Desiring Women Writing: English Renaissance Examples by Jonathan Goldberg Aemilia Lanyer: Gender, Genre and the Canon by Marshall Grossman Writing, Gender and State in Early Modern England: Identity Formation and the Female Subject by Megan Matchinske (review)

Abstract

MLR,96.3,200 I 79I reader isnoteven told howmany books areincluded; the STC numbers donothelp becauseall theunillustrated booksare skipped. Although bothwoodcuts and engravings arecovered, nocomment suggests their relative proportions. Norarewe told howoften images were re-used, orusedonceandnever seenagain. Wemust be grateful, though, that such questions cannowbeasked bystudents oftheGuide. Because work ofthis intensive andsystematic nature islikely tobeunsurpassed forsometime, itseems useful torecord oneortwosmall issues ofdissent. Ruth Samson Luborsky andElizabeth Morley Ingram follow Hodnett inhisdescription offactotums, which moreorlessequatesthem to stock blocks, rather thanthe definition inGaskell ortheOED,inwhich a factotum provides an empty space which canbefilled byanother cutormore often bytext. Thussometimes they note a 'scroll' ina cutwithout mention ofanytextual content. Inoneortwoinstances text which hasbeenprinted bytype ismisdescribed asxylographic (seefigs 78and II2). The illustrations themselves do not comparewellto Hodnett's. Some discussion ofthe principles ofselection would havebeenuseful. Presumably nothing in Hodnett is repeated here,butthisis difficult to determine. The quality of reproduction inHodnett (theI935edition) ishigh andthe images inviting; most are actualornearactualsize.The Guade rarely seemstoreproduce actualsizeand sometimes enlarges images. Manyarevery murky andcomparatively uninviting. It would be useful toknow iftheGuide's images aretrue quality andHodnett's are enhanced orcleaned up.Ifthis were thecase,here wewould surely haveevidence ofthedegeneration ofthewoodcut as anillustration technique, butI suspect that such ajudgement could notbemadebasedontheGuide's illustrations alone. UNIVERSITY OFREADING MARGARET M. SMITH Desiring Women Wrzting: English Renaissance Examples. ByJONATHAN GOLDBERG. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. I997. Vii+ 2sspp. £32.50;$45 (paperbound£I I .95;$I 6.95 ). Aemilia Lanyer: Gender, Genre and the Canon. Ed.byMARSHALL GROSSMAN. Lexington: University Press ofKentucky. I998. viii+ 264pp. $36.95. Writing, Gender and State inEar17 Modern England: Identity Formation and the Female Subject. ByMEGAN MATCHINSKE. (Cambridge Studies inRenaissance Literature and Culture) Cambridge, NewYork, andMelbourne: Cambridge University Press. I998. Xi+ 247pp £37 5°;$59 95 Thethree books under review arerepresentative ofa 'second wave'ofcritical work on Renaissance andearly modern female writers oricons.Eachofthese studies moves away from more traditional approaches, which include theconstruction ofa female canon andpositing the oppositional ornegotiating voice ofthe female writer working within cultural constraints. Oneusestheterm 'icon'advisedly since, asin Barbara Kiefer Lewalski's earlier study Writing Women inXacobean England, notallthe women represented were writers. In Writing, Gender and State inEar Modern England, MeganMatchinske has,for example, a chapter onidentity formation incounterReformation England in whichthefocusis on theCatholic martyr Margaret Clitherow. AsMatchinske concedes, thewoman whowaspressed todeath inI586 left notextual evidence orwritten documentation behind. Forhernarrative weare dependent onthemanuscript biography compiled byoneofherconfessors, Father JohnMush,from which Matchinske attempts tocreate Clitherow's voiceanew. Thereare,ofcourse, problems here. Matchinske isright toargue that suppressed voices ofearly modern women should notbedisregarded, butatthesametime it Reviews 792 mayhavetobe conceded thatitis impossible torecover the'voice'whenour experience ofClitherow ismediated through Mush andMatchinske's reconstruction ofClitherow's resistance toauthority. Wrzting, Gender andState, initsconcern with theinfluences ofboththedomestic andthestate onearly modern female identity, oXers aninteresting refinement of boththecultural materialist and newhistoricist projects. In hertreatment of millennial writing, forexample, Matchinske employs Foucault's notions ofstate authority as totalizing andindividualizing in so faras preachers required their audiences tolookinward for direction atthesametime as they weredemanding uniformity in church doctrine. Yet,as Matchinske argues with reference tothe prophetess Eleanor Davies, such anapproach neglects the gender-specific constructions ofapocalyptic subjectivity. Matchinske ishistorically specific inher analyses of power andresistance, whether seeninAnne Askewe's Protestant opposition tothe reinstatement of Catholicdoctrine or Clitherow's recusancy. Her accountof EsterSowernam's riposte to JosephSwetnam's misogynist polemicand, in particular, Sowernam's argument for thelegitimacy ofpre-marriage contracts, is well contextualized with reference toMeasureforMeasure andincidentally sheds light onthe legal premises ofthat play. However, itcould beargued that the fundamental question ofSowernam's identity isneglected. Matchinske treats only ina note Linda Woodbridge's hypothesis, to whichSimonShepherd in hisedition givessome credence, thatthepamphlet wasmale-authored andimplies thatthesignificant point isthefemale stance which theanonymous author hastaken. Butifthere is somerhetorical playfulness here,itdemands a morecautious interpretation of female identity formation andsomeconsideration ofwhether thearguments were propounded under a realorassumed identity. The fullacceptance ofAemilia Lanyer in thecanonofEnglish literature is remarked uponbyJonathan Goldberg inDesiring Women Writing: Lanyer's 'The Description ofCooke-ham' appears initsentirety inthesixth edition ofEhe Aorton Anthology ofEnglish Literature. The poem'sinclusion wouldseemto be noncontentious , as students cannolonger be expected tostudy the'country house' poemwithout detailed reference toit.Marshall Grossman's collection ofessays on Lanyer, despite thefocus oncanonicity, tends nottofocus markedly onthepoem, perhaps becauseit...