The Female Baroque in Early Modern English Literary Culture : From Mary Sidney to Aphra Behn

The Female Baroque in Early Modern English Literary Culture is a contribution to the revival of early modern women’s writings and cultural production in English that began in the 1980s. Its originality is twofold: it links women’s writing in English with the wider context of Baroque culture, and it introduces the issue of gender into discussion of the Baroque. The title comes from Julia Kristeva’s study of Teresa of Avila, that ‘the secrets of Baroque civilization are female’. The book is built on a schema of recurring Baroque characteristics — narrativity, hyperbole, melancholia, kitsch, and plateauing, pointing less to surface manifestations and more to underlying ideological tensions. The crucial concept of the book is developed in detail. Particular attention is given to Gertrude More, Mary Ward, Aemilia Lanyer, The Ferrar/Collet women, Mary Wroth, the Cavendish sisters, Hester Pulter, Anne Hutchinson, and finally Margaret Cavendish and Aphra Behn, whose lives and writings point to the developing cultural transition to the Enlightenment.

"An extraordinary accomplishment and an important piece of writing..." Marie Mutsuki Mockett, author of Where the Dead Pause and the Japanese Say Goodbye "MW Larson has made an important contribution to the English-speaking world's understanding of the events in Japan during and after March 11, 2011. Larson's book captures the complexity of what happened: a triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident that took the lives of almost 20,000 people, and uprooted hundreds of thousands more. Larson gives a textured and compassionate account of those events via the accounts of people who lived through them. He shows a journalist's ability to listen, and a novelist's flair for bringing those stories to life. He also shows an intense concern for the fate of Tohoku, having spent much time himself up in the disaster zone, which shows in his feel for places and the people. The personal connection makes the story all the more compelling, as the disaster has clearly changed Larson's life as well. Well done!" -- Martin Fackler, former Tokyo bureau chief for the New York Times Larson follows the lives of a hairdresser, a café owner, a cattle rancher, and a nuclear-energy worker from the moment the 2011 tsunami hit Japan's Tohoku region through the subsequent years of recovery, grief, and frustration. In simple, straightforward prose, Larson chronicles their attempts to recover what they had lost despite a government response replete with missed opportunities and predictable missteps.

'The Female Baroque in Early Modern English Literary Culture' is a contribution to the revival since the 1980s of early modern women's writings and cultural production in English. Its originality is twofold : it links women's writing in English with the wider context of Baroque culture, and it introduces the issue of gender into discussion of the Baroque. The title comes from Julia Kristeva's study of Teresa of Avila, that 'the secrets of Baroque civilization are female'. The book is built on a schema of recurring Baroque characteristics - narrativity, hyperbole, melancholia, kitsch, and plateauing, pointing less to surface manifestations and more to underlying ideological tensions. The crucial concept of the book is developed in detail. Attention is then given particularly to Gertrude More, Mary Ward, Aemilia Lanyer, The Ferrar / Collet women, Mary Wroth, the Cavendish sisters, Hester Pulter, Anne Hutchinson, Margaret Cavendish and Aphra Behn, the latter two whose lives and writings point to the developing cultural transition to the Enlightenment The Female Baroque is a contribution to the revival since the 1980s of early modern women's writings and cultural production in English. Its originality is twofold: it links women's writing in English with the wider context of Baroque culture, and it introduces the issue of gender into discussion of the Baroque. The title comes from Julia Kristeva's study of Teresa of Avila, that 'the secrets of Baroque civilization are female'. [-]The book is built on a schema of recurring Baroque characteristics - narrativity, hyperbole, melancholia, kitsch, and plateauing, pointing less to surface manifestations and more to underlying ideological tensions. The crucial concept of the Female Baroque is developed in detail. Attention is then given particularly to Gertrude More, Mary Ward, Aemilia Lanyer, The Ferrar/Collet women, Mary Wroth, the Cavendish sisters, Hester Pulter, Anne Hutchinson, Margaret Cavendish and Aphra Behn, the latter two whose lives and writings point to the developing cultural transition to the Enlightenment.[-]