women writers feminism early modern textile web weaving arachne early modern women writers renaissance Queen Elizabeth I Mary Queen of Scots Esther Inglis Isabella Whitney Mary Sidney Herbert Aemilia Lanyer Mary Wroth Margaret Cavendish
Abstract:
In my scholarship, I address how, during the late 16th and mid-17th centuries, works of early modern English literature by women used Arachne imagery to articulate both competition and cohesion. These women used web and weaving descriptions that intersected with their actual weaving and needlework, which often incorporated text. Authors such as Queen Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Esther Inglis, Isabella Whitney, Mary Sidney Herbert, Mary Wroth, Margaret Cavendish, and numerous others participated in this intersection of textual and textile production. I intend to clarify how women’s domestic work contributed to authorial identity and explore how using Arachne as a figure of self-expression and authorship functions in women’s weaving, needlework, and book production. I hope to discover how the shared language of the domestic space of weaving becomes an intertextual shared language among female authors in which women can acknowledge the roles other women play as contributors and competitors in literature.
