Table Of ContentJust Anger : Representing Women's Anger
title:
in Early Modern England
author: Kennedy, Gwynne.
publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
isbn10 | asin: 0809322617
print isbn13: 9780809322619
ebook isbn13: 9780585330716
language: English
English literature--Early modern, 1500-
1700--History and criticism, English
literature--Women authors--History and
subject criticism, Feminism and literature--
England--History--16th century, Feminism
and literature--England--History--17th
century, Women and liter
publication date: 2000
lcc: PR428.F45K46 2000eb
ddc: 820.9/353
English literature--Early modern, 1500-
1700--History and criticism, English
literature--Women authors--History and
subject: criticism, Feminism and literature--
England--History--16th century, Feminism
and literature--England--History--17th
century, Women and liter
Page iii
Just Anger
Representing Women's Anger in Early Modern England
Gwynne Kennedy
Copyright © 2000 by the Board of Trustees,
Southern Illinois University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
03 02 01 00 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kennedy, Gwynne, [DATE]
Just anger : representing women's anger in early modern England / Gwynne Kennedy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. English literatureEarly modern, 15001700History and criticism. 2. English
literatureWomen authorsHistory and criticism. 3. Feminism and literatureEngland
History16th century. 4. Feminism and literatureEnglandHistory17th century.
5. Women and literatureEnglandHistory16th century. 6. Women and literature
EnglandHistory17th century. 7. Anger in literature. I. Title.
PR428.F45K46 2000
820.9'353dc21 99-31692
ISBN 0-8093-2261-7 (cloth : alk. paper) CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Page v
To John and Will
Page vii
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1. Becoming Angry: The Gendering of Emotions in Early 1
Modern England
2. Angry Readers: Texts from the "Woman Controversy" 23
3. Angry Wives: Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam 51
4. Angry Wives as Political Subjects: Elizabeth Cary's The 75
History of the Life, Reign, and Death of Edward II
5. Angry Lovers: Mary Wroth's The Countess of 115
Montgomery's Urania
6. Angry for God: Anne Askew's Examinations 143
Afterword: The Politics of Anger 161
Notes 165
Works Cited 179
Index 193
Page ix
Acknowledgments
Writing this book has been a long process, as my family and many
friends and colleagues well know, and there are a number of people I
want to thank. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Maureen Quilligan,
whose graduate seminar on the Sidney circle first introduced me to
Wroth's romance and who enthusiastically supported my desire to
study early modern women writers. The insights, advice, and
encouragement of Juliet Fleming, Wendy Wall, Janis Butler Holm,
Karen Robertson, Frances Dolan, Mary Lamb, and Naomi Azrieli
have helped this project develop from the subtext of a dissertation into
a subject of its own. For many years now, Phyllis Rackin has been a
mentor, friend, and role model; with warmth and toughness, she
showed me how to find a place for myself in academia.
In Milwaukee, I have been fortunate to find a supportive community
of scholars and friends. Special thanks to Virginia Chappell, Alice
Gillam, and Krista Ratcliffe (the writing group that kept me writing)
and to our early modern women reading group: Merry Wiesner,
Deirdre McChrystal, Sandra Stark, Janet Jesmok, Martha Carlin,
Gretchen Kling, Margaret Borene, Jennifer Sansone, and Kim
Murphy. Deirdre McChrystal, Mary Louise Buley-Meissner, Kristie
Hamilton, Barbara Lindquist, Mary Elliott, Janice Yoder, and Merce
Roig Plana have been wonderful friends and coffee companions.
Thanks are also due to Kathleen Woodward, Gregory Jay, and Sheila
Cavanaugh for their helpful comments on various chapters. Merry
Weisner read several chapters more than once with good humor;
without her advice, friendship, and historian's perspective, this book
would have been very different. Margaret Ferguson read an earlier
version of the Edward II chapter at a key moment when I needed an
audience. I am extremely grateful to Ann Jones for her detailed,
thoughtful reading of most of the initial manuscript. Her comments
were invaluable, and it would be hard to imagine a better reader.
Carole Levin has been unflagging in her support for this project.
Page x
At Southern Illinois University Press, I particularly want to thank
Tracey Sobol-Hill for her early help with the book and Carol Burns
for seeing it through. To Kim Hall, for her generosity, humor, and
friendship over the years, the deepest thanks.
My family has waited patiently for this moment. Their love and
confidence that it would come have kept me going: Jean Payne, Greig
Kennedy, Ross and Diana Kennedy, Marg and Dom DiClemente, and
in spirit, Archibald Kennedy. Stella and Lucky have been my faithful
late-night feline companions, as were their foresisters, Houdini and
Lazarus. My love and thanks to Will, who shared his mother with this
book about "women who are angry that men think they're better."
Above all, to John, who has always been there for me no matter what.
Page 1
1
Becoming Angry:
The Gendering of Emotions in Early Modern England
How farre better is it for thee that thou shouldest surmount her, then that she
should be Mistresse of thee?
Thomas Lodge, The Workes of Lucius Annaeus Seneca
In this epigraph from Thomas Lodge's translation of Seneca's essay
De Ira (Of Anger), the "she" referred to is anger (572). The obvious
nature of the analogy between mastering anger and mastering women
is registered by the rhetorical question, which presumes a known
answer. Yet that answer may not be as clear as Seneca and Lodge may
think. What if their reader is not a man but a woman? In what ways
does the sex of the rider determine the implications of the analogy?
The rider/horse analogy informing this quote recurs throughout the
early modern period as a figure for the necessary control of an inferior
party, including emotions, wives, and women in general.
1 In Henry VIII, William Shakespeare's Norfolk calls anger "[a] full
hot horse" (1.1.133). Edward Reynolds counsels his readers that anger
"must first be schooled before it be imployed, as men bridle their
horses before they ride them" (329).2 Setting out the duties of virtuous
wives, William Whately compares a good wife to "a wel-broken
horse, that seemes to have but one soule with the rider" (208). He
warns that a husband who lets "his wife do any thing, doth all one as
if he should ride without a bridle" (153).3 As the next chapter will
show, attacks on and defenses of women's nature that participate in the
English "querelles des femmes'' frequently invoke the figure of the
"galled horse" whose anger reveals its imperfect nature. The
horse/rider analogy succinctly asserts men's superiority to women and
Description:The first scholar to investigate the subject of women’s anger in early modern England, Gwynne Kennedy analyzes portrayals of and attitudes toward women’s anger in printed texts by or purporting to be written by women during the period. Kennedy draws from recent critical work on emotions by hist
