FEMALE AGENCY AND CRITICISM OF MARITAL PRACTICES IN LADY MARY WROTH’S THE COUNTESS OF MONTGOMERY’S URANIA

Yıl 2019, Cilt: 2 Sayı: 1, 35 - 59, 31.03.2019

Merve Aydoğdu Çelik

https://doi.org/10.33406/molesto.518324

Cited By: 2

Öz

Lady Mary Wroth is an innovative and unconventional figure both in terms of her personal background and her
literary production within the sixteenth century social and political context. She is the author of the first sonnet
sequence written by a woman, the producer of the first prose romance by a female pen, and one of the first female
playwrights. Regarding her literary output, Wroth stands out as an author who prioritises the topics in relation to
women. Her sonnet sequence serves as an instrument for expressing female voice; her romance includes myriad of
female characters who question and rebel against the maxim of chaste-silent-obedient; her only play deals with
relationships among several couples emphasising female achievement. Wroth’s determination to focus on women’s
problems underscores the dissidence a woman could achieve under an apparently irresistible social and political
formation. In The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania, she concentrates on the experiences of women who resist
oppressive marital practices. In this sense, this paper aims to examine the social context as to the institution of
marriage, the criticism Wroth poses against it, and female assertiveness in the case of unwanted matrimonies.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Lady Mary Wroth, Renaissance, romance, marriage

LADY MARY WROTH’UN THE COUNTESS OF MONTGOMERY’S URANIA ESERİNDE KADIN EYLEMİ VE EVLİLİK GELENEKLERİNİN ELEŞTİRİSİ

Öz

Lady Mary Wroth, hem kişisel geçmişi hem de kaleme aldığı eserlerden ötürü on altıncı yüzyıl sosyal ve politik kültürü bağlamında yenilikçi ve sıradışı bir figürdür. Bir kadın tarafından yazılan ilk sone dizisinin ve ilk nesir romansın yazarı olmasının yanısıra, ilk kadın oyun yazarlarından da biridir. Edebi üretimi çerçevesinde ele alındığında, Wroth, kadınlarla ilgili konulara öncelik veren bir yazar olarak öne çıkmaktadır. Sone dizisi kadın sesini ifade etmek için bir araç olarak hizmet eder; romansı iffet-sükunet-itaat düsturunu sorgulayan ve ona isyan eden sayısız kadın karakter içerir; tek oyunu ise kadınların başarısını vurgularken çiftler arasındaki ilişkiler üzerine kuruludur. Wroth’un kadınların sorunlarına odaklanma konusundaki kararlılığı, bir kadının görünüşte karşı konulamaz bir sosyal ve politik oluşum altında elde edebileceği muhalefeti vurgulamaktadır. Wroth, The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania eserinde, baskıcı evlilik uygulamalarına direnen kadınların deneyimlerine yoğunlaşmaktadır. Bu bağlamda, bu makale, evlilik kurumuna ilişkin sosyal bağlamı, Wroth’un bu durum hususundaki eleştirisini ve istenmeyen evlilik durumlarında kadın eylemini incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Lady Mary Wroth, Rönesans, romans, evlilik

Kaynakça

• Andrea, Bernadette. “Pamphilia’s Cabinet: Gendered Authorship and Empire in Lady Mary Wroth’s Urania.” English Literary History 68. 2 (2001): 335-58. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov 2016.
• Aughterson, Kate, ed. Renaissance Woman: A Sourcebook, Constructions of Femininity in England. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Print.
• Belsey, Catherine. The Subject of Tragedy: Identity and Difference in Renaissance Drama. London: Routledge, 1965. Print.
• Cavanagh, Sheila. “Prisoners of Love: Cross-Cultural and Supernatural Desires in Lady Mary Wroth’s Urania.” Prose Fiction and Early Modern Sexualities in England, 1570-1640. Ed. Constance C. Relihan and Goran V. Stanivukovic. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 93-110. Print.
• Dollimore, Jonathan. “Shakespeare, Cultural Materialism, Feminism and Marxist Humanism.” New Literary History 21. 3 (1990): 471-93.
• Dollimore, Jonathan. Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. 3rd ed., Durham: Duke UP, 2004. Print.
• Elizabeth I. The Public Speaking of Queen Elizabeth: Selections from Her Official Addresses. Ed. George P. Rice, Jr. New York: Columbia UP, 1951. Print.
• Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 2005. Print.
• Hannay, Margaret P. “‘Your vertuous and learned Aunt’: The Countess of Pembroke as a Mentor to Mary Wroth.” Reading Mary Wroth: Representing Alternatives in Early Modern England. Ed. Naomi J. Miller and Gary Waller. Knoxville: The U of Tennessee P, 1991. 15-34. Print.
• Hannay, Margaret P. Mary Sidney, Lady Wroth. Burlington: Ashgate, 2010. Print.
• James I. The Political Works of James I. Ed.Charles Howard McIlwain. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1918. Print.
• Jonson, Ben. Notes of Ben Jonson’s Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden. London, 1842. Google Book Search. Web. 29 Sept 2016.
• Kelso, Ruth. Doctrine for the Lady of Renaissance. Urbana: U of Illionis P, 1956. Print.
• Krontiris, Tina. Oppositional Voices: Women as Writers and Translators of Literature in the English Renaissance. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Print.
• Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer. “Writing Women and Reading the Renaissance.” Renaissance Quarterly 44.4 (1991): 792-821. JSTOR. Web. 16 Nov 2016.
• Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer. Writing Women in Jacobean England. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993. Print.
• Masten, Jeff. “‘Shall I turne blabb?’: Circulation, Gender, and Subjectivity in Mary Wroth’s Sonnets.” Reading Mary Wroth: Representing Alternatives in Early Modern England. Ed. Naomi J. Miller and Gary Waller. Knoxville: The U of Tennessee P, 1991. 67-87. Print.
• Miller, Naomi J. “Engendering Discourse: Women’s Voice in Wroth’s Urania and Shakespeare’s Plays.” Reading Mary Wroth: Representing Alternatives in Early Modern England. Ed. Naomi J. Miller and Gary Waller. Knoxville: The U of Tennessee P, 1991. 154-72. Print.
• Miller, Naomi J. Changing the Subject: Mary Wroth and Figurations of Gender in Early Modern Europe. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1996. Print.
• Miller, Naomi J. “Mary Wroth, The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania.” A Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing. Ed. Anita Pacheco. Malden: Blackwell, 2002. 150-64. Print.
• Roberts, Josephine. Critical Introduction. The First Part of the Countess of Montgomery’s Urania. By Mary Wroth. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1995. xv-civ. Print.
• Sinfield, Alan. “Power and Ideology: An Outline Theory and Sidney’s Arcadia.” English Literary History 52.2 (1985): 259-77. JSTOR. Web. 20 Dec 2016.
• Sinfield, Alan. Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissident Reading. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992. Print.
• Sİnfield, Alan. Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality: Unfinished Business in Cultural Materialism. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.
• Stone, Lawrence. The Crisis of the Aristocracy 155-1641. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965. Print.
• Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800. New York: Harper and Row, 1977. Print.
• Swift, Carolyn Ruth. “Feminine Identity in Lady Mary Wroth’s Urania.” English Literary Renaissance 14.3 (1984): 328-46. Wiley Online Library. Web. 11 Nov 2016.
• Trill, Suzanne. “Religion and the Construction of Femininity.” Women and Literature in Britain, 1500-1700. Ed. Helen Wilcox. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 30-55. Print.
• Vives, Juan Luis. The Instruction of a Christian Woman: A Sixteenth Century Manual. Chicago:The U of Chicago P, 2000. Print.
• Waller, Gary. “Mary Wroth and the Sidney Family Romance: Gender Construction in Early Modern England.” Reading Mary Wroth: Representing Alternatives in Early Modern England. Ed. Naomi J. Miller and Gary Waller. Knoxville: The U of Tennessee P, 1991. 35-63. Print.
• Wayne, Valerie. “Advice for Women from Mothers and Patriarchs.” Women and Literature in Britain, 1500-1700. Ed. Helen Wilcox. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 56-79. Print.
• Wrightson, Keith. English Society 1580-1680. London: Routledge, 2003. Print.
• Wroth, Mary. The First Part of the Countess of Montgomery’s Urania. Ed. Josephine Roberts. Tempe: Medieval and Renaissance Text Society, 1995. Print. ---. The Second Part of the Countess of Montgomery’s Urania. Ed. Josephine Roberts, Suzanne Gosset and Janel Mueller. Tempe: Renaissance English Text Society and Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1999. Print.