Lanyer, Cavendish, and Hutchinson

This seminar will address the major works of Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645), Margaret Cavendish (1623-73), and Lucy Hutchinson (1620-81). There are many differences between the three writers: one was a royalist, one a republican and one something in between; one was largely indifferent to religion and the other two were devoted Protestants; two were active in print, one only in manuscript; two were skilled linguists, and one only read English (or so she claimed). Yet they also had a surprising amount in common: all three were actively involved in the central political conflicts of their time and suffered losses, imprisonment, harassment, and/or exile because of their political views; two (Cavendish and Hutchinson) wrote accounts and defenses of (their positions in) the English civil wars (and contributed to political thought and historiography more broadly); two (also Cavendish and Hutchinson) were actively engaged with and contributed to debates in natural philosophy; and all three were astonishingly original, and creative writers of literary, philosophical and polemical texts. Students will discuss many aspects of these three writers’ work, including the books they read as well as those they wrote; the genres to which they were committed (and in which they innovated); the household, local, national and international contexts in which they worked and in which their work was received; and their interlocutors and critics. While the three authors will be the explicit focus of the class, we will also discuss the idea of “the woman writer” - one which deserves our skepticism.