Abstract
A popular romance by a
popular courtier, Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia
was the best-selling prose fiction of the 1590s England. Sidney wrote the Old Arcadia, which consisted of five
books, earlier than the New Arcadia.
In the New Arcadia, a revision of the
Old Arcadia, which was composed of
three books, he followed the original plotline while he also added new episodes
and reshaped some narratives. The product of an arduous work, it broke off
mid-sentence due to Sidney’s untimely death in 1586. This incomplete text was published
in 1590. In the posthumously published 1593 Arcadia,
a merger of the Old Arcadia and the New Arcadia, Sidney invited the
reader to continue his text (the original ending of the older version). Even
though he used the male personal pronoun to address his successors, Anna Weamys
was the only woman to take up the challenge. Writing at a time when female
romance reading and writing were frowned upon by the patriarchal culture and
authorship was predominantly considered to be a male activity, Weamys not only
interpreted the narrative threads Sidney left unfinished from a female point of
view but she also produced her own independent work. Within this framework,
taking into consideration the question “Is a pen a metaphorical penis?” Sandra
Gilbert and Susan Gubar pose, and the cultural understanding of romance and
women’s preoccupation with the genre in the seventeenth century, this paper
examines how Weamys shatters the hegemony of Sidney in A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia (1651) in order to
establish her literary authority as a female author.
References
- Alighieri, D. (2009). The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Inferno. (S. Lombardo, Trans.) Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Ascham, R. (1870). The Schoolmaster. [Google Books Version]. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.tr/books?id=i45TAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=tr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Aughterson, K. (1995). (Ed.). Renaissance woman: a sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Beer, G. (1970). The romance. London: Mathuen. Boro, J. (2009). John Fletcher’s Women pleased and the pedagogy of reading romance. In M. E. Lamb & V. Wayne (Eds.), Staging early modern romance: prose fiction, dramatic romance and Shakespeare (pp. 188-202). New York: Routledge. Campbell, J. (2006). Literary circles and gender in early modern Europe. a cross-cultural approach. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Garrett, M. (Ed.). (1996). Sidney: The critical heritage. London and New York: Routledge. Cullen, P. C. (1994). (Ed.). Introduction. A continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia (pp. xvii-lxxiii). New York: Oxford University Press. Davenport, T. (2004). Medieval narrative: an introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DeZur, K. (2014). Gender, interpretation, and political rule in Sidney’s Arcadia. Newark: University of Delaware Press. Dorrego, J. F. (2002). Wroth and Weamys: two different approaches to pastoral romance, love, and gender. Sederi 11, 67-73. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/19685903/Jorge_Figueroa_Dorrego_Wroth_and_Weamys_Two_Different_Approaches_to_Pastoral_Romance_Love_and_Gender_ Ferguson, M.W. (1996). Renaissance concepts of the women writer. In H. Wilcox (Ed.), Women and literature in Britain, 1500-1700 (pp. 143-168). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gilbert, S. M., & Gubar, S. (1984). The madwoman in the attic: the woman writer and the nineteenth-Century literary imagination (2nd ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. Hackett, H. (2000). Women and romance fiction in the English Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hadfield, A. (2010). Prose fiction. In M. Hattaway (Ed.), A new companion to English Renaissance literature and culture (vol. 2, pp. 423-436). Malden: Blackwell. Hager, A. (Ed.). (2005). Encyclopedia of British writers 16th and 17th centuries. New York: Facts on File. Hobby, E. (1988). Virtue of necessity: English women’s writing 1649-88. London: Virago. Keenan, S. (2008). Renaissance literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Kinney, C.R. (2009). Undoing romance: Beaumont and Fletcher’s resistant reading of The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia. In M. E. Lamb & V. Wayne (Eds.), Staging early modern romance: prose fiction, dramatic romance and Shakespeare (pp. 203-218). New York: Routledge. Krontiris, T. (1988). Breaking barriers of genre and gender: Margaret Tyler’s translation of ‘the Mirrour of Knighthood.’ English Literary Renaissance, 18(1), 19-39. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43447234. Lamb, M. E. (1990). Gender and authorship in the Sidney circle. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Mitchell, M., & Osland, D. (2005). Representing women and female desire from Arcadia to Jane Eyre. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Mentz, S. (2006). Romance for sale in early modern England: the rise of prose fiction. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing. Moore, H. (2000). Romance. In M. Hattaway (Ed.), A companion to English Renaissance literature and culture (pp. 317-326). Malden: Blackwell. Newcomb, L. H. (2004). Gendering prose romance in Renaissance England. In C. Saunders (Ed.), A companion to romance from classical to contemporary (pp. 121-139). Malden: Blackwell. Orlin, L. C. (2009). The Renaissance: a sourcebook. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pacheco, A. (2002). (Ed.). Introduction. A companion to early modern women’s writing (pp. xiv-vv). Malden: Blackwell, 2002. Sidney, P. (1907). The countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia. London: Routledge. Simonova, N. (2015). Early modern authorship and prose continuations: adaptation and ownership from Sidney to Richardson. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Spiller, E. A. (2000). Speaking for the dead: King Charles, Anna Weamys, and the commemoration of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. Criticism, 42(2), 229-251. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23124305. Teskey, G. (1989). Introduction. In G. M. Logan & G. Teskey (Eds.), Unfolded tales: essays on Renaissance romance (pp. 1-15). Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Travitsky, B. (1996). The possibilities of prose. In H. Wilcox (Ed.), Women and literature in Britain, 1500-1700 (pp. 234-266). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vives, J. L. (2000). The instruction of a christian woman: a sixteenth century manual. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Waller, G. (1991). Mary Wroth and the Sidney family romance: gender construction in early modern England. In N. J. Miller & G. Waller (Eds.), Reading Mary Wroth: representing alternatives in early modern England (pp. 35-63). Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press. Weamys, A. (1994). A continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. New York: Oxford University Press. Wright, L. B. (1958). Middle-class culture in Elizabethan England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Abstract
A popular romance by a
popular courtier, Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia
was the best-selling prose fiction of the 1590s England. Sidney wrote the Old Arcadia, which consisted of five
books, earlier than the New Arcadia.
In the New Arcadia, a revision of the
Old Arcadia, which was composed of
three books, he followed the original plotline while he also added new episodes
and reshaped some narratives. The product of an arduous work, it broke off
mid-sentence due to Sidney’s untimely death in 1586. This incomplete text was published
in 1590. In the posthumously published 1593 Arcadia,
a merger of the Old Arcadia and the New Arcadia, Sidney invited the
reader to continue his text (the original ending of the older version). Even
though he used the male personal pronoun to address his successors, Anna Weamys
was the only woman to take up the challenge. Writing at a time when female
romance reading and writing were frowned upon by the patriarchal culture and
authorship was predominantly considered to be a male activity, Weamys not only
interpreted the narrative threads Sidney left unfinished from a female point of
view but she also produced her own independent work. Within this framework,
taking into consideration the question “Is a pen a metaphorical penis?” Sandra
Gilbert and Susan Gubar pose, and the cultural understanding of romance and
women’s preoccupation with the genre in the seventeenth century, this paper
examines how Weamys shatters the hegemony of Sidney in A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia (1651) in order to
establish her literary authority as a female author.
References
- Alighieri, D. (2009). The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Inferno. (S. Lombardo, Trans.) Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Ascham, R. (1870). The Schoolmaster. [Google Books Version]. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.tr/books?id=i45TAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=tr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Aughterson, K. (1995). (Ed.). Renaissance woman: a sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge. Beer, G. (1970). The romance. London: Mathuen. Boro, J. (2009). John Fletcher’s Women pleased and the pedagogy of reading romance. In M. E. Lamb & V. Wayne (Eds.), Staging early modern romance: prose fiction, dramatic romance and Shakespeare (pp. 188-202). New York: Routledge. Campbell, J. (2006). Literary circles and gender in early modern Europe. a cross-cultural approach. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Garrett, M. (Ed.). (1996). Sidney: The critical heritage. London and New York: Routledge. Cullen, P. C. (1994). (Ed.). Introduction. A continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia (pp. xvii-lxxiii). New York: Oxford University Press. Davenport, T. (2004). Medieval narrative: an introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DeZur, K. (2014). Gender, interpretation, and political rule in Sidney’s Arcadia. Newark: University of Delaware Press. Dorrego, J. F. (2002). Wroth and Weamys: two different approaches to pastoral romance, love, and gender. Sederi 11, 67-73. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/19685903/Jorge_Figueroa_Dorrego_Wroth_and_Weamys_Two_Different_Approaches_to_Pastoral_Romance_Love_and_Gender_ Ferguson, M.W. (1996). Renaissance concepts of the women writer. In H. Wilcox (Ed.), Women and literature in Britain, 1500-1700 (pp. 143-168). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gilbert, S. M., & Gubar, S. (1984). The madwoman in the attic: the woman writer and the nineteenth-Century literary imagination (2nd ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. Hackett, H. (2000). Women and romance fiction in the English Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hadfield, A. (2010). Prose fiction. In M. Hattaway (Ed.), A new companion to English Renaissance literature and culture (vol. 2, pp. 423-436). Malden: Blackwell. Hager, A. (Ed.). (2005). Encyclopedia of British writers 16th and 17th centuries. New York: Facts on File. Hobby, E. (1988). Virtue of necessity: English women’s writing 1649-88. London: Virago. Keenan, S. (2008). Renaissance literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Kinney, C.R. (2009). Undoing romance: Beaumont and Fletcher’s resistant reading of The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia. In M. E. Lamb & V. Wayne (Eds.), Staging early modern romance: prose fiction, dramatic romance and Shakespeare (pp. 203-218). New York: Routledge. Krontiris, T. (1988). Breaking barriers of genre and gender: Margaret Tyler’s translation of ‘the Mirrour of Knighthood.’ English Literary Renaissance, 18(1), 19-39. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43447234. Lamb, M. E. (1990). Gender and authorship in the Sidney circle. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Mitchell, M., & Osland, D. (2005). Representing women and female desire from Arcadia to Jane Eyre. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Mentz, S. (2006). Romance for sale in early modern England: the rise of prose fiction. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing. Moore, H. (2000). Romance. In M. Hattaway (Ed.), A companion to English Renaissance literature and culture (pp. 317-326). Malden: Blackwell. Newcomb, L. H. (2004). Gendering prose romance in Renaissance England. In C. Saunders (Ed.), A companion to romance from classical to contemporary (pp. 121-139). Malden: Blackwell. Orlin, L. C. (2009). The Renaissance: a sourcebook. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pacheco, A. (2002). (Ed.). Introduction. A companion to early modern women’s writing (pp. xiv-vv). Malden: Blackwell, 2002. Sidney, P. (1907). The countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia. London: Routledge. Simonova, N. (2015). Early modern authorship and prose continuations: adaptation and ownership from Sidney to Richardson. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Spiller, E. A. (2000). Speaking for the dead: King Charles, Anna Weamys, and the commemoration of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. Criticism, 42(2), 229-251. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23124305. Teskey, G. (1989). Introduction. In G. M. Logan & G. Teskey (Eds.), Unfolded tales: essays on Renaissance romance (pp. 1-15). Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Travitsky, B. (1996). The possibilities of prose. In H. Wilcox (Ed.), Women and literature in Britain, 1500-1700 (pp. 234-266). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vives, J. L. (2000). The instruction of a christian woman: a sixteenth century manual. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Waller, G. (1991). Mary Wroth and the Sidney family romance: gender construction in early modern England. In N. J. Miller & G. Waller (Eds.), Reading Mary Wroth: representing alternatives in early modern England (pp. 35-63). Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press. Weamys, A. (1994). A continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. New York: Oxford University Press. Wright, L. B. (1958). Middle-class culture in Elizabethan England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Details
| Primary Language | Turkish |
|---|---|
| Subjects | Creative Arts and Writing |
| Journal Section | Turkish language, culture and literature |
| Authors | |
| Publication Date | November 21, 2019 |
| Published in Issue | Year 2019 RumeliDE 2019.Ö6 - Bandırma Onyedi Eylül Üniversitesi Uluslararası Filoloji Çalışmaları Konferansı |
