Description
Book SynopsisThe essays in this volume analyze strategies adopted by contemporary novelists, playwrights, screenwriters, and biographers interested in bringing the stories of early modern women to modern audiences. It also pays attention to the historical women creators themselves, who, be they saints or midwives, visual artists or poets and playwrights, stand out for their roles as active practitioners of their own arts and for their accomplishments as creators. Whether they delivered infants or governed as monarchs, or produced embroideries, letters, paintings or poems, their visions, the authors argue, have endured across the centuries. As the title of the volume suggests, the essays gathered here participate in a wider conversation about the relation between biography, historical fiction, and the growing field of biofiction (that is, contemporary fictionalizations of historical figures), and explore the complicated interconnections between celebrating early modern women and perpetuating popular stereotypes about them.
Trade ReviewCo-Honorable Mention for the 2022 Collaborative Project Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender (SSEMWG)
"This innovative and groundbreaking volume addresses a gap in scholarship as it investigates the diverse approaches and strategies adopted by contemporary novelists, playwrights and screenwriters who are bringing women of the early-modern era to life for the public. Although early modern women increasingly appear in popular culture, such depictions have until now received little scholarly attention. Overall, this collection makes a significant contribution towards the growing field of biofiction, and will begin important conversations concerning how such fictionalizations can offer insight into both the early modern period and contemporary culture and its concerns."
- Professor Lisa Walters, University of Queensland, Australia
"The richly various essays in this collection, ranging over topics, including literature, embroidery, music and art, offer an extraordinary range of insights into the lived experience of women’s lives in the early modern period. But they do more than that: they also show how these women’s lives and works have informed and interacted with our own and continue to matter today."
- Professor Lisa Hopkins, Head of Research Degrees in the Social and Economic Research Institute at Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgments
1. James Fitzmaurice, Naomi J. Miller, and Sara Jayne Steen: "Introduction: Biography, Biofiction, and Gender in the Modern Age"
Section I: Fictionalizing Biography
2. Bárbara Mujica: "
Sister Teresa: Fictionalizing a Saint" [Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582); practitioner: nun; author]
3. Catherine Padmore: "Portrait of an Unknown Woman: Fictional Representations of Levina Teerlinc, Tudor Paintrix" [Levina Teerlinc (1510/20–1576); visual artist]
4. Frima Fox Hofrichter: "An Interview with Dominic Smith, Author of
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos: Capturing the Seventeenth Century" [Judith Leyster (1609–1660) and Sara van Baalbergen (fl. 1631–1634); visual artists]
5. Susanne Woods: "Lanyer: The Dark Lady and the Shades of Fiction" [Aemilia Lanyer (1569–1645); author]
6. Marina Leslie: "Archival Bodies, Novel Interpretations, and the Burden of Margaret Cavendish" [Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673); author]
Section II: Materializing Authorship
7. Susan Frye: "Bess of Hardwick: Materializing Autobiography" [Elizabeth Talbot (1527?–1608); creator of textiles]
8. Sarah Gristwood: "The Queen as Artist: Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stuart" [Mary Queen of Scots (1542–1587) and Elizabeth I (1533–1603); practitioners: queens; embroiderer; authors]
9. Marion Wynne-Davies: "'Very Secret Kept': Facts and Re-Creation in Margaret Hannay’s Biographies of Mary Sidney Herbert and Mary Wroth" [Mary Sidney Herbert (1561–1621) and Mary Wroth (1586–1652); authors]
10. Naomi J. Miller: "Imagining Shakespeare’s Sisters: Fictionalizing Mary Sidney Herbert and Mary Sidney Wroth" [Mary Sidney Herbert (1561–1621) and Mary Wroth (1586–1652); authors]
11. Linda Phyllis Austern: "Anne Boleyn, Musician: A Romance Across Centuries and Media"[Anne Boleyn (c. 1500–1536); musician]
Section III: Performing Gender
12. Sheila T. Cavanagh: "Reclaiming Her Time: Artemisia Gentileschi Speaks to the Twenty-First Century" [Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1656); visual artist]
13. Hailey Bachrach: "Beyond the Record:
Emilia and Feminist Historical Recovery" [Aemilia Lanyer (1569–1645); author]
14. James Fitzmaurice: "Writing, Acting, and the Notion of Truth in Biofiction About Early Modern Women Authors" [Aphra Behn (1640–1689) and Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673); authors]
15. Emilie L. Bergmann: "Jesusa Rodríguez’s Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Reflections on an Opaque Body"[Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695); practitioner: nun; author]
Section IV: Authoring Identity
16. Margaret F. Rosenthal: "From Hollywood Film to Musical Theater: Veronica Franco in American Popular Culture" [Veronica Franco (1546–1591); author]
17. Julia Dabbs: "The Role of Art in Recent Biofiction on Sofonisba Anguissola" [Sofonisba Anguissola (1532–1625); visual artist]
18. Stephanie Russo: "'I Am Artemisia': Art and Trauma in Joy McCullough's
Blood Water Paint" [Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1656); visual artist]
19. Sara Jayne Steen: "The Lady Arbella Stuart, a 'Rare
Phoenix': Her Re-Creation in Biography and Biofiction" [Arbella Stuart (1575–1615); letter writer]
20. Sara Read: "
The Gossips' Choice: Extending the Possibilities for Biofiction with Creative Uses of Sources" [Jane Sharp (active 1671) and Sarah Stone (active 1701–1737); practitioners: midwives]
21. Michael Lackey: Afterword
Index
