:Lost Property: The Woman Writer and English Literary History, 1380-1589

Abstract

The English literary canon is haunted by figure of lost woman writer. She has, of course, been a powerful stimulus for 20th-century rediscovery of works written by women. But as Jennifer Summit argues, the lost woman also served as an evocative symbol during very formation of an English literary tradition from 14th through 16th centuries. Examining history of representations of women writers from Margery Kempe and Christine de Pizan to Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, Summit shows how woman writer came to embody alienation from tradition. Chaucer, for instance, used figure of woman writer to dramatize problems of writing outside dominant literary culture, while reformation writer John Bale cast women writers as proto-Protestant icons of opposition to Catholic church. Bringing together original archival research with new readings of key literary texts, Summit provides a revisionary account of woman writers' role in English literary history.