Carol Barash – författare

This is the first study to reconstruct the political origins of English women's poetry between the execution of Charles I and the death of Queen Anne. Carol Barash's book shows that, between Katherine Philips (1632-64) and Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661-1720), an English women's poetic tradition developed as part of the larger political shifts in these years, and particularly in women writers' fascination with the figure of the female monarch. Writers discussed include Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips, Anne Killigrew, Jane Barker, and Anne Finch.Based on extensive archival research in England and the United States, English Women's Poetry, 1649-1714 argues that ideas about women's voices and women's communities were crucial to the shaping of an English national literature after the civil wars. Women enter print culture - as poets and as women - by situating their writing in defence of embattled monarchy. Women poets are especially fascinated with the figure of the female monarch (both real and mythic). Their sense of poetic legitimacy derives from the communities they generate around figures of female authority, particularly James II's second wife, Mary of Modena, and later Queen Anne.

This is the first study to reconstruct the political origins of English women's poetry between the execution of Charles I and the death of Queen Anne. Carol Barash's book shows that, between Katherine Philips (1632-1664) and Anne finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661-1720), and English women's poetic tradition developed as part of the larger political shifts in these years and particularly in women's fascination with the figure of the female monarch. Writers discussed include Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips, Anne Killigrew, Jane Barker, and Anne Finch.

Many would find it difficult to name a woman writer in England before Jane Austen, even though women were writing as early as the time of Chaucer. It was during the seventeenth century, however, that women writers ceased to be viewed as odd or remarkable and became accepted as regular and often respected members of the literary world. The enormous commercial and artistic success of Aphra Behn's plays on the London stage of the 1670s and '80s marked the end of the time where only men were literary luminaries. Major Women Writers of Seventeenth-Century England brings together in one volume a rich assortment of writing by the women Behn influenced, as well as those who preceded her. Collected are works by Aphra Behn, Elizabeth Cary, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Finch, Aemelia Lanyer, Katherine Philips, Ester Sowernam, Rachel Speght, and Mary Wroth. The texts included are newly edited and rely on the best manuscripts and editions of the time. They are accompanied by clear introductions, helpful explanatory notes, and a range of illustrations from the period. Major Women Writers not only brings together the most significant women writers but also clearly shows the connections that exist between those who wrote without recognition in the earlier portions of this period and those who went on to celebrity status and sometimes financial success.