Description
Book SynopsisMediatrix examines the roles women played as patrons, dedicatees, and readers, as well writers, in the English Renaissance, and the relationship between these literary activities and religious and political activism.
Trade ReviewThis is in most ways an excellent, indispensable book for the political moment through which we are living. * Neal Ascherson, The Political Quarterly *
Julie Crawford's book will appeal to any scholar interested in the variety of ways women (not only women writers) were intricately involved in early modern literary culture ... an important new perspective on the central role played by women not only in literary, political and intellectual culture but in the growth and expression of radical Protestantism in England. * Johanna Harris, The Times Literary Supplement *
an insightful and thought-provoking contribution to ongoing developments in our understanding of the significant cultural and political roles played by early modern women. It will be of special interest to scholars working on the four women who are focal to the chapters, but it also has much to offer to general discussion of how aristocratic women operated in early modern England. * Helen Hackett, Review of English Studies *
Donne's provocative description of Bedford as a "mediatrix" inspires the book's use of the term to capture the ways in which its subjects wielded political power and influence through textual exchanges within networks of family and literary and courtly associates. * Tracey Miller-Tomlinson, SHARP News *
With its wide-ranging sense of women's agentive roles in this faction, Crawford's monograph significantly extends scholarship on women's relationship to political, social and textual cultures in the early modern period. * Sarah C.E. Ross, English Historical Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: Female Constancy and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia 2: How Margaret Hoby Read Her De Mornay 3: 'His Factor for our loves': The Countess of Bedford and John Donne 4: Wroth's Cabinets Epilogue Bibliography Index
