FROM ICONOCLASTS TO GENTLE PERSUADERS: PLAIN DRESS, VERBAL DISSENT AND NARRATIVE VOICE IN SOME EARLY MODERN QUAKER WOMEN'S WRITING

Abstract

Early modern Quaker women writers reflected, and to some extent aided, the development of the Religious Society of Friends from confrontational, persecuted iconoclasts to an organized group that began to enjoy a measure of tolerance and respect. A more conciliatory approach succeeds to the aggressive proselytizing of Esther Biddle, Dorothy Waugh, Katharine Evans and Sarah Cheevers. The women's meetings organized by Margaret Fell encouraged the composition of intimate spiritual autobiographies, in which survivors of the earliest days recall former, more extreme, attitudes. Some points, however, admit no compromise: adopting plain dress could cause distress, humiliation and misunderstandings when apparel was a mark of status in a hierarchical society; addressing all individuals, regardless of rank, with the familiar “thee” and “thou” instead of the more respectful “you” could have serious consequences. Mary Penington, Barbara Blaugdone and Elizabeth Webb recall how painful it was to conform to these demands. Their intimate narrative voice connects with the eighteenth-century taste for fictions whose readers are expected to empathize with the sufferings of virtuous heroines, rejoice in their achievements and understand their innermost desires. Their insistence that women have independent minds, and that all are equal before God, brings them close to Samuel Richardson's Pamela.