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Shakespeare's Sisters
This remarkable work about women writers in the English Renaissance explodes our notion of the Shakespearean period by drawing us into the lives of four women who were committed to their craft long before there was any possibility of “a room of one’s own.”
In an innovative and engaging narrative of everyday life in Shakespeare’s England, Ramie Targoff carries us from the sumptuous coronation of Queen Elizabeth in the mid-16th century into the private lives of four women writers working at a time when women were legally the property of men. Some readers may have heard of Mary Sidney, accomplished poet and sister of the famous Sir Philip Sidney, but few will have heard of Amelia Lanyer, the first woman in the 17th century to publish a book of original poetry, which offered a feminist take on the crucifixion, or Elizabeth Cary, who published the first original play by a woman, about the plight of the Jewish princess Mariam. Then there was Anne Clifford, a lifelong diarist, who fought for decades against a patriarchy that tried to rob her of her land in one of England’s most infamous inheritance battles. These women had husbands and children to care for and little support for their art, yet against all odds they defined themselves as writers, finding rooms of their own where doors had been shut for centuries. Targoff flings them open to uncover the treasures left by these extraordinary women; in the process, she helps us see the Renaissance in a fresh light, creating a richer understanding of history and offering a much-needed female perspective on life in Shakespeare’s day.
In an innovative and engaging narrative of everyday life in Shakespeare’s England, Ramie Targoff carries us from the sumptuous coronation of Queen Elizabeth in the mid-16th century into the private lives of four women writers working at a time when women were legally the property of men. Some readers may have heard of Mary Sidney, accomplished poet and sister of the famous Sir Philip Sidney, but few will have heard of Amelia Lanyer, the first woman in the 17th century to publish a book of original poetry, which offered a feminist take on the crucifixion, or Elizabeth Cary, who published the first original play by a woman, about the plight of the Jewish princess Mariam. Then there was Anne Clifford, a lifelong diarist, who fought for decades against a patriarchy that tried to rob her of her land in one of England’s most infamous inheritance battles. These women had husbands and children to care for and little support for their art, yet against all odds they defined themselves as writers, finding rooms of their own where doors had been shut for centuries. Targoff flings them open to uncover the treasures left by these extraordinary women; in the process, she helps us see the Renaissance in a fresh light, creating a richer understanding of history and offering a much-needed female perspective on life in Shakespeare’s day.
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First published March 12, 2024
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About the author
Ramie Targoff
11 books69 followersRamie Targoff is professor of English, co-chair of Italian Studies, and the Jehuda Reinharz Director of the Mandel Center for the Humanities at Brandeis University. She holds a B.A. from Yale University and Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of multiple books on Renaissance poetry and religion. Her most recent book, Renaissance Woman, is a biography of Vittoria Colonna, the first woman poet ever published in Italy (in 1538) and Michelangelo's best friend.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 152 reviews
November 11, 2023
I got this book for a review on netgally.
I was instantly interested to read this non fiction when I saw it. Women who wrote and published works when a time it wasn't very accessible for women to be writers? Instantly intruiged. Very informative about different women and their lives and others. It sometimes felt a bit heavy with all the info but that's quite common for me and non fiction. I didn't know about them before so always great to learn something new.
I was instantly interested to read this non fiction when I saw it. Women who wrote and published works when a time it wasn't very accessible for women to be writers? Instantly intruiged. Very informative about different women and their lives and others. It sometimes felt a bit heavy with all the info but that's quite common for me and non fiction. I didn't know about them before so always great to learn something new.
March 17, 2024
Shakespeare’s Sisters by Ramie Targoff is an eye-opening work about women who were writing during the Renaissance in England, during the time of Shakespeare. These women, and their various works, largely went unknown for four centuries before slowly beginning to emerge in the mid 20th century. Now, a considerable amount has been amassed on the works, and lives, of Mary Sidney, Amelia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary, and Anne Clifford. Because women’s lives during the 16th century were so circumscribed by the males surrounding them (father, husband, brother, son), this book also necessarily brings in much detail of their lives, relationships, and places in society, including standing with the Queen or King.
These women were lucky in having parents who wanted educated daughters which was not the norm even among the wealthy. Social proficiency was often considered more important. Mary Sidney, the sister of well known poet Philip Sidney, was a poet in her own right and one who became known in her own time. Amelia Lanyer was the first English woman to publish a book of original poetry. Elizabeth Cary was the first English woman to publish an original play. Anne Clifford kept a detailed diary for her entire life. A great deal of the diary still exists and was used to recreate the legal battle she fought most of her adult life to regain property that should have become hers after the death of her husband.
Examples of each woman’s work are provided throughout the text.
I recommend this for anyone interested in English literature and history, the Renaissance period in England. There are copious notes and sources provided by the author.
Thanks to Alfred A. Knopf and NetGalley for providing an eARC of this book. This review is my own.
These women were lucky in having parents who wanted educated daughters which was not the norm even among the wealthy. Social proficiency was often considered more important. Mary Sidney, the sister of well known poet Philip Sidney, was a poet in her own right and one who became known in her own time. Amelia Lanyer was the first English woman to publish a book of original poetry. Elizabeth Cary was the first English woman to publish an original play. Anne Clifford kept a detailed diary for her entire life. A great deal of the diary still exists and was used to recreate the legal battle she fought most of her adult life to regain property that should have become hers after the death of her husband.
Examples of each woman’s work are provided throughout the text.
I recommend this for anyone interested in English literature and history, the Renaissance period in England. There are copious notes and sources provided by the author.
Thanks to Alfred A. Knopf and NetGalley for providing an eARC of this book. This review is my own.
August 27, 2024
A well-researched and ultimately engaging group biography, and work of popular history, featuring four English women writers from the Renaissance. I found the first third a bit of a slog—early chapters focus on Mary Sidney, by far the least interesting of the bunch, and I still don’t know why Targoff begins with a chapter on Elizabeth I’s funeral—but happily, it got much more engaging after that, discussing the interesting lives and truly feminist works of some other notable women.
The subjects, in order of appearance:
Mary Sidney: A countess who began her literary career by editing and expanding her dead brother’s works, then branched out into her own loose translations, in verse, of the Psalms. She took the unusual step of actually publishing these—almost more unusual for the nobility than for a woman. Otherwise her life comes across as conventional, though she managed to enjoy some good fun in old age, and I thought Targoff was stretching a bit to relate Sidney’s translations to her life experiences.
Aemilia Lanyer: Anything but conventional, this is the only non-aristocrat of the bunch, a woman from a musical immigrant family who had a colorful life, including being a powerful nobleman’s mistress, getting pregnant with his child and (standard procedure for the time) being married off to one of his musicians as a result. She later possibly dabbled in high-end prostitution (at least according to her astrologer, whose advances she rebuffed), taught girls’ education, and wound up publishing poems, including a Biblical retelling from the perspective of Pontius Pilate’s wife, making the case for women’s liberation on the grounds that crucifying Jesus was way worse than eating an apple so really men have no moral leg to stand on in claiming authority over women. Talk about radical! Her book was published, with about a dozen dedications to educated and powerful women from whom she hoped for patronage (apparently in vain), but seemingly got no attention. She was rediscovered in the 1970s under the mistaken impression that she was Shakespeare’s mistress, on since-debunked evidence.
Elizabeth Cary: This is another great story: a girl born into wealth, who seems to have been a child prodigy and received a well-rounded education that even involved successfully intervening on behalf of the accused at a witchcraft trial, at the age of 10. She was still married off for money to a husband she worked hard to please, including producing a whole passel of kids, but later separated from him upon converting to Catholicism. This led to court cases and extended fights over money, the kids, and their religion, including smuggling two of them out of a castle in the middle of the night. She also wrote feminist Biblical retellings, most notably a play about Herod’s wife Mariam, as well as histories and theological translations. Again her work seems to have passed without note, to be discovered in the 19th century by Catholic scholars interested in her championing of that cause. Four of her daughters, who became nuns in France, took the unusual step of writing her biography, which gives an intimate look into her life.
Anne Clifford: An extremely wealthy duchess, and not a creative writer, but the author of extensive diaries, memoirs, and family histories, resulting in an unusually well-documented life for a non-royal woman of the time. She engaged in a 40-year legal battle to gain ownership of her father’s estates (left to his brother in contravention of a law specific to these lands, requiring them to go to the children—the reason being that women couldn’t inherit titles and her father wanted to keep title and lands together). This is an interesting and dramatic story, as Clifford and her mother both devoted their lives to this cause, including arranging both her marriages to men positioned to assist. She was probably insufferable in real life (imagine someone who has a band to play her off every time she leaves an estate), but perhaps that’s the level of self-assurance needed for a woman of the time to defy the king, which she did.
At any rate, an interesting book about forgotten but mostly fascinating figures. Sometimes the book detours into a more general history of the times beyond what’s strictly necessary for context, in ways that should be interesting for those interested in Renaissance British politics and culture. Sometimes I wanted more context, though: there’s a lot about guardianships here, as anyone under 21 needed a legal guardian (at least if they were wealthy or titled?), which in the case of orphaned heirs, the king auctioned off to the highest bidder. And people would bid high, because then you could marry the heir off to your own kid, and keep their property in your family. Anne Clifford’s first wedding was hasty for this reason: both were 19 years old and his father on his deathbed. From the events described in the book though, guardianships don’t seem to be applied consistently, or perhaps I was just surprised to see widowed mothers holding them despite having no legal power vis-à-vis living husbands. To be fair, widows in early England were the only women with independent legal status generally.
At any rate, the prose is just slightly drier than ideal for me, but still very readable. My only other complaint is about the citation style, which makes it hard to find anything (why do some nonfiction publishers do these chapter-by-chapter summaries of sources rather than referencing specific claims by page number? Ugh), but mostly Targoff makes her sources clear in the text. Worth a read for those interested in early women writers.
The subjects, in order of appearance:
Mary Sidney: A countess who began her literary career by editing and expanding her dead brother’s works, then branched out into her own loose translations, in verse, of the Psalms. She took the unusual step of actually publishing these—almost more unusual for the nobility than for a woman. Otherwise her life comes across as conventional, though she managed to enjoy some good fun in old age, and I thought Targoff was stretching a bit to relate Sidney’s translations to her life experiences.
Aemilia Lanyer: Anything but conventional, this is the only non-aristocrat of the bunch, a woman from a musical immigrant family who had a colorful life, including being a powerful nobleman’s mistress, getting pregnant with his child and (standard procedure for the time) being married off to one of his musicians as a result. She later possibly dabbled in high-end prostitution (at least according to her astrologer, whose advances she rebuffed), taught girls’ education, and wound up publishing poems, including a Biblical retelling from the perspective of Pontius Pilate’s wife, making the case for women’s liberation on the grounds that crucifying Jesus was way worse than eating an apple so really men have no moral leg to stand on in claiming authority over women. Talk about radical! Her book was published, with about a dozen dedications to educated and powerful women from whom she hoped for patronage (apparently in vain), but seemingly got no attention. She was rediscovered in the 1970s under the mistaken impression that she was Shakespeare’s mistress, on since-debunked evidence.
Elizabeth Cary: This is another great story: a girl born into wealth, who seems to have been a child prodigy and received a well-rounded education that even involved successfully intervening on behalf of the accused at a witchcraft trial, at the age of 10. She was still married off for money to a husband she worked hard to please, including producing a whole passel of kids, but later separated from him upon converting to Catholicism. This led to court cases and extended fights over money, the kids, and their religion, including smuggling two of them out of a castle in the middle of the night. She also wrote feminist Biblical retellings, most notably a play about Herod’s wife Mariam, as well as histories and theological translations. Again her work seems to have passed without note, to be discovered in the 19th century by Catholic scholars interested in her championing of that cause. Four of her daughters, who became nuns in France, took the unusual step of writing her biography, which gives an intimate look into her life.
Anne Clifford: An extremely wealthy duchess, and not a creative writer, but the author of extensive diaries, memoirs, and family histories, resulting in an unusually well-documented life for a non-royal woman of the time. She engaged in a 40-year legal battle to gain ownership of her father’s estates (left to his brother in contravention of a law specific to these lands, requiring them to go to the children—the reason being that women couldn’t inherit titles and her father wanted to keep title and lands together). This is an interesting and dramatic story, as Clifford and her mother both devoted their lives to this cause, including arranging both her marriages to men positioned to assist. She was probably insufferable in real life (imagine someone who has a band to play her off every time she leaves an estate), but perhaps that’s the level of self-assurance needed for a woman of the time to defy the king, which she did.
At any rate, an interesting book about forgotten but mostly fascinating figures. Sometimes the book detours into a more general history of the times beyond what’s strictly necessary for context, in ways that should be interesting for those interested in Renaissance British politics and culture. Sometimes I wanted more context, though: there’s a lot about guardianships here, as anyone under 21 needed a legal guardian (at least if they were wealthy or titled?), which in the case of orphaned heirs, the king auctioned off to the highest bidder. And people would bid high, because then you could marry the heir off to your own kid, and keep their property in your family. Anne Clifford’s first wedding was hasty for this reason: both were 19 years old and his father on his deathbed. From the events described in the book though, guardianships don’t seem to be applied consistently, or perhaps I was just surprised to see widowed mothers holding them despite having no legal power vis-à-vis living husbands. To be fair, widows in early England were the only women with independent legal status generally.
At any rate, the prose is just slightly drier than ideal for me, but still very readable. My only other complaint is about the citation style, which makes it hard to find anything (why do some nonfiction publishers do these chapter-by-chapter summaries of sources rather than referencing specific claims by page number? Ugh), but mostly Targoff makes her sources clear in the text. Worth a read for those interested in early women writers.
October 4, 2023
I've read a lot about the history of England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and this book was full of new information about one woman I'd heard of and three I had not. I knew who Mary Sidney was, and that generally she was a writer like her brother had been, but that was about it. In addition to filling out the picture of her life and what writing she did, Targoff introduces the reader to three other women you're not likely to have encountered before. In each case, writing was just part of an extremely eventful life in Tudor and Stuart England, and each woman was an active and vital personality.
You won't come away from this book with much idea of what these women's writing was like, but that was not Targoff's purpose. In her epilogue she lets you know what has been published and when, so you can go read more if you want. I guess I should not be surprised that their work was not even known, let alone published, until extremely recently.
The book is very well written, and when I read the acknowledgements and saw that I know the copyeditor, I could see why! I did spot one factual error that might have been corrected in a final careful read: at one point, discussing an event in 1599, Elizabeth is referred to as "the 62 year old queen" but having been born in September 1533 she was 65 or maybe 66.
While perhaps there was a little more extended description of funeral processions of royalty than I needed, the book was also a smooth and quick read. It's hard to know given the overall context of their lives how much each of these women was committed to her craft, but clearly they were proud of and dedicated to the quality of what they did write. Mary Sidney's psalm translations and Elizabeth Cary's dramas sound the most interesting. Aemilia Lanyer's poetry has been misunderstood and mistreated for years because of a couple of outdated and poorly supported assertions that she might have been Shakespeare's 'dark lady' (assuming he even had one). And Anne Clifford was just formidable, no other word for her. I'd like to read more books like this one, please!
You won't come away from this book with much idea of what these women's writing was like, but that was not Targoff's purpose. In her epilogue she lets you know what has been published and when, so you can go read more if you want. I guess I should not be surprised that their work was not even known, let alone published, until extremely recently.
The book is very well written, and when I read the acknowledgements and saw that I know the copyeditor, I could see why! I did spot one factual error that might have been corrected in a final careful read: at one point, discussing an event in 1599, Elizabeth is referred to as "the 62 year old queen" but having been born in September 1533 she was 65 or maybe 66.
While perhaps there was a little more extended description of funeral processions of royalty than I needed, the book was also a smooth and quick read. It's hard to know given the overall context of their lives how much each of these women was committed to her craft, but clearly they were proud of and dedicated to the quality of what they did write. Mary Sidney's psalm translations and Elizabeth Cary's dramas sound the most interesting. Aemilia Lanyer's poetry has been misunderstood and mistreated for years because of a couple of outdated and poorly supported assertions that she might have been Shakespeare's 'dark lady' (assuming he even had one). And Anne Clifford was just formidable, no other word for her. I'd like to read more books like this one, please!
Read
March 11, 2024"Shakespear's Sisters" does not mean Shakespear's actual family, but we could say sisters in spirit, in other words, woman writers roughly of the same period. This engagingly written, at times vivid and image-rich academic work rewarded slow reading. Absolutely solid with primary source grounding and quotations, the book examines the lives and work of four women, and their impact on the evolving scene of English literature.
It's especially interesting to see these various ways the modern novel was beginning to bud. Fiction of course has been around for a long time. Chaucer being a fine example. But the evolution, particularly with respect to the twists and turns of English history--the puritan era--is an absorbing subject in itself.
It's all there: early publicity (coffee houses, broadsides) plays, women writing plays, fictional autobiography, education of women, translating across languages, balancing the inner life of the writer with that of a woman of the times, and her obligations. Targoff's book is well worth having in hardback, so that one can reference its stellar notes.
It's especially interesting to see these various ways the modern novel was beginning to bud. Fiction of course has been around for a long time. Chaucer being a fine example. But the evolution, particularly with respect to the twists and turns of English history--the puritan era--is an absorbing subject in itself.
It's all there: early publicity (coffee houses, broadsides) plays, women writing plays, fictional autobiography, education of women, translating across languages, balancing the inner life of the writer with that of a woman of the times, and her obligations. Targoff's book is well worth having in hardback, so that one can reference its stellar notes.
August 23, 2024
Superb!
January 17, 2024
This work of non-fiction is an absolute gem. It’s a fascinating premise that is superbly written and researched and holds one’s attention. Ramie Targoff lifts the veil on Renaissance England from a woman’s perspective, offering an inspiring, indispensable vision of indomitable (if sometimes unfamiliar) characters. It will undoubtedly appeal to readers beyond the narrow academic clique.
My thanks to Quercus Books and NetGalley for granting this e-ARC.
My thanks to Quercus Books and NetGalley for granting this e-ARC.
February 4, 2025
This is a great companion volume to the reading I've been doing of and on Shakespeare in the last year. It's wild that the four women covered in this nonfiction book have only had their writing made widely available in the last hundred years and some only in the past thirty years. I was familiar with Mary Sidney and Aemelia Lanyer a bit, but I didn't know Elizabeth Cary or Anne Clifford at all. (Fascinating that Anne Clifford is an ancestor of Vita Sackville-West through Anne's first husband.) I learned a lot about each woman individually and her writing, but also about the nature of the time they were living in. Gosh, it was hard to be a woman then! And I don't think one of the women really had a good relationship with her husband, at least in the long-term. (I'm sure there were good marriages back then!) I was especially interested in Elizabeth Cary's conversion to Catholicism in those full-of-upheaval days post-Reformation and in Mary Sidney's close relationship with her brother Philip. Anne was perhaps the most fun to read about because she lived so long and had such an interesting legal battle over her inheritance from her father.
June 12, 2024
Ramie Targoff takes up her pen to challenge Virginia Wolff's conclusions about a complete lack of women writers specifically during Shakespeare's day, and that's what caught on the tumbleweed against the fence of my mind. So much of history is simply what skimpy information has made it down to us. . .this author restores a number of women writers to a place on Shakespeare's shelf. They were always there, we (and Virginia) just hadn't got the word.
It is a gift to all when writers of a particular bent take the time to spell out in an accessible way what they know so well it may be somewhat of a chore - but yet they take the time. In her Shakespeare's Sisters we are reminded that Shakespeare's time - just like ours - was a 3-D event. Things were hopping, papercuts hurt, accidents were deadly, and some people got away with murder, and writing. She pulls out her research and tells us the info we hadn't got in that Shakespeare text in high school - about women writing plays, poetry, property hijacks that could today be litigated and all while keeping house, hearth, husband and the Queen happy. Mostly.
There is deep info in this book, and it meanders when the author's interests wind her in tight curls - but she always comes back to her Lady in Focus, one of the four she has featured. Her endpapers are helpful and scrupulous, my favorite kind.
I'm definitely in for more of her work.
*A sincere thank you to Ramie Targoff, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.* #ShakespearesSisters #NetGalley 52:18
It is a gift to all when writers of a particular bent take the time to spell out in an accessible way what they know so well it may be somewhat of a chore - but yet they take the time. In her Shakespeare's Sisters we are reminded that Shakespeare's time - just like ours - was a 3-D event. Things were hopping, papercuts hurt, accidents were deadly, and some people got away with murder, and writing. She pulls out her research and tells us the info we hadn't got in that Shakespeare text in high school - about women writing plays, poetry, property hijacks that could today be litigated and all while keeping house, hearth, husband and the Queen happy. Mostly.
There is deep info in this book, and it meanders when the author's interests wind her in tight curls - but she always comes back to her Lady in Focus, one of the four she has featured. Her endpapers are helpful and scrupulous, my favorite kind.
I'm definitely in for more of her work.
*A sincere thank you to Ramie Targoff, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.* #ShakespearesSisters #NetGalley 52:18
April 5, 2024
DNF, actually, with less than 70 pages to go. Confusingly organized, Targoff embeds single paragraphs about the actual women's writing in full chapters about their battles over property and whose castles they stayed in. She reduces a period of radical social change to accounts of doweries and acreages.
January 3, 2024
Was it a choice to read this book immediately after taking a semester-long course on an identical topic? Yeah. Do I regret it? No absolutely not, now I know what Aemilia Lanyer's astrologer thought about her.
Shakespeare's Sisters is an incredibly passionate and empathetic biography of four English women authors, Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary, and Anne Clifford. Even though all these women overlap chronologically, they could not be more different in their chosen medium, personal lives, or temperaments. While there are several amazing women authors from the period that Targoff did not touch on, her choices of who to include demonstrate the sheer breadth of content in this field. We start with Sidney's massive collection of Biblical poetry but ultimately end up with Clifford's relentless and calculating legal campaign, with a quick detour into the absolute insanity that is Elizabeth Cary's one-woman campaign to revive Catholicism. There is plenty to enjoy in this book even if you aren't looking for very technical literary analysis of their works.
I really liked the chronological layout of this book, since it emphasized how interconnected these women were, as well as how much they reflect this period in English history. It did make it confusing, however, when we don't see Sidney and Lanyer for large periods of time. Overall, I would recommend to anyone interested in women authors, Renaissance literature, or even those just craving some juicy Early Modern gossip.
4.5 stars rounded up. Thank you Knopf and NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my review!
Shakespeare's Sisters is an incredibly passionate and empathetic biography of four English women authors, Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary, and Anne Clifford. Even though all these women overlap chronologically, they could not be more different in their chosen medium, personal lives, or temperaments. While there are several amazing women authors from the period that Targoff did not touch on, her choices of who to include demonstrate the sheer breadth of content in this field. We start with Sidney's massive collection of Biblical poetry but ultimately end up with Clifford's relentless and calculating legal campaign, with a quick detour into the absolute insanity that is Elizabeth Cary's one-woman campaign to revive Catholicism. There is plenty to enjoy in this book even if you aren't looking for very technical literary analysis of their works.
I really liked the chronological layout of this book, since it emphasized how interconnected these women were, as well as how much they reflect this period in English history. It did make it confusing, however, when we don't see Sidney and Lanyer for large periods of time. Overall, I would recommend to anyone interested in women authors, Renaissance literature, or even those just craving some juicy Early Modern gossip.
4.5 stars rounded up. Thank you Knopf and NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my review!
November 9, 2023
Shakespeare's Sisters by Ramie Targoff is an eye-opening introduction to Renaissance life throught the eyes of intelligent women who lived then. Targoff tells us that probably less than 10% of English women were educated. Each of the women studied learned most of what they knew on their own. They struggled with capricious laws designed to keep them financially dependent on husbands who were much less intelligent than they were. Their writing was often credited to the men in their lives. Most of the women experienced periods of comfortable wealth as well as grinding poverty. Targoff does an excellent job of introducing readers to probabilities where there is no evidence or record to explain events in the women's lives. This is a very readable scholarly work that will entertain and appall.
April 12, 2024
Incredibly interesting and digestible to someone like me who is not well-versed in Renaissance literature. I found the stories and history of these four women welcoming and made me want to seek out their writing or what has survived of their writings. A great look into Renaissance women's history that has otherwise been ignored for some time.
February 28, 2024
Wanted to like this but the writing is just incredibly dull. There's nothing original here either. These women have been written about before by other scholars. Targoff is simply regurgitating their biographies.
April 23, 2025
Well researched look at four unknown and lost-to-the-canon literary women. The limited records of course lays bare how marginal women's lives were, but Targoff compiles a book of hope and shows how these four extraordinary women created and left behind translations, poetry, plays, biographies, and diaries. I found it an engaging read.
April 20, 2025
G E N I J A L N O
❤️Aemilia Lanyer
❤️Mary Sidney
❤️Elizabeth Cary
❤️Anne Clifford
❤️Aemilia Lanyer
❤️Mary Sidney
❤️Elizabeth Cary
❤️Anne Clifford
April 7, 2025
Un roman historique sur des femmes qui ont écrit et publier bien sûr que j’allais le lire! Je ne sais jamais trop quoi dire dans mes critiques sur des romans historiques mise à part bien j’ai appris des trucs, et dans ce cas-ci c’était tellement d’information que j’étais vraiment confuse plus qu’autre chose durant ma lecture. Mais cela ne va quand même pas m’empêché de faire une jolie critique!
C‘est une biographie collective très bien documenté. On sent que l’autrice s’est vraiment bien renseignée sur l’information afin de nous donner la version la plus complète possible. Son style d’écriture se veux captivant malgré les informations condenser dans son texte qui mettent en vedette quatre autrices anglaises de la Renaissance. Le premier tier a été particulièrement fastidieux et c’est ce qui a fait que j’ai eu de la difficulté à embarquer dans le livre par la suite aussi. Ce n’est pas que Mary Sidney ne m’intéressait pas, c’est que je n’ai pas réussi à trouver de l’intérêt dans sa manière de compter son histoire et étant la moins intéressante du lot, elle n’aurait pas dû être la première. Ça m’a découragé de ma lecture par la suite. Je n’ai pas non plus compris pourquoi le roman s’ouvre sur les funérailles de Elizabeth 1er. Certes c’est un évènement important, surtout pour l’époque, mais c’était long et ajoutait une lourdeur non nécessaire, parce qu’en soit, ça n’avait pas rapport avec les informations que l’autrice voulait véhiculer. Mise à part un contexte historique certes important, ça n’apportait rien. Elle aurait pu faire un contexte historique moins loin ou plus sommaire. Heureusement, le livre s’est amélioré par la suite en abordant des personnalités réellement féministes à la vie plus passionnante.
Parlons de ces femmes :
Commençons par la première Mary Sidney, une comtesse qui commence sa carrière littéraire de manière plus traditionnel soit en éditant et développant les œuvres d’un homme (son frère décédé) pour ensuite se lancée dans ses propres traductions libres. Ce qui la différencie est qu’elle prend la décision inhabituelle de les publier, ce qui est quasiment presque plus inhabituelle pour la noblesse que pour les femmes. Par contre, pour le reste de sa vie, elle la vivait de manière les plus conventionnel sans rien révolutionner. Je ne trouvais pas sa vie très passionnante, elle était même plutôt banale et les liens entre ses traductions et sa propre vie était quelque peu tirer par les cheveux. Au moins, elle a réussi à s’amuser un peu durant sa vieillesse, mais cela n’a pas réussi à capter suffisamment mon attention pour que je veuille soit la lire ou faire plus de recherche sur elle.
Ensuite, on avait Aemilia Lanyer qui fut sans doute dans mes préférées. Elle était tout sauf conventionnelle et elle était la seule non-aristocrate. Issues d’une famille d’immigrés musiciens, elle a été la maitresse d’un noble puissant de qui elle va tomber enceinte pour être marier par la suite à l’un de ses musiciens. Par la suite sa vie va prendre un tournant et elle va se lancer dans la prostitution de luxe, dans l’enseignement des filles et va même publier des poèmes, dont un prônant la libération des femmes. Elle va non seulement viser dans ses textes la libération des femmes, mais critiquer la religion en même temps en faisant des comparaisons et disant qu’était-ce vraiment pire de manger une pomme que de crucifier un homme et donc que les hommes n’ont aucune base de moral pour revendiquer leur autorité sur les femmes (go queen!) Son livre fut publier, mais n’a pas eu le succès qu’il méritait avant les années 70. J’ai vraiment aimé son histoire et elle m’a donné envie de faire mes propres recherches sur elle et d’essayer de trouver son ouvrage. C’était intéressant et pour la première fois du livre le rythme à commencer à capter mon attention.
Il y a par la suite Elizabeth Cary, enfant prodige d’une famille extrêmement riche ayant reçu une éducation complète (elle a même témoigné et sauver une accusée de sorcellerie à 10 ans, what a cool kid) Comme la plupart des femmes de son époque dans sa situation, elle fut mariée par sa famille pour de l’argent et elle tâcha de satisfaire son mari notamment en lui faisant pleins d’enfant, mais dont elle va se séparer plus tard quand elle va se convertir au catholicisme. Évidemment, comme un divorce moderne, cela va donner place à un long process pour l’argent, la garde des enfants et leur religion. Elle va écrire par la suite des adaptations bibliques féministe ainsi que des ouvrages historiques. Encore une fois, ses œuvres vont passer inaperçu jusqu’au 21e siècle. Son histoire était intéressante, mais elle était peut-être un peu trop religieuse pour qu’elle m’interpelle autant qu’Aemilia. J’ai bien aimé sa libération de son marie et le combat qu’elle a mené contre lui.
Pour finir, on a Anne Clifford, duchesse extrêmement riche. Elle n’était pas à proprement dit écrivaine, mais elle a écrit de nombreux journaux intime, mémoires et histoires familiales. Sa vie fut donc super bien documentée nous permettant de suivre pas à pas son évolution, ce qui est exceptionnel pour une femme non royale. Ce qui différencie sa vie est la bataille juridique qu’elle a menée durant près de 40 ans pour obtenir les propriétés de son père (léguer à son frère en raison d’une loi exigeant que les terres reviennent aux enfants, mais que les femmes ne peuvent pas hériter de terre et leur père voulait conserver les titres et les terres ensemble.) C’était honnêtement une histoire super intéressante, elle a dédié sa vie entière avec sa mère à cette cause, elle s’est mariée avec deux hommes seulement pour obtenir leur aide là-dessus. Honnêtement, elle devait être insupportable dans la vraie vie vue à quel point elle était obsédée par cela, mais c’est ce que sa prend pour défier le roi et c’est ce qu’elle a réussi à faire. Je verrai un film sur sa vie (il y en a peut-être un en fait) mais définitivement, je vais retenir son nom pour faire plus de recherche à son sujet. Je suis d’accord avec elle, les femmes aussi doivent pouvoir hériter des terres et des propriétés.
Bref, C’était un livre intéressant sur des personnages oublier par l’histoire dont je n’avais jamais entendu parler. Elles étaient fascinantes et je suis ravie de les avoir rencontrées. Par contre, parfois le livre se perdait un peu dans les contextes généraux de l’époque ce qui me faisait perdre tout le focus que j’avais et me faisais décrocher de ma lecture. Il y avait soit trop de mise en contexte, ne soit pas assez, mais dans tous les cas elle était mal intégrée au reste de l’histoire. C’était une lecture pertinente et intéressante, mais un peu longue par moment et j’ai eu un peu de difficulté à lire par passage. Il y avait bcp d’information et très peu de moment de réflexion interactif avec la narration je n’avais donc pas le temps d’assimiler l’information et fut un peu submerger rapidement.
C‘est une biographie collective très bien documenté. On sent que l’autrice s’est vraiment bien renseignée sur l’information afin de nous donner la version la plus complète possible. Son style d’écriture se veux captivant malgré les informations condenser dans son texte qui mettent en vedette quatre autrices anglaises de la Renaissance. Le premier tier a été particulièrement fastidieux et c’est ce qui a fait que j’ai eu de la difficulté à embarquer dans le livre par la suite aussi. Ce n’est pas que Mary Sidney ne m’intéressait pas, c’est que je n’ai pas réussi à trouver de l’intérêt dans sa manière de compter son histoire et étant la moins intéressante du lot, elle n’aurait pas dû être la première. Ça m’a découragé de ma lecture par la suite. Je n’ai pas non plus compris pourquoi le roman s’ouvre sur les funérailles de Elizabeth 1er. Certes c’est un évènement important, surtout pour l’époque, mais c’était long et ajoutait une lourdeur non nécessaire, parce qu’en soit, ça n’avait pas rapport avec les informations que l’autrice voulait véhiculer. Mise à part un contexte historique certes important, ça n’apportait rien. Elle aurait pu faire un contexte historique moins loin ou plus sommaire. Heureusement, le livre s’est amélioré par la suite en abordant des personnalités réellement féministes à la vie plus passionnante.
Parlons de ces femmes :
Commençons par la première Mary Sidney, une comtesse qui commence sa carrière littéraire de manière plus traditionnel soit en éditant et développant les œuvres d’un homme (son frère décédé) pour ensuite se lancée dans ses propres traductions libres. Ce qui la différencie est qu’elle prend la décision inhabituelle de les publier, ce qui est quasiment presque plus inhabituelle pour la noblesse que pour les femmes. Par contre, pour le reste de sa vie, elle la vivait de manière les plus conventionnel sans rien révolutionner. Je ne trouvais pas sa vie très passionnante, elle était même plutôt banale et les liens entre ses traductions et sa propre vie était quelque peu tirer par les cheveux. Au moins, elle a réussi à s’amuser un peu durant sa vieillesse, mais cela n’a pas réussi à capter suffisamment mon attention pour que je veuille soit la lire ou faire plus de recherche sur elle.
Ensuite, on avait Aemilia Lanyer qui fut sans doute dans mes préférées. Elle était tout sauf conventionnelle et elle était la seule non-aristocrate. Issues d’une famille d’immigrés musiciens, elle a été la maitresse d’un noble puissant de qui elle va tomber enceinte pour être marier par la suite à l’un de ses musiciens. Par la suite sa vie va prendre un tournant et elle va se lancer dans la prostitution de luxe, dans l’enseignement des filles et va même publier des poèmes, dont un prônant la libération des femmes. Elle va non seulement viser dans ses textes la libération des femmes, mais critiquer la religion en même temps en faisant des comparaisons et disant qu’était-ce vraiment pire de manger une pomme que de crucifier un homme et donc que les hommes n’ont aucune base de moral pour revendiquer leur autorité sur les femmes (go queen!) Son livre fut publier, mais n’a pas eu le succès qu’il méritait avant les années 70. J’ai vraiment aimé son histoire et elle m’a donné envie de faire mes propres recherches sur elle et d’essayer de trouver son ouvrage. C’était intéressant et pour la première fois du livre le rythme à commencer à capter mon attention.
Il y a par la suite Elizabeth Cary, enfant prodige d’une famille extrêmement riche ayant reçu une éducation complète (elle a même témoigné et sauver une accusée de sorcellerie à 10 ans, what a cool kid) Comme la plupart des femmes de son époque dans sa situation, elle fut mariée par sa famille pour de l’argent et elle tâcha de satisfaire son mari notamment en lui faisant pleins d’enfant, mais dont elle va se séparer plus tard quand elle va se convertir au catholicisme. Évidemment, comme un divorce moderne, cela va donner place à un long process pour l’argent, la garde des enfants et leur religion. Elle va écrire par la suite des adaptations bibliques féministe ainsi que des ouvrages historiques. Encore une fois, ses œuvres vont passer inaperçu jusqu’au 21e siècle. Son histoire était intéressante, mais elle était peut-être un peu trop religieuse pour qu’elle m’interpelle autant qu’Aemilia. J’ai bien aimé sa libération de son marie et le combat qu’elle a mené contre lui.
Pour finir, on a Anne Clifford, duchesse extrêmement riche. Elle n’était pas à proprement dit écrivaine, mais elle a écrit de nombreux journaux intime, mémoires et histoires familiales. Sa vie fut donc super bien documentée nous permettant de suivre pas à pas son évolution, ce qui est exceptionnel pour une femme non royale. Ce qui différencie sa vie est la bataille juridique qu’elle a menée durant près de 40 ans pour obtenir les propriétés de son père (léguer à son frère en raison d’une loi exigeant que les terres reviennent aux enfants, mais que les femmes ne peuvent pas hériter de terre et leur père voulait conserver les titres et les terres ensemble.) C’était honnêtement une histoire super intéressante, elle a dédié sa vie entière avec sa mère à cette cause, elle s’est mariée avec deux hommes seulement pour obtenir leur aide là-dessus. Honnêtement, elle devait être insupportable dans la vraie vie vue à quel point elle était obsédée par cela, mais c’est ce que sa prend pour défier le roi et c’est ce qu’elle a réussi à faire. Je verrai un film sur sa vie (il y en a peut-être un en fait) mais définitivement, je vais retenir son nom pour faire plus de recherche à son sujet. Je suis d’accord avec elle, les femmes aussi doivent pouvoir hériter des terres et des propriétés.
Bref, C’était un livre intéressant sur des personnages oublier par l’histoire dont je n’avais jamais entendu parler. Elles étaient fascinantes et je suis ravie de les avoir rencontrées. Par contre, parfois le livre se perdait un peu dans les contextes généraux de l’époque ce qui me faisait perdre tout le focus que j’avais et me faisais décrocher de ma lecture. Il y avait soit trop de mise en contexte, ne soit pas assez, mais dans tous les cas elle était mal intégrée au reste de l’histoire. C’était une lecture pertinente et intéressante, mais un peu longue par moment et j’ai eu un peu de difficulté à lire par passage. Il y avait bcp d’information et très peu de moment de réflexion interactif avec la narration je n’avais donc pas le temps d’assimiler l’information et fut un peu submerger rapidement.
April 12, 2024
This book is incredibly dense. Super informative but as someone who doesn’t know much about the renaissance, I was pretty overwhelmed. That being said, some people love books that read like textbooks and may be able to absorb all the information easily. I’m not like that so really struggled.
Additionally, this book focuses on authors that were all connected in some way. I found this cool, but to better help the reader understand everything given the context, the author almost seems to go on tangents. This also kind of overwhelmed me.
My favorite quotes:
“She may have broken through the glass ceiling, but she didn’t care whether others followed suit.” Re: Queen Elizabeth I (pg 22)
“[Queen] Elizabeth didn't simply have a talent for writing: she worshipped at its altar.” Pg 23
“For a girl of such extraordinary intelligence-she was clearly a child prodigy—to be reduced to a monetary sum on the marriage market seems devastating to modern eyes.” Re: Elizabeth Cary (pg 99)
“If men are sinful enough to crucify their savior, then women should be liberated from men's rule.” (Pg 150)
“"But to be quoted in the margin": what better description could there be of women's role in history?” (Pg 226)
Additionally, this book focuses on authors that were all connected in some way. I found this cool, but to better help the reader understand everything given the context, the author almost seems to go on tangents. This also kind of overwhelmed me.
My favorite quotes:
“She may have broken through the glass ceiling, but she didn’t care whether others followed suit.” Re: Queen Elizabeth I (pg 22)
“[Queen] Elizabeth didn't simply have a talent for writing: she worshipped at its altar.” Pg 23
“For a girl of such extraordinary intelligence-she was clearly a child prodigy—to be reduced to a monetary sum on the marriage market seems devastating to modern eyes.” Re: Elizabeth Cary (pg 99)
“If men are sinful enough to crucify their savior, then women should be liberated from men's rule.” (Pg 150)
“"But to be quoted in the margin": what better description could there be of women's role in history?” (Pg 226)
April 2, 2024
Thank you Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf for allowing me to read and review Shakespeare's Sisters How Women Wrote the Renaissance on NetGalley.
Published: 03/12/24
Stars: 4
My attention wavered. With that said, I'm not a super fan of the Renaissance; I do enjoy learning and trivia. The beautiful cover started my trip back to Shakespeare's day.
At age 13 you were a woman? Well, the girls married,were abused, uneducated and all with their father's blessings. Shakespeare's Sisters How Women Wrote the Renaissance is full of the second class treatment of women and children. While reading I could see parallels to today's world and it saddened me, forcing my brain to flip ahead.
This is nicely written and full of facts that often blurred my vision.
I would gift this in a basket with a bottle and cheese.
Published: 03/12/24
Stars: 4
My attention wavered. With that said, I'm not a super fan of the Renaissance; I do enjoy learning and trivia. The beautiful cover started my trip back to Shakespeare's day.
At age 13 you were a woman? Well, the girls married,were abused, uneducated and all with their father's blessings. Shakespeare's Sisters How Women Wrote the Renaissance is full of the second class treatment of women and children. While reading I could see parallels to today's world and it saddened me, forcing my brain to flip ahead.
This is nicely written and full of facts that often blurred my vision.
I would gift this in a basket with a bottle and cheese.
Read
April 16, 2024Elizabeth I’s funeral procession in April 1603 was lavish and long, the extravagant bier topped with a wax effigy of the queen in red wig, crown and all. Thousands watched the procession as it moved from Whitehall to Westminster, and within or around it were four female writers who would change Renaissance literature in England.
The purpose of Ramie Targoff’s book is to belie Virginia Woolf’s claim, made centuries later in A Room of One’s Own, that it would be impossible for a woman of that time to be a serious writer; if Shakespeare had had a talented sister, Woolf said, she would surely have gone mad and died by suicide in the face of overwhelming obstacles. But Woolf was wrong. While only Shakespeare was Shakespeare, there were ‘sisters’ of considerable literary skill (albeit ones with aristocratic connections).
One of them was in Elizabeth’s funeral procession: Mary Sidney. Perhaps best known as the dedicatee of her brother Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, by the time of the queen’s funeral Mary Sidney had a growing reputation due to her own sophisticated and experimental poems, most of them based on psalms. She had also published her translations of her brother’s French writer friends, most notably Robert Garnier’s Marc Antoine, the first dramatisation of the Antony and Cleopatra story in English and a probable source for Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.
Peripheral to the procession, but connected to it by participating relations, were the three other women whose lives and work Targoff describes. Aged 13, Anne Clifford was judged too young to participate, but her mother, Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, was among Elizabeth’s aristocratic mourners. Clifford’s diaries and autobiography are filled with tremendous strength of purpose revealing her struggle for her rightful inheritance. Then there is Elizabeth Cary, whose father-in-law marched as Master of the Queen’s Jewel House. Her two closet dramas, Mariam and Edward II, were written during an unhappy marriage and feature strong women standing up to powerful men. Finally, Aemilia Lanyer was a member of the minor gentry, whose husband Alfonso was part of the royal recorder consort. Her single book of poems, published in the same year as the King James Bible (1611) and including the story of Christ’s passion told entirely from a woman’s point of view, took 400 years to enter the Renaissance literary canon, but it is unlikely to leave any time soon, partly because the poems are simply very good.
Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com
Susanne Woods is the editor of The Poems of Aemilia Lanyer and author of Lanyer: A Renaissance Woman Poet (Oxford University Press, 1995 and 1999).
The purpose of Ramie Targoff’s book is to belie Virginia Woolf’s claim, made centuries later in A Room of One’s Own, that it would be impossible for a woman of that time to be a serious writer; if Shakespeare had had a talented sister, Woolf said, she would surely have gone mad and died by suicide in the face of overwhelming obstacles. But Woolf was wrong. While only Shakespeare was Shakespeare, there were ‘sisters’ of considerable literary skill (albeit ones with aristocratic connections).
One of them was in Elizabeth’s funeral procession: Mary Sidney. Perhaps best known as the dedicatee of her brother Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, by the time of the queen’s funeral Mary Sidney had a growing reputation due to her own sophisticated and experimental poems, most of them based on psalms. She had also published her translations of her brother’s French writer friends, most notably Robert Garnier’s Marc Antoine, the first dramatisation of the Antony and Cleopatra story in English and a probable source for Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.
Peripheral to the procession, but connected to it by participating relations, were the three other women whose lives and work Targoff describes. Aged 13, Anne Clifford was judged too young to participate, but her mother, Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, was among Elizabeth’s aristocratic mourners. Clifford’s diaries and autobiography are filled with tremendous strength of purpose revealing her struggle for her rightful inheritance. Then there is Elizabeth Cary, whose father-in-law marched as Master of the Queen’s Jewel House. Her two closet dramas, Mariam and Edward II, were written during an unhappy marriage and feature strong women standing up to powerful men. Finally, Aemilia Lanyer was a member of the minor gentry, whose husband Alfonso was part of the royal recorder consort. Her single book of poems, published in the same year as the King James Bible (1611) and including the story of Christ’s passion told entirely from a woman’s point of view, took 400 years to enter the Renaissance literary canon, but it is unlikely to leave any time soon, partly because the poems are simply very good.
Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com
Susanne Woods is the editor of The Poems of Aemilia Lanyer and author of Lanyer: A Renaissance Woman Poet (Oxford University Press, 1995 and 1999).
January 5, 2025
We're familiar with the adage "history is written by the winners." One of the most important things author Ramie Targoff wants us to understand is that the absence of women in the "canon" of great literature is not simply a matter of, as Virginia Woolf would put it, lacking a room of one's own and a reasonable income. It's also a matter of history—in this case, the literary canon—being written by the victors—in this case, men.
Women don't appear in the timeline of "great books" courses until, perhaps, one reaches the generation of Mary Wollstonecraft, who was born in 1759—so the second half of the 18th Century. Regarding eras before that, the message, often by omission, is "women didn't write then." So when Woolf argues about the impossibility of Shakespeare's sister becoming a writer, we take her assertion without question. And, yes, Woolf is making a crucial point, but it's not an absolute truth.
Cases in point, explains Ramie Targoff, include Mary Sidney (b. 1561); Aemilia Lanyer (b. 1569); Elizabeth Cary (b. 1589); and Anne Clifford (b. 1590). These are the women she considers "sisters of Shakespeare (b. circa 1564).
Shakespeare's Sisters explores the question of how these women managed to become writers and how they were received by their contemporaries. Money definitely helped, as did station, but even in the 16th Century, not all women writers were members of the aristocracy. Aemilia Lanyer's father was a court musician, so she had access to the wealthy and titled, but she had neither wealth nor title. And her father died when she was just seven years old, reducing her access to the halls of power and leaving the family's finances quite strained. Lanyer did become the mistress of the Lord Chamberlain, but when Lanyer became pregnant, her "master" quickly passed her on to younger, less prominent hands. In fact, he had her married to a court musician.
Targoff focuses on the times in which the women lived and their biographical details, rather than providing analysis of their literary output. She summarizes their major works and their reception, but what she's interested in are these women's day-to-day lives.
Shakespeare's sisters is a wonderful read. Targoff moves between the four women, so one needs to keep track of which details are whose, but this overlap is useful in terms of chronology. If you're interested in women writers, women's history, Tudor politics, or any number of other topics, this highly readable title will expand your understanding of the era and they ways some women were able to establish themselves as writers.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.
Women don't appear in the timeline of "great books" courses until, perhaps, one reaches the generation of Mary Wollstonecraft, who was born in 1759—so the second half of the 18th Century. Regarding eras before that, the message, often by omission, is "women didn't write then." So when Woolf argues about the impossibility of Shakespeare's sister becoming a writer, we take her assertion without question. And, yes, Woolf is making a crucial point, but it's not an absolute truth.
Cases in point, explains Ramie Targoff, include Mary Sidney (b. 1561); Aemilia Lanyer (b. 1569); Elizabeth Cary (b. 1589); and Anne Clifford (b. 1590). These are the women she considers "sisters of Shakespeare (b. circa 1564).
Shakespeare's Sisters explores the question of how these women managed to become writers and how they were received by their contemporaries. Money definitely helped, as did station, but even in the 16th Century, not all women writers were members of the aristocracy. Aemilia Lanyer's father was a court musician, so she had access to the wealthy and titled, but she had neither wealth nor title. And her father died when she was just seven years old, reducing her access to the halls of power and leaving the family's finances quite strained. Lanyer did become the mistress of the Lord Chamberlain, but when Lanyer became pregnant, her "master" quickly passed her on to younger, less prominent hands. In fact, he had her married to a court musician.
Targoff focuses on the times in which the women lived and their biographical details, rather than providing analysis of their literary output. She summarizes their major works and their reception, but what she's interested in are these women's day-to-day lives.
Shakespeare's sisters is a wonderful read. Targoff moves between the four women, so one needs to keep track of which details are whose, but this overlap is useful in terms of chronology. If you're interested in women writers, women's history, Tudor politics, or any number of other topics, this highly readable title will expand your understanding of the era and they ways some women were able to establish themselves as writers.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.
June 9, 2024
Shakespeare’s Sisters opens up Renaissance history to four extraordinary women for whom writing was their life force. Once we learn about these women and read their books after centuries of neglect, it’s not only their names that we recover. Suddenly, there are new voices. We hear from teenage girls married off to men they would never have chosen; wives forced to tolerate their husbands’ spending their money and taking lovers; mothers whose babies died before their first birthday, or whose children were taken away by their fathers as punishment for wifely disobedience. We hear from widows filing their own lawsuits in Chancery Court, opening charities and schools, traveling for pleasure to Europe, building their own houses, and erecting monuments. We hear a woman’s perspective on the killing of Mary, Queen of Scots and the Spanish Armada; the Protestant wars in the Netherlands and the witchcraft trials in England and Scotland; the ongoing persecution of Catholics and the outbreak of the Civil War. We realize that however much we thought we knew about the Renaissance, it was only half the story. We begin to understand how much we’ve been missing.
It is important to read history to remember how far we have come, and the excavation of these writers was interesting but buried in the minute details of the less interesting general history which could have been summed up in less words.
It is important to read history to remember how far we have come, and the excavation of these writers was interesting but buried in the minute details of the less interesting general history which could have been summed up in less words.
March 13, 2024
Read via NetGalley.
I'm here for pretty much any book that helps to prove Joanna Russ' point that women have always written, and that society (men) have always tried to squash the memory of those women so that women don't have a tradition to hold to. (See How to Suppress Women's Writing.)
Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary and Anne Clifford all overlapped for several decades in the late Elizabethan/ early Jacobean period in England - which, yes, means they also overlapped with Shakespeare. Hence the title, referencing Virginia Woolf's warning that an imaginary sister of William's, with equal talent, would have gone mad because she would not have been allowed to write. Targoff doesn't claim it was always easy for these women to write - especially for Lanyer, the only non-aristocrat. What she does show, though, is the sheer determination of these women TO write. And they were often writing what would be classified as feminist work, too: biblical stories from a woman's perspective, for instance. And they were also often getting themselves published - also a feminist, revolutionary move. A woman in public?? Horror!
Essentially this book is a short biography of each of the women, gneerally focusing on their education and then their writing - what they wrote, speculating on why they wrote, and how they managed to do so (finding the time, basically). There's also an exploration of what happened to their work: some of it was published during their respective lifetimes; some of it was misattributed (another note connecting this to Russ: Mary Sidney's work, in particular, was often attributed to her brother instead. Which is exactly one of the moves that Russ identifies in the suppression game). Some of it was lost and only came to light in the 20th century, or was only acknowledged as worthy then. Almost incidentally this is also a potted history of England in the time, because of who these women were - three of the four being aristocrats, one ending up the greatest heiress in England, and all having important family connections. You don't need to know much about England in the period to understand what's going on.
Targoff has written an excellent history here. There's not TOO many names to keep track of; she has kept her sights firmly on the women as the centre of the narrative; she explains some otherwise confusing issues very neatly. Her style is a delight to read - very engaging and warm, she picks the interesting details to focus on, and basically I would not hesitate to pick up another book by her. This is an excellent introduction to four women whose work should play an important part in the history of English literature.
I'm here for pretty much any book that helps to prove Joanna Russ' point that women have always written, and that society (men) have always tried to squash the memory of those women so that women don't have a tradition to hold to. (See How to Suppress Women's Writing.)
Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary and Anne Clifford all overlapped for several decades in the late Elizabethan/ early Jacobean period in England - which, yes, means they also overlapped with Shakespeare. Hence the title, referencing Virginia Woolf's warning that an imaginary sister of William's, with equal talent, would have gone mad because she would not have been allowed to write. Targoff doesn't claim it was always easy for these women to write - especially for Lanyer, the only non-aristocrat. What she does show, though, is the sheer determination of these women TO write. And they were often writing what would be classified as feminist work, too: biblical stories from a woman's perspective, for instance. And they were also often getting themselves published - also a feminist, revolutionary move. A woman in public?? Horror!
Essentially this book is a short biography of each of the women, gneerally focusing on their education and then their writing - what they wrote, speculating on why they wrote, and how they managed to do so (finding the time, basically). There's also an exploration of what happened to their work: some of it was published during their respective lifetimes; some of it was misattributed (another note connecting this to Russ: Mary Sidney's work, in particular, was often attributed to her brother instead. Which is exactly one of the moves that Russ identifies in the suppression game). Some of it was lost and only came to light in the 20th century, or was only acknowledged as worthy then. Almost incidentally this is also a potted history of England in the time, because of who these women were - three of the four being aristocrats, one ending up the greatest heiress in England, and all having important family connections. You don't need to know much about England in the period to understand what's going on.
Targoff has written an excellent history here. There's not TOO many names to keep track of; she has kept her sights firmly on the women as the centre of the narrative; she explains some otherwise confusing issues very neatly. Her style is a delight to read - very engaging and warm, she picks the interesting details to focus on, and basically I would not hesitate to pick up another book by her. This is an excellent introduction to four women whose work should play an important part in the history of English literature.
May 8, 2024
Oh I LOVED this. Ramie Targoff takes us through the lives and literary works of 4 of the earliest female writers in the Renaissance: Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary, and Anne Clifford. Early poetry, plays, and a key diarist; all women who fought in their marriages, or for their children, or took the law and even the monarchy into their own hands.
Virginia Woolf, though wonderful, was wrong to assume that Renaissance women could never have sustained or published writing.
I'm biased, I know, because I love this period of literature so much, but it really is such an engaging and delightfully well-written book. Learning more about two writers I knew lots about, and two I knew almost nothing about, was lovely. I can't think of a better way to bring these women into the world outside of academia.
This has been a joy to read, and I'm rather sad that it's over. Thanks Ramie :)
Virginia Woolf, though wonderful, was wrong to assume that Renaissance women could never have sustained or published writing.
I'm biased, I know, because I love this period of literature so much, but it really is such an engaging and delightfully well-written book. Learning more about two writers I knew lots about, and two I knew almost nothing about, was lovely. I can't think of a better way to bring these women into the world outside of academia.
This has been a joy to read, and I'm rather sad that it's over. Thanks Ramie :)
April 5, 2025
The stated premise of this book is that Woolf was wrong when she talked about what the hypothetical sister of Shakespeare's life would have been like. It then focuses on noblewomen and one genteel woman who consorted with nobility throughout her life. This is not the story of women on the cusp of gentility who lived by their pens. It's the story of women who had a place to write and steady income writing as a hobby. It's great to know that they were writing and in some cases publishing, but it's not at all what the premise claims. Also, Woolf would have been aware of the contributions of Vita's ancestor at the very least. I spent most of this asked and disappointed.
April 15, 2024
A very informative text about 4 women alive during Shakespeare's time that also contributed to the Renaissance of writing. While some parts were bogged down with information about British hierarchy, I understand why they had to include it since these women's lives were so intertwined with society and the people they knew.
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November 20, 2024DNF 19% in
The topic is interesting, but the author is so in the weeds about every historical thing fact she knows about the relations of the people she want to talk about, that she has yet to actually talk about anything except their childhood and who they married. This time period is always saturated, but maybe if someone likes this time period then it'd be a better read.
The topic is interesting, but the author is so in the weeds about every historical thing fact she knows about the relations of the people she want to talk about, that she has yet to actually talk about anything except their childhood and who they married. This time period is always saturated, but maybe if someone likes this time period then it'd be a better read.
December 20, 2024
“the future of the past is full of women.” i think the hallmark of a good nonfiction book on literature is the drive it instills in the reader to pursue the content discussed, and i certainly have been roused to seek out the works of mary sidney, elizabeth cary, aemilia lanyer, and anne clifford for myself!
May 22, 2024
Love, love, love this book! It was incredibly well-researched, had a conversational tone throughout, and gave a voice to so many women who otherwise may have been lost to the annals of history.
March 17, 2025
This was fascinating. I never knew about these remarkable women!
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