Redeeming Eve Women Writers of the English Renaissance [Paperback]

An introduction to women writers of the English Renaissance which takes up 44 works, many as thumbnail sketches; shows how women's writing was hampered by the assumption that poets were male, by restriction to pious subject matter, by the doctrine that only silent women are virtuous, by criticism that praised women as patrons or muses and ignored their writing, and above all by crippling educational theories.

Originally published in 1987.

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Redeeming Eve is an introduction to women writers of the English Renaissance which takes up 44 works, many as thumbnail sketches. . . . [Beilin] shows how women's writing was hampered by the assumption that poets were male, by restriction to pious subject matter, by the doctrine that only silent women are virtuous, by criticism that praised women as patrons or muses and ignored their writing, and above all by crippling educational theories. . . . The interesting chapters on Anne Askew, Elizabeth Cary, Aemilia Lanyer, and Mary Wroth are alone well worth the purchase price. ---Linda Woodbridge,Renaissance Quarterly [Beilin's] approach is wise and fruitful, shunning a radical, imperialistic feminist criticism that would seek to make these Renaissance women feminists. . . . [The book] serves the purpose of an excellent introduction to a lively topic. [Beilin] engages the writings of Renaissance women with an understanding and appreciation that render them at once more accessible andlÓe