concerted effort to provide grounds for Cavendishâs novel contribution to the female group identity and literary agency, established in Antiquity. Accordingly, a letter-epistle to Lady Elizabeth Toppe is then presented, along with her response, to lend credibility to the enterprise by suggesting that an intellectual friend judged and censured the volume prior to its publication.102 Such paratexts also serve to underline Cavendishâs embodiment of the old idea of coincidence between virtue and fame (âit is part of honor to aspire towards fameâ) and natural singularity (âyou were always circumspect by nature, not by artâ) within English letters: âYou are not only the first English poet of your sex, but the first that ever wrote this way. Therefore, whosoever write afterwards must own you for their patternâ.103 Here, too, past readings (i.e. Pizanâs on Sappho) and self-promotional conventions, both in classical (i.e. Virgil in Eglogue VI) and modern authors (i.e. Boccaccio, Sannazaro, Cervantes, Zayas, and Jonson), were echoed and followed.104 Moreover, Cavendishâs female agency is held up as an example for future women â âyour Grace [â¦] shineth in all places (especially where your Grace hath been: France, Flanders, Holland, etc) to your everlasting honor and fameâ â,105 just like Nicot did in his letter to Sigeaâs father, when he wrote that Sigeaâs example would kindle (inflammabit) future Spanish women.
Two more addresses, one to âTo Natural Philosophersâ and one âTo the Readerâ, come next, along with four authorial poems: in âThe Poetessâs Hasty Resolutionâ, Cavendish addresses the question of financial loss associated with print (âFor shame, leave off, and do the printer spare; / Heâll lose by your ill poetry, I fearâ)106 on quality (not gender)107 grounds, a strategy utilized by nobles to appear uninterested in the âeconomics of publicationâ.108 In all such pieces, modesty topoi (âthe very mark of literarinessâ)109 are adapted to project a naturally learned ethos that would seemingly please noble and common readers, while invalidating possible criticism from the most conservative learned ones: âMargaret Newcastleâ claims to publish for conveying truth and escaping idleness; refers to the discussion of literary arrangement as food; calls her book a child; claims to be uneducated and mentally limited, as well as fearful of receiving criticism and of writing under constraints.110 Even the claim that she understood no foreign language, curiously at a time when language manuals abounded,111 functions as an adaptation of the trope of rusticitas, given its spatial location within the book (within the paratext, âTo All Natural Philosophersâ) and her intermittent insistence on possessing knowledge (i.e. on atomic theory)112 for the learned:
âConsider my Sex and Breeding, and [â¦] fully Excuse those Faults which must Unavoidably be found in my Worksâ, she would still claim in her seventh print publication, Sociable Letters, printed in London by William Wilson in 1664 â in Letter 26, nonetheless, her foreign language education is suggested on the grounds of social custom, gender, and class.114 Another specific treatment of female authorship is found in Part IV. The prefatory essay, âTo All Writing Ladiesâ, provides not one single womanâs name, despite being concerned with the manifestation and application of wit from a female authorial perspective:
It is to be observed that there is a secret working by Nature, as to cast an influence upon the minds of men. Like as in contagions, when as the air is corrupted, it produces several diseases, so several distempers of the mind, by the inflammations of the spirits. And as in healthful bodies are purified, so wits are refined; yet it seems to me as if there were several invisible spirits, that have several but visible powers, to work in several ages upon the minds of men [â¦]. In some ages all men seek absolute power, and every man would be emperor of the world, which makes civil wars [â¦]; and it seems as if there were spirits of the feminine gender, as also the masculine. There will be many heroic women in some ages, in other very prophetical; in some ages very pious and devout, for our sex is wonderfully addicted to the spirits. But this age hath produced many effeminate writers, as well as preachers, and many effeminate rulers, as well as actors.115
Was this a final paratextual strategy to make her first publication stand out within English letters? Certainly, learned women across borders and where she had admittedly lived (France, Flanders, and Holland) enjoyed then greater visibility through print than in the previous age, both via their own Latin and vernacular works â i.e. Oliva Sabuco de Nantesâs Nueva filosofÃa de la naturaleza del hombre (Madrid, 1587, 1588; Braga, 1622), esteemed by seventeenth-century scientists like Charles le Pois and Ãtienne de Clave; Lucrezia Marinelliâs La nobiltà et eccellenze delle donne (Venice, 1600), another reputed philosophical work, which went through various editions; the correspondence and other publications of Anna Maria van Schurman and her network; and of course, Anne Bradstreetâs The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (London, 1650), canonizing others, such as Sidney, du Bartas, and Queen Elizabeth, as part of her self-promotion â,116 and via their acknowledgment in bio- and bibliographical accounts of contemporary literature, either in the vernacular, or in more scholarly publications, such as Schottusâs Hispaniae Bibliotheca. But this is not all. Having argued their contribution to society throughout the ages philosophically, Cavendish, nevertheless, speaks of women as âpoor, dejected spirits, that are not ambitious of fameâ before calling for action, which again, has the effect of heightening her natural leadership:117
And if it be an age when the effeminate spirits rule, as most visibly they do in every kingdom, let us take the advantage, and make the best of our time [â¦]; whether it be in the Amazonian government, or in the politic commonwealth, or in the flourishing monarchy, or in schools of divinity, or in lectures of philosophy, or in witty poetry, or in anything that may bring honor to our sex. They are poor, dejected spirits that are not ambitious of fame [â¦]. But let us strive to build us tombs while we live, of noble, honorable, and good actions (at least harmless), That though our bodies die, Our names may live to after memory. [my italics]
Here, too, Cavendish was drawing on popular ideas (since Plato)118 for her authorial self-fashioning: for instance, Erasmusâs eruditae could envision women presiding in schools of theology and preaching in churches; van Schurman defended that some women, not all, are naturally talented; while for Bartoli, acts and deeds were âthe most natural testimonies of potentialityâ to establish a disposition for the arts, or the sciences.119 Therefore, Cavendishâs prefatory essay makes clear that such ideas continued to be reinforced and celebrated consensually, as well as exploited for profit. Put differently, the omission of womenâs names in this paratext should be suspect: by claiming to lack in knowledge and not drawing attention to others, she appeared cleverer as a result (according to Erasmusâs eruditae)120 while seemingly invalidating all female competition â the use of protofeminist discourse simply reinforces its female appeal. Crucially, the strategy builds on Renaissance practices â i.e. Stampa does similarly concerning Sappho â and resonates with other contemporary cases, such as Zayasâs deliberate silence over modern referents.121 That the preface essay was not included in the 1664 and 1668 revised versions (perhaps influenced by Caramuel Lobkowitzâs newly published printing manual)122 further substantiates that Poems and Fancies engaged with and exploited ongoing intellectual debates â gender was only one â 123 and publishing practices.124 Hence the advertisement on which it ends, also absent from the revised versions: âReader, I have a little tract of philosophical fancies in prose, which will not be long before it appears in the worldâ.125
Curiously, the removal of such a prefatory essay from its later editions matches the time when Katherine Philips, the admired scribal poet, scholar, and founder (in the 1650s) of the literary salon âSociety of Friendshipâ, was being publicised through print. This is noteworthy, because Philipsâs 1667 posthumous publication includes new scholarly material and an extensive collection of prefatory poems, even an authorial portrait, showcasing her ample intellectual ability and experience, right from its title â Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda: to which is added Monsieur Corneilleâs Pompey & Horace, Tragedies; with several other Translations out of French. The publisherâs preface includes a letter addressed to a âWorthy Poliarchusâ, signed by Philips, wherein the 1664 publication is deemed âa false Copyâ. Nonetheless, its material context, literary form, the scholarly additions, and the prominent role of the printer-publisher make the claim suspect, given the catchpenny value associated with secretly handed work when it finally reached print (âwith authority or without itâ)126 â not to mention distancing oneself from the act of publication was becoming a common strategy, even among ostensibly commercial authors, while such paratexts did indeed heighten interest in the âauthorizedâ volume.127 In fact, the 1667 publication is promoted as the âMonumentâ Philips âerected for her selfâ, which not only enacts Cavendishâs concluding words in âTo All Writing Ladiesâ, but is also âto be honoured as the honour of her Sex, the emulation of ours, and the admiration of bothâ for concerning âthe English Sapphoâ, a long-proven publishing strategy. Even Philipsâs preferred name, Orinda, âdeserves to be added to the number of the Musesâ, adds the publisher.128
In this new light, Poems and Fancies stands as the commercial product, or event,129 of an English, scholarly-driven female author of the times, in which the crave for personal distinction and the economics of publication increasingly overshadowed collegiality, especially in secular print. Cavendishâs âthoroughgoing monumentalisationâ130 included over a dozen original print works â poetry, essays, plays, orations, epistolary philosophy and science fiction romance, political parody, biography and memoir (here âin imitation of Classical writersâ131 since Petrarch) â and renown in natural philosophy, which immediately inspired other women and their book producers to follow suit. âMargaret Newcastleâ herself sent her philosophical works to many well-known philosophers and to the faculties at Cambridge and Oxford, and in 1667, she attended the Royal Society of London by invitation.132 In 1672, a year before she died in London, Antoniusâs Bibliotheca Hispana Nova appeared in Rome and Paris, bearing a frontispiece by a professional Italian female painter and engraver: âTheresia del Pó sculp.â. The work lists womenâs names from religious and secular traditions alongside their male counterparts (i.e. three women called Luisa, including Sigea, are preceded and followed, in alphabetical order, by men whose first names begin with Ludovicus and Lupercius), but also in a separate section, thereby further reinforcing womenâs real place within the learned world: the separate section is entitled Gynaeceum Hispanae Minervae, sive de gentis nostrae foeminis doctrina claris scriptorum (Hispanic womenâs literary quarters in the Greek household), thus tying in those represented with ancient women, and by extension, with all learned women up to then.133
3 Conclusions
Thus even a short comparative, transnational analysis, which prioritizes cultural products over ideologies, yields a different interpretation of the early modern learned world â most notably, the fact that learned women represented a recognized group identity, which along with its readings, however different or contradictory at times, did not cease to be shared, celebrated, and reinforced as part of the Republic of Lettersâ cultural memory.
Right from the start, Luisa Sigea Toletana and Margaret Cavendish, or Newcastle, fashioned their female scholarly identities, aided by their male peers, to great success. In each case, the processes of self-fashioning and promotion were shaped according to textual tradition and the times in which they lived. To pursue and lay claim to personal distinction as a scholar was different before and after the major process of literary commercialization, which characterized the seventeenth century, as was to attract financial profit. Nonetheless, authorial promotion, male and female, continued to draw on convention, on the strategies utilized by classical and âthe firstâ modern authors â in manuscript and print; in Latin and the vernacular. Ultimately, this adaptation and/or reformulation of publishing strategies responded to the authorâs situation (notably, class and religious status) and market needs.
Time and again, the analysis showed materially (via authorial and editorial practices) the important value invested in gendering works and audiences across borders â how Renaissance and Baroque individuals repeatedly reinforced scholarly opinion, even traded with womenâs publications. In sum, it documents an appreciation of writing and publication as universal spheres, rather than as specifically masculine, which begs us to reconsider womenâs contributions within the early modern learned world.
Bibliography
Primary Printed Sources
Antonius Nicolas, Bibliotheca Hispana nova, sive Hispanorum, 2 vols (Rome, Nicolaus Angelus Timassius: 1672).
Bartoli Daniello, DellâHuomo di lettere difeso et emendato Parti due. Del P. Daniello Bartoli della Compagnia di Giesu (Rome, per gli Heredi di Francesco Corbelleti: 1645).
Bartoli Daniello, The Learned Man Defended and Reformâd. A Discourse of singular Politeness, and Elocution; seasonably asserting the Right of the Muses; in opposition to the many Enemies which in this Age Learning meets with, and more especially those two Ignorance and Vice. In two Parts. Written in Italian by the happy Pen of P. Daniel Bartolus, S.J. Englished by Thomas Salusbury (London, Printed by R. and W. Leybourn, and are to be sold by Thomas Dring at the George in Fleetstreet neer St. Dunstans Church: 1660).
Bartoli Daniello, El hombre de letras. Escrito en italiano. Por el Padre Daniel Bartoli de la CompañÃa de Iesvs, y traducido por diversos Autores, en Latin, Frances, Ingles, Aleman, y Portugues. Y aora nvevamente en castellano, por Gaspar Sanz presbitero, Bachiller en sagrada Theologia por la Insigne Vniversidad de Salamanca, natural de Villa de Calanda, de la Diocesi de Zaragoça (Madrid, por Andres Garcia de la Iglesia [â¦]. A costa de Iuan Martin Merinero, Mercader de libros. Vendese en su casa en la Puerta del Sol: 1678).
Bartoli Daniello, The Man of Letters. Defended and Emended, trans. G. Woods (New York: 2018).
Bradstreet, Anne, The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America. Or severall poems, compiles with great variety of wit and learning, full of delight [â¦] By a Gentlewoman in those parts (London, for Stephen Bowtell: 1650).
Bruni Leonardo, âLeonardo Bruni dâArezzo, De Studiis et Litteris: An English versionâ, in Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators, ed. W.H. Woodward (Cambridge: 1912) 119â133.
Castiglione Baldassare, The Book of the Courtier, trans. and intro. G. Bull (London: 2003).
Cavendish Margaret, Poems, and Fancies, Written By the Right Honourable, Lady Margaret of Newcastle (London, T.R. for J. Martin & J. Allestrye: 1653).
Cavendish Margaret, CCXI Sociable Letters, Written by the thrice noble, illustrious, and excellent princess, the Lady Marchioness of Newcastle (London, Printed by William Wilson: 1664).
Cavendish Margaret, Poems, or several Fancies in Verse: with the Animal Parliament in Prose, Written by the Thrice Noble, Illustrious, and Excellent Princess the Duchess of Newcastle, The Third Edition (London, Printed by A. Maxwell: 1668).
Cavendish Margaret, The Worldâs Olio, Written by the Thrice Noble, Illustrious, and most Excellent Princess the Duchess of Newcastle. The Second Edition (London, Printed by A. Maxwell: 1671).
Cavendish Margaret, Sociable Letters, ed. J. Fitzmaurice (Ontorio: 2004).
Cavendish Margaret, Observations upon Experimental Philosophy: Abridged, with Related Texts, ed. and intro. E. Marshall (Indianapolis â Cambridge: 2016).
Cavendish Margaret, Poems and Fancies with The Animal Parliament, ed. B.R. Siegfried (Toronto â Tempe: 2018).
Cavendish Margaret, Margaret Cavendishâs Poems and Fancies. A Digital Critical Edition, ed. L. Blake. Website published May 2019. <http://library2.utm.utoronto.ca/poemsandfancies/>.
Colonna Vittoria, Rime de la Divina Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara. Nuovamente stampato con privilegio (Parma, Al Dottisimo Messer Allessandro Vercelli Philippo Pirogallo: 1538).
Colonna Vittoria, Sonnets for Michelangelo. A Bilingual Edition, ed. and trans. A. Brundin (Chicago â London: 2005).
Cowley Abraham, Plantarum libri duo (London, Typis J. Flesher, & prostant apud Nath. Brooks sub Signo Angeli: 1662).
Cowley Abraham, Poemata latina: in quibus continentur, sex libri plantarum, viz. duo Herbarum, Florum, Sylvarum, et unus miscellaneorum (London, Typis T. Roycroft, impensis Jo. Martyn [â¦]: 1668).
Cowley Abraham, Six Books of Plants, VI, trans. Aphra Behn (London, Printed for Charles Harper: 1689).
Digby Kenelme, Observations on the 22. Stanza in the 9th Canto of the 2nd. Book of Spencers Faery Queen. Full of excelent Notions concerning the Frame of Man, and his rationall Soul, Written by the Right Noble and Illustrious Knight Sir Kenelme Digby, at the request of a Friend (London, Printed for Daniel Frere Bookseller at the Red-Bull in Little Brittain: 1643).
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On Literary Composition. Being the Greek Text of the De Compositione Verborum (in Greek and English), ed. William Rhys Roberts (London: 1910).
Domenichi Lodovico, Rime diverse dâalcune nobilissime, et virtvosissime donne (Lucca, per Vincenzo Busdraghi: 1559).
Erasmus Desiderius, A devout treatise upon the Pater Noster made fyrst in latyn by the moost famous doctour mayster Erasmus Roterodamus and tourned in to englisshe by a yong vertuous and well lerned gentylwoman of xix. yere of age, trans. Margaret More Roper (London, Thomas Berthelet: [1526]).
Erasmus Desiderius, De vidua christiana (Basel, Froben: 1529).
Erasmus Desiderius, Familiarum colloquiorum opus (Antwerp: 1541).
Fonte Moderata. [pseudonym], Il merito delle donne (Venice, Presso Domenico Imberti: 1600).
Gournay Marie de, âMarie le Jars de Gournay: The Equality of Men and Womenâ, in Clarke, D.M. (ed. and trans.), The Equality of the Sexes. Three Feminist Texts of the Seventeenth Century (Oxford: 2013) 54â78.
Isidore de Seville [Saint], EtimologÃas: edición bilingüe, ed. and trans. J. Oroz Reta â M.A. Marcos Casquero â M.C. Diaz y Diaz (Madrid: 2004).
Jonson Ben, Timber: or, Discoveries; Made Upon Men and Matter: As They have flowâd out of his daily Readings, or had their reflux to his peculiar Notion of the Times (London: 1641).
Juana Inés de la Cruz [Soror], Inundacion Castalida de la Unica Poetisa, Musa Dezima, Soror Juana Ines de la Cruz, Religiosa Professa en el Monasterio de San Geronimo de la Imperial Ciudad de Mexico. Que en varios metros, idiomas, y estilos, fertiliza varios assumptos con elegantes, sutiles, claros, ingeniosos, utiles versos: para la enseñanza, recreo, y admiracion (Madrid, por Juan Garcia Infanzon: 1689).
Marinelli Lucrezia, La nobiltà et eccellenze delle donne: Et i diffetti, e mancamenti de gli huomini. Discorso di Lucrezia Marinella. In due parti diviso (Venice, Appresso Giouan Battista Ciotri Senesse: 1600).
Moréri Louis, Le Grand Dictionaire Historique, ov le Melange Curieux de lâHistoire Sacree et Profane, vol. II (Lyon, chez Jean Girin, & Barthelemy Riviere: 1681).
Labé Louise, Evvres de Lovïze Labé Lionnoize (Lyon, par Ian de Tovrnes: 1555).
Pacheco Miguel, Vida de la Serenissima Infanta Doña Maria (Lisbon, por Ivan de la Costa, 1675).
Pellicer de Ossau y Tovar, Joseph, Lecciones solemnes a las obras de Luis de Gongora y Argote (Madrid, por la Imprenta del Reino: 1630).
Pérez de Montalbán Juan, Orfeo en lengua castellana (Madrid, por la viuda de Alonso Martin: 1624).
Philips Katherine, Poems, By the Incomparable Mrs. K.P. (London, Printed by J.G. for Rich. Marriott, at his shop under S. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street: 1664).
Philips Katherine, Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda: to which is added Monsieur Corneilleâs Pompey & Horace, Tragedies; with several other Translations out of French (London, Printed by J.M. for H. Herringman, at the Sign of the Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange: 1667).
Philips Katherine, Letters from Orinda to Poliarchus (London, Printed by W.B. for Bernard Lintott: 1705).
Pinciano L., Philosophia Antigua Poetica, ed. A. Carballo Picazo, vol. I (Madrid: 1973).
Pizan Christine de, The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. E.J. Richards, with foreword by M. Warner (New York: 1982).
Pizan Christine de, La Cité des dames, intro. Th. Moreau â Ã. Hicks (Paris: 2000).
Pizan Christine de, O Livro das Tres Vertudes a Insinança das Damas, ed. M. de Lourdes Crispim (Lisbon: 2002).
Plato, Republic, ed. and trans. R. Waterfield (Oxford: 2008).
Plato, Phaedrus, ed. and trans. R. Waterfield (Oxford: 2009).
Postel Guillaume, Les Tres-Merveilleuses Victoires des Femmes do Nouveau Monde, et comment elles doibvent à tout le mon par raison commander, & même à ceulx qui auront la Monarchie du Monde vieil (Paris, chez Jehan Ruelle, à la Queuë de Regnard, ruë Sainct Jacques: 1553).
Primrose Diana, Chaine of Pearle, Or a Memoriall of the peerles Graces, and Heroick Vertues of Queene Elizabeth of Glorious Memory (London, Printed for Thomas Paine, and are to be sold by Philip Waterhouse, at his shop at the signe of St. Pauls-head in Canning-street neere London-stone: 1630).
P[urslowe] E[lizabeth] [printer], Jonsonus Virbius or, The Memorie of Ben Johnson Revived by the Friends of the Muses (London, Printed by E.P. for Henry Seile, and are to be sold at his shop, at the Tygers Head in Fleetstret, over-against St. Dunstans Church: 1638).
Quintilian, The âInstitutio Oratoriaâ, with an English Translation, ed. and trans. H.E. Butler, Loeb Classical Library, 4 vols (Cambridge, MA: 1920).
Ribera Pietro Paolo de, Le Glorie inmortali de Trionfi, et Heroiche Imprese Dâottocento quarantacinque Donne Illustri antiche e modern (Venice, Appresso Evangelista Deuchino: 1609).
Saavedra Fajardo D. de., República literaria, ed. J.C. de Torres (Madrid: 1999).
Sabuco de Nantes Oliva, Nueua filosofia de la naturaleza del hombre, no conocida ni alcançada de los grandes filosofos antiguos: la qual mejora la vida y salud humana (Madrid, P. Madrigal: 1587).
Sabuco de Nantes Oliva, Nueva filosofia de la naturaleza del hombre, no conocida ni alcançada de los grandes filosofos antiguos: la qual mejora la vida y salud humana. Compuesta por doña Oliva Sabuco. Esta segunda impression va enmendada, y añadidas algunas cosas curiosas, y una Tabla (Madrid, P. Madrigal: 1588).
Sabuco de Nantes Oliva, Nueva filosofia de la naturaleza del hombre, no conocida ni alcançada de los grandes filosofos antiguos: la qual mejora la vida y salud humana (Braga, Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto: 1622).
Sabuco de Nantes Oliva, New Philosophy of Human Nature: Neither Known to nor Attained by the Great Ancient Philosophers, Which Will Improve Human Life and Health, trans. and ed. M.E. Waithe â M. Colomer Vintró â C.A. Zorita (Illinois: 2007).
Salvador Solano Jacobo, Iacobi Salvatoris Murgensis Philosophi et Theologi Poetica (Salamanca, excudebat Ioannes à Canova: 1558).
Schottus Andreas, Hispaniae Bibliotheca, vol. III (Frankfurt, Apud Claudium Marnium & haeredes Iohan. Aubrii: 1608).
Schurman Anna Maria van, The learned maid; or, Whether a maid may be a scholar?: A logick exercise. Written in latine by that Incomparable virgin Anna Maria à Schurman of Vtrecht. With some epistles to the famous Gassendus and others (London, Printed by John Redmayne: 1659).
Schurman Anna Maria van, Whether a Christian Woman Should Be Educated and other writings from her intellectual circle, ed. and trans. J.L. Irwin (Chicago â London: 1998).
Schurman Anna Maria van, âA Dissertation on the Natural Capacity of Women for Study and Learningâ, in Clarke D.M. (ed. and trans.), The Equality of the Sexes. Three Feminist Texts of the Seventeenth Century (Oxford: 2013) 79â118.
Sigea [de Velasco] Luisa, Syntra Aloisiæ Sygeæ Toletanae, aliaque eiusdem, ac nonnullorum praeterea doctorum virorum ad eandem Epigrammata: quibus accessit Pauli III.P.M. epistola de singulari eius doctrina, ac ingenii praestantia.Tumulus eiusdem ab Andrea Resendio, & Claudio Monsello concinnatus (Paris, Dionysius à Prato, via Amygdalina, ad Veritatis insigne: 1566).
Sigea [de Velasco] Luisa, Dialogue de Deux Jeunes Filles. Sur la Vie de Cour et la Vie de Retraite (1552), trans. O. Sauvage (Paris: 1970).
Sigea [de Velasco] Luisa, [Duarum virginum colloquium de vita aulica et privata], in Serrano y Sanz M. (ed.), Apuntes para una biblioteca de escritoras: desde la formación del lenguaje hasta nuestros dÃas, vol. II (Madrid: 1975) 419â471.
Sigea [de Velasco] Luisa, [Cartas], in Serrano y Sanz M. (ed.), Apuntes para una biblioteca de escritoras: desde la formación del lenguaje hasta nuestros dÃas, vol. II (Madrid: 1975) 410â418.
Sigea [de Velasco] Luisa, Epistolario latino, ed. M.R. Prieto Corbalán (Madrid: 2007).
Stampa Gaspara, Rime di Madonna Gaspara Stampa (Venice, per Plinio Pietrasanta: 1554).
Suárez de Figueroa Cristóbal, Plaza universal de todas ciencias y artes: parte traduzida de Toscano (Madrid, Luis Sanchez: 1615).
Vasaeus Johannes, Chronici rerum memorabilium Hispaniae (Salamanca, excudebat Ioannes Iunta: 1552).
Vasari Giorgio, The Lives of the Artists, trans. J. Conaway Bondanella â P. Bondanella (Oxford: 2008).
Vega y Carpio Lope de, Laurel de Apolo, con otras rimas, ed. A. Carreño (Madrid: 2007).
Wroth Mary, The Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania, Written by the Right Honorable the Lady Mary Wroath. Daughter to the Right Noble Robert Earle of Leicester. And Neece to the ever famous and renowned Sr Phillips Sidney knight. And to yr most exelent Lady Mary Countesse of Pembroke late deceased (London, Printed for John Marriott and John Grismand and are to bee sould at theire shop pes in St Dunstons Church: 1621).
Zayas Sotomayor MarÃa, Novelas amorosas, y exemplares. Compuestas por Doña Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor, natural de Madrid (Zaragoça, en el Hospital Real, Gñl de N. Senora de Gracia: 1637).
Zayas Sotomayor MarÃa, Parte segunda del sarao, y entretenimiento honesto, de doña Maria de Zayas Sotomayor (Ãaragoça, en el Hospital Real, y General de nuestra Señora de Gracia: 1647).
Zayas Sotomayor MarÃa, Honesto y entretenido sarao (Primera y segunda parte), ed. J. Olivares, 2 vols. (Zaragoza: 2017).
Secondary Literature
Akkerman N.N.W. â Corporaal M.C.M., âMad Science Beyond Flattery: The Correspondence of Margaret Cavendish and Constantijn Huygensâ, Early Modern Literary Studies SI 14 (2004) 2â21.
Allen P., The Concept of Woman. The Early Humanist Reformation, vol. II (Grand Rapids, MI â Cambridge: 2002).
Allen P. â Salvatore P., âLucrezia Marinelli and Womenâs Identity in Late Italian Renaissanceâ, Renaissance and Reformation 28.4 (1992) 5â39.
Amores Pérez R., âBiografÃa de Luisa Sigea Toledana: una taranconera en la corte portuguesa y españolaâ, in Pérez Priego M.A. (ed.), Melchor Cano y Luisa Sigea: dos figuras del Renacimiento español, Seminario de Estudios Renacentistas (Tarancón: 2008) 167â265.
Altaba-Artal D., Aphra Behnâs English Feminism. Wit and Satire (Selinsgrove â London: 1999).
Baranda N., âDe investigación y bibliografÃa: con unas notas documentales sobre Luisa Sigeaâ, Lemir 10 (2006) 1â7.
Begley J., âConfessional Disputes in the Republic of Letters: Susan Du Verger and Margaret Cavendishâ, The Seventeenth Century 34.2 (2019) 181â207.
Bell M., âWomen and the Production of Texts: The Impact of the History of the Bookâ, in Hinks J. â Gardner V. (eds.), The Book Trade in Early Modern England. Practices, Perceptions, Connections (New Castle â Delaware â London: 2014) 107â131.
Blair A., âErrata Lists and the Reader as Correctorâ, in Baron S.A. â Lindquist E.N. â Shevlin E.E. (eds.), Agent of Change. Print Culture Studies After Elizabeth L. Eisenstein (Massachusetts: 2007) 21â41.
Blair A., âConrad Gessnerâs Paratextsâ, Gesnerus 73.1 (2016) 73â122.
Borreguero Beltrán C., âPuellae Doctae en las cortes peninsularesâ, Dossiers Feministes 15 (2011) 76â100.
Bourdieu P., The Field of Cultural Production. Essays on Art and Literature, ed. and intro. R. Johnson (Cambridge: 1993).
Bouza F., âPara qué imprimir: de autores, público, impresores, y manuscritos en el Siglo de Oroâ, Cuadernos de Historia Moderna 18 (1997) 31â50.
Brown J.C., âGenderâ, in Woolfson J. (ed.), Palgrave Advance in Renaissance Historiography (Basingstoke: 2005) 177â192.
Candido I., (ed.), Petrarch and Boccaccio. The Unity of Knowledge in the Pre-modern World (Berlin â Boston: 2018).
Carabias Torres A.M., âBeatriz Galindo y LucÃa de Medrano: ni maestra de reinas ni catedrática de derecho canónicoâ, Investigaciones Históricas, Ãpoca Moderna y Contemporánea 39 (2019) 179â208.
Castillo Gómez A., Leer y oÃr: ensayos sobre la lectura en los Siglos de Oro (Madrid â Frankfurt, 2016).
Cayuela A., ââEsta pobre habilidad que Dios me dioâ: autores, impresores y editores en el entuerto de la publicación (siglos XVIâXVII)â, Tiempos modernos, Special Issue âCultura escrita y memoria en el Siglo de Oroâ 8.31 (2015) 295â317.
Cox V., âLeonardo Bruni on Women and Rhetoric: De studdiis et litteris Revisitedâ, Rhetorica 27.1 (2009) 47â75.
Crabstick B., âKatherine Philips, Richard Marriot and the Contemporary Significance of Poems. By the Incomparable, Mrs. K. P. (1664)â, in Coolahan M.L. â Wright G. (eds.), Katherine Philips. Form, Reception, and Literary Contexts (London: 2018) 63â83.
Crawford M. â Chaffin R., âThe Readerâs Construction of Meaning: Cognitive Research on Gender and Comprehensionâ, in Flynn E.A. â Schweickart P.P. (eds.), Gender and Reading. Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts (Baltimore: 1986) 3â30.
Crawford M. â Chaffin R., Talking Difference. On Gender and Language (London â Thousand Oaks â New Delhi: 1995).
Crisciani C., âHistories, Stories, Exempla, and Anecdote: Michele Savonarola from Latin to Vernacularâ, in Pomata G. â Siraisi N.G. (eds.), Historia. Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge â London: 2005) 297â324.
Crivelli T., âThe Print Tradition of Vittoria Colonnaâs Rimeâ, in Brundin A. â Crivelli T. â Sapegno M.S. (eds.), A Companion to Vittoria Colonna (Leiden: 2016) 69â139.
Crossgrove W., âThe Vernacularization of Science, Medicine, and Technology in Late Medieval Europe: Broadening Our Perspectivesâ, Early Science and Medicine 5.1 (2000) 47â63.
Curtius E.R., European Literature and Latin Middle Ages, trans. W.R. Trask (Princeton: 1990).
Dadson T.J., Libros, lectores y lecturas: estudios sobre bibliotecas particulares españolas del Siglo de Oro (Madrid: 1998).
Darnton R., âWhat is the History of Books?â, in Finkelstein D. â McCleery A. (eds.), The Book History Reader (London: 2006) 9â26.
Dodds L., The Literary Invention of Margaret Cavendish (Pittsburgh â Pennsylvania: 2013).
Eisner M., Boccaccio and the Invention of Italian Literature. Dante, Cavalcanti, and the Authority of the Vernacular (Cambridge: 2013).
Enenkel K.A.E., âModelling the Humanist: Petrarchâs Letter to Posterity and Boccaccioâs Biography of the Poet Laureateâ, in Enenkel K.A.E. â Jong-Crane B. de â Liebregts P. (eds.), Modelling the Individual. Biography and Portrait in the Renaissance, With a Critical Edition of Petrarchâs âLetter to Posterityâ (Amsterdam â Georgia: 1998) 11â49.
Ezell M.J.M., âThe Laughing Tortoise: Speculations on Manuscript Sources and Womenâs Book Historyâ, English Literature Renaissance 38.2 (2008) 331â355.
Fish S., Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge â London: 1980).
Font Paz C., âWriting for Patronage or Patronage for Writing? Two Case Studies in Seventeenth-Century and Post-Restoration Womenâs Poetry in Britainâ, in Font Paz C. â Geerdink N. (eds.), Economic Imperatives for Womenâs Writing in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: 2018) 97â123.
Freeman P., Searching for Sappho. The Lost Songs and the World of the First Woman Poet (New York: 2016).
Fumaroli M., The Republic of Letters, trans. L. Vergnaud (New Haven â London: 2018).
Genette G., Paratexts. Thresholds of Interpretation, trans. J.E. Lewin (Cambridge: 1997).
Gilleir A. â Montoya A.C., âIntroduction: Toward a New Conception of Womenâs Literary Historyâ, in Gilleir A. â Montoya A.C. â Dijk S. van (eds.), Women Writing Back. Transnational Perspectives from the Late Middle Ages to the Dawn of the Modern Era (Leiden: 2010) 1â20.
Greer G., Slip-Shod Sibyls. Recognition, Rejection, and the Woman Poet (London: 1995).
Griva A., âThe Reappearance of Sapphic Fragments in the Italian Renaissanceâ, Asian Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies 2.2 (2019) 1â10.
Hankins J., âHumanism in the Vernacular: The Case of Leonardo Bruniâ, in Celenza C.S. â Gouwens K. (eds.), Humanism and Creativity in the Renaissance. Essays in Honor of Ronald G. Witt (Leiden â Boston: 2006) 11â29.
Jardine L., Erasmus, Man of Letters. The Construction of Charisma in Print (Princeton â Oxford: 2015).
Jiménez Calvente T., Un siciliano en la España de los Reyes Católicos: los Epistolarum familiarum libri XVII de Lucio Marineo SÃculo (Alcala: 2001).
Johns A., The Nature of the Book. Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago â London: 1998).
Kay D.W., Ben Jonson: A Literary Life (London: 2017).
Kroetsch C., âList of Margaret Cavendishâs Texts, Printers, and Booksellers (1653â1675)â, Digital Cavendish Project, Accessed 19 July 2021 <http://digitalcavendish.org/original-research/texts-printers-booksellers/>.
Lawrance J., âIsidore of Seville in the Renaissance (1500â1700): The Role of Golden Age Spainâ, in Wood J. â Fear A. (eds.), A Companion to Isidore of Seville (Leiden: 2019) 604â643.
Ledo J., âEl abad y la muchacha instruidaâ, in Solana Pujalte J. â Carande R. (eds.), Erasmo de Róterdam. Coloquios, vol. 1 (Zaragoza: 2020) 493â506.
Larsen A.R., (ed.), From Mother to Daughter. Poems, Dialogues, and Letters of Les Dames des Roches (Chicago: 2006).
Larsen A.R., âA Womenâs Republic of Letters: Anna Maria van Schurman, Marie de Gournay, and Female Self-Representation in Relation to the Public Sphereâ, Early Modern Women Journal 3 (2008) 105â126.
Maestre Maestre J.M., âLa carta en latÃn de un Scholasticus Toletanus a Luisa Sigea: ¿misiva verdadera o falsificación literaria?â, RELAT: Revista de Estudios Latinos 19 (2019) 131â211.
Marino A., The Biography of âthe Idea of Literatureâ from Antiquity to the Baroque, trans. V. Stanciu â C.M. Carlton (New York: 1996).
McGann J.J., A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism (Charlottesville â London: 1992).
McKenzie D.F., Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (New York: 1999).
Miert D. van, âLanguage and Communication in the Republic of Letters: The Uses of Latin and French in the Correspondence of Joseph Scaligerâ, Bibliothèque dâHumanisme et Renaissance 72 (2010) 7â34.
Minnis A.J., Medieval Theory of Authorship. Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages (Philadelphia: 1988).
Minuzzi S., The Invention of the Author. The âPrivilegio di Stampaâ in Renaissance Venice (Venice: 2017).
Miralles Maldonado J.C., âJacobo Salvador de la Solana, un humanista murciano del XVIâ, in Valverde Sánchez M. â Calderón Dorda E.A. â Morales Ortiz A. (eds.), Koinòs lógos. Homenaje al profesor José GarcÃa López, vol. II (2006) 645â656.
Norbrook D., âWomen, the Republic of Letters, and the Public Sphere in the Mid-Seventeenth Centuryâ, Criticism 46.2 (2004) 223â240.
OâCallagham M., ââMy Printer, must haue somwhat to his shareâ: Isabella Whitney, Richard Jones, and Crafting Booksâ, Womenâs Writing 26.1 (2019) 15â34.
Och M., âVittoria Colonna in Giorgio Vasariâs âLife of Properzia deâ Rossiââ, in McIver K.A. (ed.), Wives, Widows, Mistresses, and Nuns in Early Modern Italy. Making the Invisible Visible through Art and Patronage (London â New York: 2012) 119â138.
Oettel T., âUna catedrática en el siglo de Isabel la Católicaâ, BoletÃn de la Real Academia de la Historia 107 (1935) 289â368.
Pal C., Republic of Women. Rethinking the Republic of Letters in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: 2012).
Pask K., The Emergence of the English Author. Scripting the Life of the Poet in Early Modern England (Cambridge: 1996).
Pender P., Early Modern Womenâs Writing and the Rhetoric of Modesty (Basingstoke: 2012).
Poska A.M., âThe Case for Agentic Gender Norms for Women in Early Modern Europeâ, Gender & History 30.2 (2018) 354â365.
Ray M.K., Daughters of Alchemy. Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge â London: 2015).
Richardson B., Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: 1999).
Rigney A., âPlenitude, Scarcity and the Circulation of Cultural Memoryâ, Journal of European Studies 35.1 (2005) 11â28.
Riquer I. de. âLos libros de Violante de Barâ, in Graña Cid M.M. (ed.), Las sabias mujeres: educación, saber y autorÃa (siglos IIIâXVII) (Madrid: 1994) 161â173.
Rivera Garretas M.M., âLa historia de las mujeres que nombra el mundo en femeninoâ, Acta Historica et Archeologica Mediaevalia 26 (2005) 1155â1164.
Robin D., Publishing Women. Salons, The Presses, and the Counter-Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Chicago â London: 2007).
Ross S.G., The Birth of Feminism. Woman as Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England (Cambridge, MA â London: 2009).
Ross S.C.E. â Scott-Baumann E. (eds.), Women Poets of the English Civil War (Manchester: 2018).
Ross S.C.E. â Scott-Baumann E., ââCorrected by the Authorâ? Women, Poetry, and Contingency of Seventeenth-Century Print Publicationâ, Huntington Library Quarterly. Forthcoming.
Sabean D.W., Power in the Blood. Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge: 1988).
Sánchez Jiménez A., Lope pintado por sà mismo: mito e imagen del autor en la poesÃa de Lope de Vega Carpio (London: 2006).
Schenkeveld-Van der Dussen A.M., âAnna Roemers Visscher: de tiende van de negen, de vierde van de drieâ, Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde (1980) 3â13.
Scott-Baumann E., Forms of Engagement. Women, Poetry, and Culture, 1640â1680 (Oxford: 2013).
Sebastián Lozano J., âSofonisba Anguissola: una mirada femenina en la corteâ, in Calvo Serraller F. (coord.), Maestros en la sombra: la otra cara del Museo del Prado (Barcelona: 2013) 185â206.
Seidler Engberg K., The Literary Politics of Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley (Lanham â Boulder â New York â Toronto â Plymouth: 2010).
Sheavyn P., The Literary Profession in the Elizabethan Age, ed. and rev. J.W. Saunders (Manchester: 1967).
Smith H., Grossly Material Things. Women and Book Production in Early Modern England (Oxford: 2012).
Simón DÃaz J., Textos dispersos de autores españoles: impresos del Siglo de Oro, vol. I (Madrid: 1978).
Spinnenweber K., âThe 1611 English Translation of St Teresaâs Autobiographyâ, SKASE: Journal of Translation and Interpretation 2.1 (2007) 1â12.
Stapleton R.F., âMinerva of Her Time: Luisa Sigea and Humanist Networkingâ, in Armstrong-Partida M. â Guerson A. â Wessell Lightfoot D. (eds.), Women and Community in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (Nebraska: 2020) 230â250.
Stevenson J., Women Latin Poets. Language, Gender, & Authority from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: 2005).
Sumillera R.G., âLanguage Manuals and the Book Trade in Englandâ, in Pérez Fernández J.M. â Wilson-Lee E. (eds.), Translation and the Book Trade in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: 2014) 61â80.
Trambaioli M., âLa fama póstuma de Lope de Vegaâ, Studia Aurea 10 (2016) 173â199.
Tylus J., âNaming Sappho: Gaspara Stampa and the Recovery of the Sublime in Early Modern Europeâ, in Falkeid U. â Feng A.A. (eds.), Rethinking Gaspara Stampa in the Canon of Renaissance Poetry (Farnham: 2015) 15â38.
Vian Herrero A., âEl Colloquium duarum virginum de Luisa Sigea en la tradición dialógica del escepticismo académicoâ, in Vian A. â Baranda C. (eds.), Letras humanas y conflictos del saber: la filologÃa como instrumento a través de las edades (Madrid: 2008) 183â234.
Villegas de la Torre E.M., âTransatlantic Interactions: Seventeenth-Century Women Authors and Literary Self-Consciousnessâ, in Taylor C. (ed.), Identity, Nation, and Discourse. Latin American Women Writers and Artists (Newcastle: 2009) 104â121.
Villegas de la Torre E.M., âWriting Literature for Publication, 1605â1637â, in Wilkinson A.S. â Ulla Lorenzo A. (eds.), A Maturing Market. The Iberian Book World in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century (Leiden: 2017) 124â140.
Villegas de la Torre E.M., âAutorÃa femenina y campo literario en la primera mitad del s. XVIIâ, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 20.4 (2019) 337â352.
Villegas de la Torre E.M., âGender in Early Constructions of Authorship, 1447â1518â, Theory Now: Journal of Literature, Critique and Thought, Special Issue âEl autor en la modernidadâ 1.2 (2019) 33â50.
Villegas de la Torre E.M. (intro., ed., and trans.), El canto de la décima Musa: poesÃas del Renacimiento y el Barroco (Barcelona: 2020).
Villegas de la Torre E.M., ââDécima moradora del Parnasoâ: género y tolerancia en la República literaria de la primera modernidadâ, in GarcÃa Cárcel R. â Serrano MartÃn E. (eds.), Historia de la tolerancia en España (Madrid: 2021) 171â183.
Villegas de la Torre E.M., âErudición y lucro en la República literaria barroca: a propósito de MarÃa de Zayasâ, Criticón, Special Issue âLas novelas amorosas y ejemplares de MarÃa de Zayasâ. Forthcoming.
Wall W., The Imprint of Gender. Authorship and Publication in the English Renaissance (Ithaca â London: 1993).
Weber H., Memory, Print, and Gender in England, 1653â1759 (New York â Basingstoke: 2016).
Wyffels Heleen, Impressae. Women Printers in Early Modern Antwerp, Leuven and Douai, Louvain: Catholic University of Leuven, 2020: https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/nieuwetijd/english/odis/impressae-women-printers-in-early-modern-antwerp-leuven-and-douai.
This work was funded by the European Commission (Ref. H2020-MSCA-IF-2018, 841036).
Darnton R., âWhat Is the History of Booksâ, in Finkelstein D. â McCleery A. (eds.), The Book History Reader (London: 2006) 22; Cayuela A., ââEsta pobre habilidad que Dios me dioâ: autores, impresores y editores en el entuerto de la publicación (siglos XVIâXVII)â, Tiempos modernos, Special Issue âCultura escrita y memoria en el Siglo de Oroâ 8.31 (2015) 299â300; Fumaroli M., The Republic of Letters, trans. L. Vergnaud (New Haven â London: 2018) 35.
Marino A., The Biography of âthe Idea of Literatureâ from Antiquity to the Baroque, trans. V. Stanciu â C.M. Carlton (New York: 1996) 128â129, 186â187.
Eisner M., Boccaccio and the Invention of Italian Literature. Dante, Cavalcanti, and the Authority of the Vernacular (Cambridge: 2013) 3, 5.
Pizan Christine de, La Cité des dames, ed. Th. Moreau â E. Hicks (Paris: 2000) 96. For the English translation, I chiefly relied on The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. E.J. Richards (New York: 1982) 67â68.
Boccaccio Giovanni, On Famous Women, intro. and trans. G.A. Guarino (New York: 2011) 99â100. Freeman P., Searching for Sappho. The Lost Songs and the World of the First Woman Poet (New York: 2016) 168â169; Isidore de Seville [Saint], EtimologÃas: edición bilingüe, ed. and trans. J. Oroz Reta â M.A. Marcos Casquero â M.C. Diaz y Diaz (Madrid: 2004) 340; Lawrance J., âIsidore of Seville in the Renaissance (1500â1700): The Role of Golden Age Spainâ, in Wood J. â Fear A. (eds.), A Companion to Isidore of Seville (Leiden: 2019) 604, 614; see also Griva A., âThe Reappearance of Sapphic Fragments in the Italian Renaissanceâ, Asian Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies 2.2 (2019) 1â10.
Bruniâs treatise was originally entitled, Epistola Leonardi Aretini ad Illustrem mulierem Baptistam de Malatestis, in litteris ac studiis humanitatis facundissima. See also Bruni Leonardo, âLeonardo Bruni dâArezzo, De Studiis et Litteris: An English Versionâ, in Woodward W.H. (ed.), Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators (Cambridge: 1912) 123; and Hankins J., âHumanism in the Vernacular: The Case of Leonardo Bruniâ, in Celenza C.S. â Gouwens K. (eds.), Humanism and Creativity in the Renaissance. Essays in Honor of Ronald G. Witt (Leiden â Boston: 2006) 11â29.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On Literary Composition. Being the Greek Text of the De Compositione Verborum (in Greek and English), ed. W.R. Roberts (London: 1910) 238â239; Tylus J., âNaming Sappho: Gaspara Stampa and the Recovery of the Sublime in Early Modern Europeâ, in Falkeid, U. âFeng A.A. (eds.), Rethinking Gaspara Stampa in the Canon of Renaissance Poetry (Farnham: 2015) 15â16.
Ribera Pietro Paolo de, Le Glorie inmortali de Trionfi, et Heroiche Imprese Dâottocento quarantacinque Donne Illustri antiche e modern (Venice, Appresso Evangelista Deuchino: 1609) 323â324.
Cowley, Abraham, Six Books of Plants, VI, trans. Aphra Behn (London, Printed for Charles Harper: 1689) 143. The first two books of Cowleyâs Plantae were published in 1662 (Plantarum libri duo, London, Typis J. Flesher, & prostant apud Nath. Brooks sub Signo Angeli: 1662); the full six books were published posthumously in 1668 by Thomas Spratt as part of Cowleyâs Latin poems: Poemata latina: in quibus continentur, sex libri plantarum, viz. duo Herbarum, Florum, Sylvarum, et unus miscellaneorum (London, Typis T. Roycroft, impensis Jo. Martyn: 1668).
Here I am building on Rigney A., âPlenitude, Scarcity and the Circulation of Cultural Memoryâ, Journal of European Studies 35.1 (2005) 14, 17, 23; as well as on Cox V., âLeonardo Bruni on Women and Rhetoric: De studdiis et litteris Revisitedâ, Rhetorica 27.1 (2009) 66â68.
I understand gender to be a socially situated performance, whose meaning only exists in transactions. Crawford M., Talking Difference. On Gender and Language (London â Thousand Oaks â New Delhi: 1995) 7â19.
McGann J.J., A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism (Charlottesville â London: 1992) 84. McKenzie D.F., Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (New York: 1999) 23; Scott-Baumann E., Forms of Engagement. Women, Poetry, and Culture, 1640â1680 (Oxford: 2013) 7; Cayuela, ââEsta pobre habilidad que Dios me dioâ: autores, impresores y editores en el entuerto de la publicación (siglos XVIâXVII)â 297; OâCallagham M., ââMy Printer, must haue somwhat to his shareâ: Isabella Whitney, Richard Jones, and Crafting Booksâ, Womenâs Writing 26.1 (2019) 15â16.
Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, XII, 1, 29: âProdit se, quamlibet custodiatur, simulatio, nec unquam tanta fuerit loquendi [Sigea has âfuit eloquendiâ] facultas ut [Sigea has âquaeâ] non titubet ac haereat, quotis ab animo [Sigea has âab eo quod latetâ] verba dissentiuntâ). Sigea Luisa, Epistolario latino, ed. M.R. Prieto Corbalán (Madrid: 2007) 101, note 22.
Sigea Luisa, [Cartas], in Serrano y Sanz M. (ed.), Apuntes para una biblioteca de escritoras: desde la formación del lenguaje hasta nuestros dÃas, vol. II (Madrid: 1975) 411 (with âquamtumâ for âquantumâ in the first line). My translation.
Jardine L., Erasmus, Man of Letters. The Construction of Charisma in Print (Princeton â Oxford: 2015) 151.
Poska A.M., âThe Case for Agentic Gender Norms for Women in Early Modern Europeâ, Gender & History 30.2 (2018) 354, 361; Gilleir A. â Montoya A.C., âIntroduction: Toward a New Conception of Womenâs Literary Historyâ, in Gilleir, A. â Montoya A.C. â Dijk S. van (eds.), Women Writing Back. Transnational Perspectives from the Late Middle Ages to the Dawn of the Modern Era (Leiden: 2010) 18â19.
Crawford â Chaffin, âThe Readerâs Construction of Meaning: Cognitive Research on Gender and Comprehensionâ, in Flynn E.A. â Schweickart P.P. (eds.), Gender and Reading. Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts (Baltimore: 1986) 11, 25.
Erasmus Desiderius, Familiarum colloquiorum opus (Antwerp: 1541) 309. It was first published under the charactersâ names (Antronius and Magdalia) within the Colloquia Basil edition of 1524, soon appearing also in vernacular languages (i.e. in 1529 in Spanish). Ledo J., âEl abad y la muchacha instruidaâ, in Solana Pujalte J. â Carande R. (eds.), Erasmo de Róterdam. Coloquios, vol. 1 (Zaragoza: 2020) 493.
I am referring to a degree of frequency exclusively, since the authorial signature left through self-inscription in Marie de Franceâs Lais, for instance, already substantiates this knowledge â it represents âthe trace both of her authorship and her inventionâ. Edwards, R.R., Invention and Authorship in Medieval England (Ohio: 2017) 60.
The notion of âfactual paratextâ is identified and explained in Genette G., Paratexts. Thresholds of Interpretation, trans. J.E. Lewin (Cambridge: 1997) 7â8.
Rivera Garretas M.M., âLa historia de las mujeres que nombra el mundo en femeninoâ, Acta Historica et Archeologica Mediaevalia 26 (2005) 1160.
Allen P., The Concept of Woman. The Early Humanist Reformation, vol. II (Grand Rapids, Michigan â Cambridge: 2002) 935. Cox, âLeonardo Bruni on Women and Rhetoricâ 71â75.
Castiglione Baldassare, The Book of the Courtier, trans. and intro. G. Bull (London: 2003) 219; Villegas de la Torre E.M. (intro., ed., and trans.), El canto de la décima Musa: poesÃas del Renacimiento y el Barroco (Barcelona: 2020) 23â29.
Och M., âVittoria Colonna in Giorgio Vasariâs âLife of Properzia deâ Rossiââ, in McIver K.A. (ed.), Wives, Widows, Mistresses, and Nuns in Early Modern Italy. Making the Invisible Visible through Art and Patronage (London â New York: 2012) 126.
Font Paz C., âWriting for Patronage or Patronage for Writing? Two Case Studies in Seventeenth-Century and Post-Restoration Womenâs Poetry in Britainâ, in Font Paz C. â Geerdink N. (eds.), Economic Imperatives for Womenâs Writing in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: 2018) 102.
Colonna Vittoria, Sonnets for Michelangelo. A Bilingual Edition, ed. and trans. A. Brundin (Chicago â London: 2005) 5, 19; see also Crivelli T., âThe Print Tradition of Vittoria Colonnaâs Rimeâ, in Brundin A. â Crivelli T. â Sapegno M.S. (eds.), A Companion to Vittoria Colonna (Leiden: 2016) 69â139.
Eisner, Boccaccio and the Invention of Italian Literature 5, 9.
Marino, The Biography of âthe Idea of Literatureâ 123.
Plato, Phaedrus, ed. and trans. R. Waterfield (Oxford: 2009) 13.
Stapleton R.F., âMinerva of Her Time: Luisa Sigea and Humanist Networkingâ, in Armstrong-Partida M. â Guerson A. â Wessell Lightfoot D. (eds.), Women and Community in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (Nebraska: 2020) 230.
Pellicer de Ossau y Tovar, Joseph, Lecciones solemnes a las obras de Luis de Gongora y Argote (Madrid, Imprenta del Reino: 1630) 575â576, my translation. See also Schenkeveld-Van der Dussen A.M., âAnna Roemers Visscher: de tiende van de negen, de vierde van de drieâ, Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde (1980) 3â13, about the Dutch poet Anna Roemers-Visscher, whom the Dutch Neolatin poet Daniel Heinsius called the âTenth Museâ, the âFourth of the Threeâ (Graces), and âa Dutch Minervaâ â epithets reiterated by other vernacular poets, such as Jacob Cats and Joost van den Vondel, the latter also calling her âeen Hollandtsche Sapphoâ (10).
Enenkel K.A.E., âModelling the Humanist: Petrarchâs Letter to Posterity and Boccaccioâs Biography of the Poet Laureateâ, in Enenkel K.A.E. â Jong-Crane B. de â Liebregts P. (eds.), Modelling the Individual. Biography and Portrait in the Renaissance, With a Critical Edition of Petrarchâs âLetter to Posterityâ (Amsterdam â Georgia: 1998) 43. Sánchez Jiménez, A., Lope pintado por sà mismo: mito e imagen del autor en la poesÃa de Lope de Vega Carpio (London: 2006) 15; Kay D.W., Ben Jonson. A Literary Life (London: 2017) 49.
Tylus, âNaming Sappho: Gaspara Stampa and the Recovery of the Sublime in Early Modern Europeâ 17. Bourdieu P., The Field of Cultural Production. Essays on Art and Literature, ed. and intro. R. Johnson (Cambridge: 1993) 106; see also Villegas de la Torre E.M., ââDécima moradora del Parnasoâ: género y tolerancia en la República literaria de la primera modernidadâ, in GarcÃa Cárcel R. â Serrano MartÃn E. (eds.), Historia de la tolerancia en España (Madrid: 2021) 171â183.
Sigea, Epistolario latino 97.
Stevenson J., Women Latin Poets. Language, Gender, & Authority from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: 2005) 214.
Baranda N., âDe investigación y bibliografÃa: con unas notas documentales sobre Luisa Sigeaâ, Lemir, 10 (2006) 5.
Carabias Torres A.M., âBeatriz Galindo y LucÃa de Medrano: ni maestra de reinas ni catedrática de derecho canónicoâ, Investigaciones Históricas, Ãpoca Moderna y Contemporánea 39 (2019) 192.
See Villegas de la Torre E.M., âGender in Early Constructions of Authorship, 1447â1518â, Theory Now: Journal of Literature, Critique and Thought, Special Issue âEl autor en la modernidadâ 1.2 (2019) 33â50.
Pacheco Miguel, Vida de la Serenissima Infanta Doña Maria (Lisboa, Ivan de la Costa: 1675) fols. 89â91, 94â97.
Miert D. van, âLanguage and Communication in the Republic of Letters: The Uses of Latin and French in the Correspondence of Joseph Scaligerâ, Bibliothèque dâHumanisme et Renaissance 72 (2010) 17, 24.
Sigea, Epistolario latino 26, 42; Pacheco, Vida 98â99.
Ribera, Le Glorie inmortali 294â295, 307â310. Borreguero Beltrán C., âPuellae Doctae en las cortes peninsularesâ, Dossiers Feministes 15 (2011) 80â86; see also Oettel Th., âUna catedrática en el siglo de Isabel la Católicaâ, BoletÃn de la Real Academia de la Historia 107 (1935) 289â368. Allen, The Concept of Woman 935.
Pizan Christine de, O Livro das Tres Vertudes a Insinança das Damas, ed. M.L. Crispim (Lisboa: 2002) 309, 78.
Erasmus, Familiarum colloquiorum 557â559.
Vian Herrero A., âEl Colloquium duarum virginum de Luisa Sigea en la tradición dialógica del escepticismo académicoâ, in Vian, A. â Baranda C. (eds.), Letras humanas y conflictos del saber: la filologÃa como instrumento a través de las edades (Madrid: 2008) 190, 198â199, 207â208.
I am building on Jiménez Calvente T., Un siciliano en la España de los Reyes Católicos: los Epistolarum familiarum libri XVII de Lucio Marineo SÃculo (Alcalá: 2001) 122.
Enenkel, âModelling the Humanistâ 47.
Villegas de la Torre E.M., âWriting Literature for Publication, 1605â1637â, in Wilkinson A.S. âUlla Lorenzo A. (eds.), A Maturing Market. The Iberian Book World in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century (Leiden: 2017) 127; Stapleton, âMinerva of Her Time: Luisa Sigea and Humanist Networkingâ 242.
Minuzzi S., The Invention of the Author. The âPrivilegio di Stampaâ in Renaissance Venice (Venice: 2017) 14â15.
Pask K., The Emergence of the English Author. Scripting the Life of the Poet in Early Modern England (Cambridge: 1996) 2; Sigea, Epistolario latino 36.
Vasaeus Johannes, Chronici rerum memorabilium Hispaniae (Salamanca, excudebat Ioannes Iunta: 1552) fol. 19.
Postel Guillaume, Les Tres-Merveilleuses Victoires des Femmes do Nouveau Monde, et comment elles doibvent à tout le mon par raison commander, & même à ceulx qui auront la Monarchie du Monde vieil (Paris, chez Jehan Ruelle, à la Queuë de Regnard, ruë Sainct Jacques: 1553) 19, 16. My translation.
Thomas Hyrde such writes in the accompanying preface to Erasmus Desiderius, A devout treatise upon the Pater Noster made fyrst in latyn by the moost famous doctour mayster Erasmus Roterodamus and tourned in to englisshe by a yong vertuous and well lerned gentylwoman of xix. yere of age, trans. Margaret More Roper (London, Thomas Berthelet: [1526]) A2râA4r.
From Benedetto Varchiâs contribution to the preliminaries of Stampa Gaspara, Rime di Madonna Gaspara Stampa (Venice, per Plinio Pietrasanta: 1554) A4r.
Labé Louise, Evvres de Lovïze Labé Lionnoize (Lyon, par Ian de Tovrnes: 1555) 9.
Miralles Maldonado J.C., âJacobo Salvador de la Solana, un humanista murciano del XVIâ, in Valverde Sánchez M. â Calderón Dorda E.A. â Morales Ortiz A. (eds.), Koinòs lógos: homenaje al profesor José GarcÃa López, vol. II (2006) 648â650.
Robin D., Publishing Women. Salons, The Presses, and the Counter-Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Chicago â London: 2007) 51â52.
Cited in Baranda, âDe investigación y bibliografÃa: con unas notas documentales sobre Luisa Sigeaâ 7. My translation.
Sigea, Epistolario latino 118â123, 73.
Sebastián Lozano J., âSofonisba Anguissola: una mirada femenina en la corteâ, in Calvo Serraller F. (coord.), Maestros en la sombra: la otra cara del Museo del Prado (Barcelona: 2013) 190, 192 and 194; Ribera, Le Glorie inmortali 313â316.
Vasari Giorgio, The Lives of the Artists, trans. J. Conaway Bondanella â P. Bondanella (Oxford: 2008) 283, 343 ; Ribera, Le Glorie inmortali 313â316.
Marino, The Biography of âthe Idea of Literatureâ 131; Villegas de la Torre, El canto de la décima Musa 92â96; see also Font Paz, âWriting for Patronage or Patronage for Writingâ.
Cited from Serrano y Sanz, Apuntes 403. My translation.
Marino, The Biography of âthe Idea of Literatureâ 184, 187; Suárez de Figueroa Cristóbal, Plaza universal de todas ciencias y artes: parte traduzida de Toscano (Madrid, Luis Sanchez: 1615) 128.
Schottus Andreas, Hispaniae Bibliotheca, III (Francofurti, Apud Claudiusm Marnium & haeredes Iohan. Aubrii: 1608) 336, 340â344. Spinnenweber K., âThe 1611 English Translation of St Teresaâs Autobiographyâ, SKASE: Journal of Translation and Interpretation 2.1 (2007) 5.
Moréri Louis, Le Grand Dictionaire Historique, ov le Melange Curieux de lâHistoire Sacree et Profane, vol. nio (Lyon, chez Jean Girin, & Barthelemy Riviere: 1681) 471, my translation. Maestre Maestre J.M., âLa carta en latÃn de un Scholasticus Toletanus a Luisa Sigea: ¿misiva verdadera o falsificación literaria?â, RELAT: Revista de Estudios Latinos 19 (2019) 162â163, 207.
Richardson B.. Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: 1999) 80; Pinciano López, Philosophia Antigua Poetica, ed. A. Carballo Picazo, vol. I (Madrid: 1973) 155; Saavedra Fajardo Diego de, República literaria, ed. J.C. de Torres (Madrid: 1999) 65; Crisciani C., âHistories, Stories, Exempla, and Anecdote: Michele Savonarola from Latin to Vernacularâ, in Pomata, G. âSiraisi N.G. (eds.), Historia. Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge â London: 2005) 316; Bouza F., âPara qué imprimir: de autores, público, impresores, y manuscritos en el Siglo de Oroâ, Cuadernos de Historia Moderna, 18 (1997) 33; Cayuela, ââEsta pobre habilidad que Dios me dioâ: autores, impresores y editores en el entuerto de la publicación (siglos XVIâXVII)â 304â305.
Bartoli Daniello, The Man of Letters. Defended and Emended, trans. G. Woods (New York: 2018) vi.
Ibidem 188â189.
From âCensvra del Doctor Don Felix de Lucio Espinosa y Malo, Doctor en ambos derechos, por la insigne Vniversidad de Napolesâ, in idem, Hombre de letras. Escrito en italiano [â¦] y aora nuevamente en castellano, trans. Gaspar Sanz (Madrid, por Andrés GarcÃa de la Iglesia [â¦]. A costa de Iuan Martin Merinero, Mercader de libros. Vendese en su casa en la Puerta del Sol: 1678) C4r.
From âTo the Readerâ, in Dryden John, Of Dramatick Poesie, an Essay (London, Printed for Henry Herringman, at the Sign of the Anchor, on the Lower-walk of the New Exchange: 1668) A4v.
Enenkel, âModelling the Humanistâ 42â43.
Pal C., Republic of Women. Rethinking the Republic of Letters in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: 2012) 3; Villegas de la Torre, El canto de la décima Musa 271â272; Trambaioli M., âLa fama póstuma de Lope de Vegaâ, Studia Aurea 10 (2016) 174.
Gournay Marie de, âMarie le Jars de Gournay: The Equality of Men and Womenâ, in Clarke D.M. (ed.), The Equality of the Sexes. Three Feminist Texts of the Seventeenth Century, (Oxford: 2013) 62; Jonson Ben, Timber: or, Discoveries; Made Upon Men and Matter: As They have flowâd out of his daily Readings, or had their reflux to his peculiar Notion of the Times (London: 1641) 89.
Johns A., The Nature of the Book. Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago â London: 1998) 76.
Bell M., âWomen and the Production of Texts: The Impact of the History of the Bookâ, in Hinks J. â Gardner V. (eds.), The Book Trade in Early Modern England. Practices, Perceptions, Connections (New Castle â Delaware â London: 2014) 114. See also the database of female printers in Antwerp, Louvain and Douai, compiled by Heleen Wyffels at the Catholic University of Leuven:
Cavendish Margaret, Poems and Fancies with The Animal Parliament, ed. B.R. Siegfried (Toronto â Tempe: 2018) 139. Henceforth referred to as Poems and Fancies.
Hobbes Thomas, De corpore politico, or The elements of the law, moral and politick with discourses upon severall heads, as of [brace] the law of nature, oathes and covenants, several kinds of government: with the changes and revolutions of them (London, Printed by T. R. for J. Ridley, and are to be sold at the Castle of Fleestreet: 1652). For information on Cavendishâs printers and booksellers, see Kroetsch C., âList of Margaret Cavendishâs Texts, Printers, and Booksellers (1653â1675)â, Digital Cavendish Project, Accessed 19 July 2021 <
From the introduction to Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 18.
Weber H., Memory, Print, and Gender in England, 1653â1759 (New York â Basingstoke: 2016) 37.
On the often ignored, wide diversity of reading forms, meanings, and spaces in the early modern period, see Castillo Gómez A., Leer y oÃr: ensayos sobre la lectura en los Siglos de Oro (Madrid â Frankfurt, 2016) 121â152.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 148.
Blair A, âConrad Gessnerâs Paratextsâ, Gesnerus 73.1 (2016) 80; see also Villegas de la Torre E.M., âAutorÃa femenina y campo literario en la primera mitad del s. XVIIâ, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 20.4 (2019) 337â352.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 58.
Digby Kenelme, Observations on the 22. Stanza in the 9th Canto of the 2nd. Book of Spencers Faery Queen. Full of excelent Notions concerning the Frame of Man, and his rationall Soul (London, Printed for Daniel Frere Bookseller at the Red-Bull in Little Brittain: 1643) 2.
From âThe Printer to the Readerâ, in P[urslowe] E[lizabeth] [printer], Jonsonus Virbius or, The Memorie of Ben Johnson Revived by the Friends of the Muses (London, Printed by E. P. for Henry Seile, and are to be sold at his shop, at the Tygers Head in Fleetstret, over-against St Dunstans Church: 1638) fol. A2.
Pask, The Emergence of the English Author 95, 106, 109.
Marino, The Biography of âthe Idea of Literatureâ 199.
From âTo Her Grace the Duchess of Newcastleâ, in Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 66.
Ross â Scott-Baumann (eds.), Women Poets of the English Civil War (Manchester: 2018) 199.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 58, 60.
Ross S.G., The Birth of Feminism. Woman as Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England (Cambridge â London: 2009) 2.
Erasmus, Familiarum colloquiorum 306; Scott-Baumann E., Forms of Engagement. Women, Poetry, and Culture, 1640â1680 (Oxford: 2013) 32.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 61.
Ray M.K., Daughters of Alchemy. Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge â London: 2015) 157.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 62.
Minnis A.J., Medieval Theory of Authorship. Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages (Philadelphia: 1988) 49.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 46.
Primrose Diana, Chaine of Pearle, Or a Memoriall of the peerles Graces, and Heroick Vertues of Queene Elizabeth of Glorious Memory (London, Printed for Thomas Paine, and are to be sold by Philip Waterhouse, at his shop at the signe of St. Pauls-head in Canning-street neere London-stone: 1630) A2r.
Villegas de la Torre, ââDécima moradora del Parnasoâ: género y tolerancia en la República literaria de la primera modernidadâ 176â183; Altaba-Artal D., Aphra Behnâs English Feminism. Wit and Satire (Selinsgrove â London: 1999) 202.
Bartoli, The Man of Letters 241.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 63, 66, 65.
Villegas de la Torre, âWriting Literature for Publication, 1605â1637â 129; Kay, Ben Jonson. A Literary Life 51.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 66.
Ibidem 72.
Ross â Scott-Baumann, Women Poets of the English Civil War 211.
Richardson, Printing, Writers and Readers 60.
Pender P., Early Modern Womenâs Writing and the Rhetoric of Modesty (Basingstoke: 2012) 3.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 66â67; Curtius E.R., European Literature and Latin Middle Ages, trans. W.R. Trask (Princeton: 1990) 83, 87.
Sumillera R.G., âLanguage Manuals and the Book Trade in Englandâ, in Pérez Fernández, J.M. â Wilson-Lee E. (eds.), Translation and the Book Trade in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: 2014) 68â69.
Siegfried sees the workâs coherence as relying on three Epicurean themes: âatomic motion and form by which is expressed Natureâs creative variability; the pleasures, pains, and paradoxes of perception in relation to knowledge; and the tension between the constant emergence of new life [â¦] and the inevitability of deathâ. Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 14.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 68â69. My italics.
From âTo All Professors of Learning and Artâ; idem, Sociable Letters, ed. J. Fitzmaurice (Ontorio: 2004) 40, 73.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 167.
Sabuco de Nantes, Oliva, New Philosophy of Human Nature: Neither Known to nor Attained by the Great Ancient Philosophers, Which Will Improve Human Life and Health, trans. and ed. M.E. Waithe â M. Colomer Vintró â C.A. Zorita (Illinois: 2007) 3; Allen P. â Salvatore P., âLucrezia Marinelli and Womenâs Identity in Late Italian Renaissanceâ, Renaissance and Reformation 28.4 (1992) 11; Larsen A.R., âA Womenâs Republic of Letters: Anna Maria van Schurman, Marie de Gournay, and Female Self-Representation in Relation to the Public Sphereâ, Early Modern Women Journal 3 (2008) 107; Pal, Republic of Women 3, 57; Seidler Engberg K., The Literary Politics of Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley (Lanham â Boulder â New York â Toronto â Plymouth: 2010) 28â32.
I am building on Dodds L., The Literary Invention of Margaret Cavendish (Pittsburgh â Pennsylvania: 2013) 225.
Plato, Republic, ed. and trans. R. Waterfield (Oxford: 2008) 165â169.
Erasmus, Familiarum colloquiorum 309; Schurman Anna Maria van, âA Dissertation on the Natural Capacity of Women for Study and Learningâ, in Clarke D.M. (ed.), The Equality of the Sexes. Three Feminist Texts of the Seventeenth Century (Oxford: 2013) 80; Bartoli, The Man of Letters 182.
Erasmus, Familiarum colloquiorum 309.
Tylus, âNaming Sappho: Gaspara Stampa and the Recovery of the Sublime in Early Modern Europeâ 38; Zayas Sotomayor MarÃa de, Honesto y entretenido sarao (Primera y segunda parte), ed. J. Olivares, vol. 1 (Zaragoza: 2017) 16; see also Villegas de la Torre E.M., âErudición y lucro en la República literaria barroca: a propósito de MarÃa de Zayasâ, Criticón, Special Issue âLas novelas amorosas y ejemplares de MarÃa de Zayasâ (forthcoming).
I am building on Blair A, âErrata Lists and the Reader as Correctorâ, in Baron S.A. â Lindquist E.N. â Shevlin E.E. (eds.), Agent of Change. Print Culture Studies After Elizabeth L. Eisenstein (Massachusetts: 2007) 26.
An only general interest in gender issues has been deemed characteristic of van Schurmanâs scholarly network; see Pal, Republic of Women 66.
The call for acknowledging the also hybrid (mixed-sex) nature and contingency of premodern womenâs print publication within the Anglo context is not new. Smith H., Grossly Material Things. Women and Book Production in Early Modern England (Oxford: 2012) 217. I am also indebted to Elizabeth Scott-Baumann and Sarah Ross for sharing with me, ââCorrected by the Authorâ? Women, Poetry, and Contingency of Seventeenth-Century Print Publicationâ, ahead of its publication this year.
Cavendish, Poems and Fancies 365.
Sheavyn P., The Literary Profession in the Elizabethan Age, ed. and rev. J.W. Saunders (Manchester: 1967) 167; Cayuela, ââEsta pobre habilidad que Dios me dioâ: autores, impresores y editores en el entuerto de la publicación (siglos XVIâXVII)â 314â317; Wall, W., The Imprint of Gender. Authorship and Publication in the English Renaissance (Ithaca â London: 1993) 175.
Villegas de la Torre, âWriting Literature for Publication, 1605â1637â 136â140. For a discussion on the volumeâs printer-publisher and retailer, see Crabstick B., âKatherine Philips, Richard Marriot, and the Contemporary Significance of Poems. By the Incomparable, Mrs. K. P. (1664)â, in Coolahan M.L. â Wright G. (eds.), Katherine Philips. Form, Reception, and Literary Contexts (London â New York: 2018) 63â83.
Philips Katherine, Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda: to which is added Monsieur Corneilleâs Pompey & Horace, Tragedies; with several other Translations out of French (London, Printed by J.M. for H. Herringman, at the Sign of the Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange: 1667) A1r, A1v, A2r.
âa text accompanied by a narrative frame in which to set it, and supported by a variety of pendant pieces of printing, from title-page woodcut to dedicatory lettersâ. Jardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters 175.
Ross â Scott-Baumann, Women Poets of the English Civil War 19.
Enenkel, âModelling the Humanistâ 16.
Akkerman N.N.W. â Corporaal M.C.M., âMad Science Beyond Flattery: The Correspondence of Margaret Cavendish and Constantijn Huygensâ, Early Modern Literary Studies SI 14 (2004) 21.
Antonius Nicolas, Bibliotheca Hispana, sive Hispanorum, vol. II (Rome, Nicolaus Angelus Timassius: 1672) 56â58 and 337â347: the introduction to this appendix to a Catholic collection even praises the argument in defence of womenâs intellectual capacities, published by van Schurman, âwho resided in Utrecht the past few years, and who would be a miracle of our age, had she not dishonoured her outstanding gifts by contracting the infection of an heretic climateâ (338: â⦠a clarissima Anna Maria Schurman, Ultrajecti superioribus annis manente, atque huius saeculi mirculo futura, nisi praestantissimas dotes haeretici coeli contracta infectione dehonestaretâ). See also Floris Solleveldâs contribution to this volume about the position of women in collective biographical dictionaries, in Isaac Bullartâs Académie (1682), Charles Perraultâs Hommes illustres (1696â1700) and Jacob Bruckerâs Bilder-sal (1741â1755), as well as Lieke van Deinsenâs contribution on Cavendish, Schurman, and Maria Sybilla Merian.