Write or be Written: Early Modern Women Poets and Cultural Constraints ed. by Barbara Smith, Ursula Appelt, and: Dramatic Difference: Gender, Class, and Genre in the Early Modern Closet Drama by Karen Raber (review)

Abstract

MLRy 99.1, 2004 157 early modern specialists [. . .] who began their professional careers in the late 1980s and early 1990s' (pp. xi, xv). The essays within it span a wide range of authors and issues. Some offernew interpretations oftraditionally canonical texts, such as Gordon McMullan's reading of the homosocial economy within The Two Noble Kinsmen in the context of its shared authorship. Others argue for reconsideration of neglected works: in her essay on Mary Sidney, Suzanne Trill identifies a modern 'prioritising of oppositional writing' by women at the expense of genres, such as translations ofthe Psalms, that were more central to early modern culture (p. 197). Still others, such as Michael Pincombe' s discussion of early modern notions of (geographical) Lesbianism and (sexual) lesbianism, explore topics usually marginalized in the literary culture of the period. In fact, however, the essays are not so diffuse as they might at firstappear. Those that engage with female-authored texts often highlight problems of self-expression, and their solution: Susan J. Wiseman shows how female poets found an authorita? tive voice by using the figure of echo (or Echo), while Helen Hackett argues that Pamphilia's withdrawal into privacy in Urania is paradoxically enabling forher (and by extension Mary Wroth) as a writer. Ros Ballaster finds in works by Margaret Cavendish and Katherine Philips idealized, feminocentric constructions of a preCivil War order, and notes the irony that it was the collapse of that same patriarchal order that enabled their own writing. Contributors repeatedly explore how power relations affect conceptions of the self: James Knowles relates Marlowe's theatrical play upon notions of secrecy and publicity to post-Armada surveillance and paranoia; Amanda Piesse attributes contrasting notions of selfhood in The Comedy of Errors and Pericles to divergent Elizabethan and Jacobean strategies of monarchical selfpresentation . Mark Thornton Burnett links early Jacobean political anxieties?the unification of the kingdoms, the monarch's relation to his predecessors on the Eng? lish and Scottish thrones?and Marston's The Dutch Courtesan, with its imagery of bodily collapse and its contrasting fantasies of femininity. A final unifying theme is the contributors' engagement with the criticism of the previous decade. Trill's essay is mentioned above; Sasha Roberts accepts the commonplace of early modern women as associated with the private sphere, but shows how privacy could often be enabling; Kate Chedgzoy argues, in her discussion of early modern 'white women's stake in the construction of racially and sexually marked identities', that criticism has tended to focus on blackness and difference (p. 111). Throughout the book, this engagement tends to be with methodology and conclusions , rather than underlying premisses. At times the younger scholars are almost blase' about theory, notes Ann Thompson in her Afterword (p. 254); in her own Epilogue, Rose disquietingly attributes changing notions of heroism to 'the usual suspects' of socio-economic change (p. 114). It is to be hoped that the theoretical revolution which has inspired three such diverse and intelligent books will continue to interrogate itself rather than solidifying into orthodoxy. University College London Tom Rutter Write or be Written: Early Modern Women Poets and Cultural Constraints. Ed. by Barbara Smith and Ursula Appelt. Aldershot, Burlington, VT, and Singapore: Ashgate. 2001. xxiii + 28ipp. ?40. ISBN 1-84014-288-x. Dramatic Difference: Gender, Class, and Genre in theEarly Modern Closet Drama. By KarenRaber. Cranbury, NJ: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses. 2001. 338 pp. ?38. ISBN 0-87413-757-8. Write or be Written is a satisfying collection of essays, organized around addressing 'the meaning of poetry in the lives of Early Modern women and the importance of 158 Reviews writing as an act of cultural engagement and commentary'. It is divided into four sections, each essay complementing the others and reinforcing the impact of the work as a whole. The collection opens with Pamela Hammons's concise historical and textual overview of the writing of Katherine Austen, showing her awareness of her role as widow and prophetess, in each case allowing her to be one step removed from the ostensible sources of her power as a writer. This essay will encourage a re-examination of Austen's work within this context. Margaret...