Lay by Your Needles Ladies, Take the Pen

Throughout the literature of the Renaissance there is a continuing debate about women's relationship to both the needle and the pen. There is a wide-held assumption that women only began to write in the nineteenth century. As more research is undertaken in this area, a plethora of texts isslowly being revealed, demonstrating early modern women's resistance to being written out of literary production.This anthology contains long extracts from fifty early modern texts, including...
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Throughout the literature of the Renaissance there is a continuing debate about women's relationship to both the needle and the pen. There is a wide-held assumption that women only began to write in the nineteenth century. As more research is undertaken in this area, a plethora of texts isslowly being revealed, demonstrating early modern women's resistance to being written out of literary production.This anthology contains long extracts from fifty early modern texts, including witchcraft pamphlets, letters and other manuscript material, prophetic texts, practical books and petitions, as well as the more widely recognised genres of prose fiction and autobiography. The women writers themselvesrepresent a range of different social, religious and political positions. Texts by male writers are also included to promote "a gendered poetics that rereads men's texts in the weave of women"s". The result is a comprehensive introduction to women's writing in the Renaissance that encourages theexplora