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Sharpening Her Pen: Strategies of Rhetorical Violence by Early Modern English Women Writers.
by Sidney L. Sondergard
Sidney Sondergard argues that early modern female authors skillfully engage or obviously omit tropes of violence to influence their audiences by stressing or avoiding the rhetoric of violence so common in the work of their male contemporaries. Sondergard's text, Sharpening her Pen, investigates the letters, tracts, plays, and unpublished works of well-known women such as Queen Elizabeth I, alongside more obscure writers such as Lady Anne Southwell. Sondergard proposes that this diverse and discrete selection of women's texts illustrates awareness of the rhetoric of violence and how "their exercise of rhetorical violence is more often designed to resist or deflect anger, than it is to feed or to channel it" (19).
Each of the six chapters, arranged loosely in chronological order, is devoted to an individual author's use of rhetorical violence in her own work. Sondergard draws on numerous theorists and writers in formulating his methodology; the introduction explores the rhetoric of violence noted by Teresa de Lauretis, Michel Foucault, and Anthony Kubiak, among many.He includes a longer quote from Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) as a basis for his argument, illustrating the use of violence to provoke "corrective action" or invoke participation and "personal investment" in readership (17).
Chapter 1 explores Anne Askew's self-representation in Examinations (1546-47) as a competent biblical scholar and speaker by astutely avoiding the topic of violence, which is associated with her questioners. Askew's polemicist and publicist, John Bale, compiles her Examinations in an effort to transform her into a tortured protestant martyr. However, she wastes almost no ink on recording her torture. Although physically broken on the rack, Askew is neither rhetorically nor spiritually beaten. Rather, she recounts with great pride her success in debating with and silencing her examiners. By refusing to portray herself as a victim, Askew foils her examiners and deflates their power of violence.
Unlike Askew, Queen Elizabeth deftly uses rhetorical violence and passivity to express the uncertainty of her time in the Tower, to warn her cousin James against rash behavior, and to present herself as a queen threatened by her cousin Mary Queen of Scots. Chapter 2 explores how Elizabeth represents herself as victimized by Mary. Unable to save both their lives, Elizabeth claims that she has no choice but to make the hard decision to take Mary's to save her own. Sondergard notes how, early in Mary's exile, Elizabeth refused to be threatened by her cousin's rhetorical violence. Elizabeth might suffer as a queen, but lashes back as the' king of England.
Anne Dowriche's didactic French Histoire (1589), explored in chapter 3, allegorically serves to warn England that the brutality of sectarian violence suffered in France could easily be re-created there. Sondergard argues that Dowriche creates an acrostic poem made from her brother's name in order to foster an intimate familial forum, which begs decoding by the astute reader. By gendering her work as feminine; Dowriche justifies her foray into public discourse while counterpointing feminine compassion with masculine violence. The reader who seeks compassion should empathize with the victims of masculine violence. Dowriche frames her narrative in violence, not just to encourage abhorrence in her readers, but as a strategy to draw their interest in the first place.
Amelia Lanyer also stresses the importance of compassion and nurture, but in chapter 4, Sondergard argues that she recodes them as feminine and Christlike. Violence against Christ therefore becomes equated with violence against women. Moreover, Christ's body becomes humanity's redemptive text, and Lanyer herself writes the book of Christ's passion. Lanyer, and all women, have the power to undo the masculine violence done to Christ through their loving and maternal acts and prayers Violence is masculine and essentially weak compared to female healing and community, which are aligned with Christ and the eternal.
Chapter 5 explores how masculine violence in Lady Mary Wroth's The Countess if Montgomeries Urania (1621) is threatened by feminine compassion and justified fury. Although angry women are represented as unnatural and demonic, they alter regular power dynamics to exert violent power over men. Likewise, Sondergard argues that the seeming exploitation of female victimization within Urania represents Wroth's rhetorical manipulation of the male gaze. Wroth's angry and suffering women encourage empathy, move her audience to rethink the use of violence as power, and ultimately leave her, the author, in control.
Lady Anne Southwell's Meditations (1588-1636), explored in chapter 6, acknowledge violence as a persuasive tool, and she excuses the violence in her text as an emotional purgative and a means of cutting to the chase. Human violence, however, as embodied in revenge, is self-destructive. Unlike God, whose perfection allows for divine and just retribution, human nature is flawed, and our acts of violence against others end up hurting us.Although Southwell laments the use of violence, she readily picks up the quill and slices through her (female) readership's complacency, commanding them to fear God and infidelity and to acknowledge the reality of their situations. However, like Lanyer, Southwell also recuperates Eve as Adam's equal and as his Platonic other half.
Though one of the strengths of Sharpening Her Pen is its refusal to draw differing strings together, it is also its most obvious weakness. From the beginning of his text, Sondergard maintains that he is not trying to homogenize or overly unify the goals of early modern women writers. Nor is he trying to present this particular grouping of women as somehow representing a distinct voice, using violence where other women writers are not. However, without an attempt to unify the subject matter as representing a growing literary movement or distinct feminine writing, Sharpening Her Pen reads like a collected series of articles, rather than a developed argument. This fragmented feeling is accentuated by the lack of a conclusion revisiting or further challenging his ideas on rhetorical violence. Stylistically, however, the text is well constructed; the notes on the introduction and chapters are an excellent and comprehensive extension of the text, the bibliography is useful, and the index is easy to use.
Sharpening Her Pen provides an intriguing view of how disparate women writers claim authorial power and influence their audiences through negotiating the rhetoric of violence. It provides a broad, interesting, and easy to read survey for those becoming interested in early modern women's writing.
Each of the six chapters, arranged loosely in chronological order, is devoted to an individual author's use of rhetorical violence in her own work. Sondergard draws on numerous theorists and writers in formulating his methodology; the introduction explores the rhetoric of violence noted by Teresa de Lauretis, Michel Foucault, and Anthony Kubiak, among many.He includes a longer quote from Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) as a basis for his argument, illustrating the use of violence to provoke "corrective action" or invoke participation and "personal investment" in readership (17).
Chapter 1 explores Anne Askew's self-representation in Examinations (1546-47) as a competent biblical scholar and speaker by astutely avoiding the topic of violence, which is associated with her questioners. Askew's polemicist and publicist, John Bale, compiles her Examinations in an effort to transform her into a tortured protestant martyr. However, she wastes almost no ink on recording her torture. Although physically broken on the rack, Askew is neither rhetorically nor spiritually beaten. Rather, she recounts with great pride her success in debating with and silencing her examiners. By refusing to portray herself as a victim, Askew foils her examiners and deflates their power of violence.
Unlike Askew, Queen Elizabeth deftly uses rhetorical violence and passivity to express the uncertainty of her time in the Tower, to warn her cousin James against rash behavior, and to present herself as a queen threatened by her cousin Mary Queen of Scots. Chapter 2 explores how Elizabeth represents herself as victimized by Mary. Unable to save both their lives, Elizabeth claims that she has no choice but to make the hard decision to take Mary's to save her own. Sondergard notes how, early in Mary's exile, Elizabeth refused to be threatened by her cousin's rhetorical violence. Elizabeth might suffer as a queen, but lashes back as the' king of England.
Anne Dowriche's didactic French Histoire (1589), explored in chapter 3, allegorically serves to warn England that the brutality of sectarian violence suffered in France could easily be re-created there. Sondergard argues that Dowriche creates an acrostic poem made from her brother's name in order to foster an intimate familial forum, which begs decoding by the astute reader. By gendering her work as feminine; Dowriche justifies her foray into public discourse while counterpointing feminine compassion with masculine violence. The reader who seeks compassion should empathize with the victims of masculine violence. Dowriche frames her narrative in violence, not just to encourage abhorrence in her readers, but as a strategy to draw their interest in the first place.
Amelia Lanyer also stresses the importance of compassion and nurture, but in chapter 4, Sondergard argues that she recodes them as feminine and Christlike. Violence against Christ therefore becomes equated with violence against women. Moreover, Christ's body becomes humanity's redemptive text, and Lanyer herself writes the book of Christ's passion. Lanyer, and all women, have the power to undo the masculine violence done to Christ through their loving and maternal acts and prayers Violence is masculine and essentially weak compared to female healing and community, which are aligned with Christ and the eternal.
Chapter 5 explores how masculine violence in Lady Mary Wroth's The Countess if Montgomeries Urania (1621) is threatened by feminine compassion and justified fury. Although angry women are represented as unnatural and demonic, they alter regular power dynamics to exert violent power over men. Likewise, Sondergard argues that the seeming exploitation of female victimization within Urania represents Wroth's rhetorical manipulation of the male gaze. Wroth's angry and suffering women encourage empathy, move her audience to rethink the use of violence as power, and ultimately leave her, the author, in control.
Lady Anne Southwell's Meditations (1588-1636), explored in chapter 6, acknowledge violence as a persuasive tool, and she excuses the violence in her text as an emotional purgative and a means of cutting to the chase. Human violence, however, as embodied in revenge, is self-destructive. Unlike God, whose perfection allows for divine and just retribution, human nature is flawed, and our acts of violence against others end up hurting us.Although Southwell laments the use of violence, she readily picks up the quill and slices through her (female) readership's complacency, commanding them to fear God and infidelity and to acknowledge the reality of their situations. However, like Lanyer, Southwell also recuperates Eve as Adam's equal and as his Platonic other half.
Though one of the strengths of Sharpening Her Pen is its refusal to draw differing strings together, it is also its most obvious weakness. From the beginning of his text, Sondergard maintains that he is not trying to homogenize or overly unify the goals of early modern women writers. Nor is he trying to present this particular grouping of women as somehow representing a distinct voice, using violence where other women writers are not. However, without an attempt to unify the subject matter as representing a growing literary movement or distinct feminine writing, Sharpening Her Pen reads like a collected series of articles, rather than a developed argument. This fragmented feeling is accentuated by the lack of a conclusion revisiting or further challenging his ideas on rhetorical violence. Stylistically, however, the text is well constructed; the notes on the introduction and chapters are an excellent and comprehensive extension of the text, the bibliography is useful, and the index is easy to use.
Sharpening Her Pen provides an intriguing view of how disparate women writers claim authorial power and influence their audiences through negotiating the rhetoric of violence. It provides a broad, interesting, and easy to read survey for those becoming interested in early modern women's writing.
Kirsten C. Uszkalo, University of Alberta, Sixth Century Journal XXXV/2(2004) 612-613<Top>
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