MILTON REVIEW [6]
Kate Aughterson, ed. Renaissance Woman: A Sourcebook. Constructions of Femininity in England.
London and New York: Routledge, 1995. xv, [8] p. of
plates, 316 p. $59.95 hardcover; $16.95 paperback.
Reviewed by Janis Butler Holm, HOLM@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu
July 12, 1996
- In
Renaissance Woman: A Sourcebook, subtitled Constructions of
Femininity in England, Kate Aughterson has assembled extracts from 107
documents addressing the nature and roles of early modern womanhood.
Thematically organized, the selections are grouped into nine chapters
reflecting
contemporary institutional discourses and counter-discourses: "Theology,"
"Physiology," "Conduct," "Sexuality and Motherhood," "Politics and Law,"
"Education," "Work," "Writing and Speaking," and "Proto-Feminisms." The book
opens with a thoughtfully qualifying general introduction (justifying the
use of
the term "Renaissance," for example), and Aughterson has prefaced each chapter
with a brief essay that helps to contextualize and to elucidate the disparate
and sometimes contradictory materials that follow. Bibliographical notes
precede the extracts, and succinct annotations offer guidance to the general
reader.
- I
would like to be able to recommend this well-intentioned book, which
aims to provide a representative sample of early modern textual battles on the
discursive field of Woman. I admire its scope, its selection, and its
arrangement; a book of this kind could indeed, as its prefatory abstract
promises, "be an essential sourcebook for students and teachers of [E]nglish,
cultural history and women's studies" (i). Additionally, it could provide a
good quick fix for scholars of sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, its
breadth and variety a clear reminder of the complexity of gender categories and
of the forces that attempt to delimit them. With these 107 abstracts before
us,
we find it more difficult to think of Milton's Eve as Milton's Eve; her
articulation as a literary character becomes a moment in the recursive cultural
struggle to define and to inform feminine experience and identity.
- But
perplexing textual deviations cause this anthology, at least in its
first edition, to be less than it could be. In too many places, extracts fail
to follow the language of their sources. Because the pattern of deviation
appears random--some inaccessible phrases are transmitted verbatim while some
simple phrases are inexplicably reworded--and because the editor's note
makes no
mention of paraphrase but suggests that selections have been revised chiefly in
spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and layout, I assume these rewordings to
be mistakes. While most of them do not alter their sources in substantial
ways,
some do.
- For
example, turning to the first page of an extract from Thomas
Salter's The Mirror of Modesty (p. 177), I find eight changes in wording that
do not appear to be simply a matter of modernization: "will soon" for "shall
presently"; "of her fear" for "of fear"; "would I" for "I would"; "it be
necessary" for "it is necessary"; "opened up to them" for "opened unto
them"; "I
should" for "if I should"; "be cause of" for "been cause of"; "Greece" for "all
Greece." Seven of these changes do not significantly affect meaning, but
one of
them, "I should" for "if I should," has led to some syntactical confusion.
Correctly rendered, the passage in question should read
to which, or against which, if I should flatly answer that the evil
use of learning hath more oftentimes been cause of discommodity and
domage than the right and laudable use of it hath been of profit and
benefit, I should peradventure be suspected of some for such a one as
did the same to the derogation, slander, and reproof of learning, which
thing I utterly deny.... [emphasis mine]
instead of
to which or against which I should flatly answer, that the evil use of
learning hath more oftentimes be cause of discommodity and domage,
than the right and laudable use of it hath been of profit and benefit.
I should peradventure be suspected of some for such a one as did the
same to the derogation, slander and reproof of learning, which thing I
utterly deny.... [emphasis mine].
Thomas Salter is not the most eloquent of early modern writers; his phrasing is
convoluted and awkward, and his sentences outlast the most patient reader's
patience. But torturous complication should pressure an editor to attend all
the more closely to its detail. To add a layer of error to this already
difficult prose is to make the Mirror less accessible, not more so.
- Moreover,
it is troubling that, although Salter's text is for the most
part a close translation of Giovanni Bruto's La institutione di una fanciulla
nata nobilmente (Antwerp, 1555), this collection presents the Mirror as
Salter's own. Additionally, the publication date is given as 1578 although the
revised Short-Title Catalogue estimates 1579. (The Stationers' Register
entry is dated 7 April 1579.) Since helpful information about The Mirror of
Modesty is available not only in the STC but also in several books and
articles, and in a critical edition of Salter's text, these kinds of errors are
surprising.
Other texts in Renaissance Woman: A Sourcebook are also faultily
rendered, and even those excerpts taken from modern editions are not without
their problems. Passages from the Loeb edition of Aristotle's The Generation
of Animals contain multiple transcription errors, and their page references
are
incomplete. In an extract from Margaret Tallmadge May's translation of Galen's
On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, an entire line of text has been
inadvertently dropped from the first sentence. Given the preponderance of
problems in this anthology, one begins to wonder whether a number of them might
have been introduced at the typesetting stage of its publication. (In the
title
as printed on the book's cover and spine, "Femininity" is spelled "Feminity," a
conspicuous mistake that cannot be attributed to the editor.)
- Given
its potential service to a number of academic disciplines, I would
very much like to see a revised edition of this collection, carefully
researched
and scrupulously proofread. A more faithful representation of the original
documents would give us a clearer sense of how Renaissance women were scripted
and how men and women contended with received scripts, of how early modern
language worked (or did not work) in the formation of gender and its
discontents. Aughterson has assembled an important group of historical
materials; with corrections, this anthology would prove a welcome textbook
and a
valued addition to the scholar's shelf.
Janis Butler Holm
Ohio University
Library of Congress Information
Title: Renaissance woman : a sourcebook : constructions of
femininity in England / edited by Kate Aughterson.
Published: New York : Routledge, 1996.
Description: p. cm.
LC Call No.: HQ1149.G7 R46 1996
Dewey No.: 305.4/0942 20
ISBN: 0415120545
0415120462
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Subjects: Women -- England -- History -- Renaissance, 1450-1600
-- Sources.
Femininity (Psychology) -- History -- Sources.
Renaissance -- England -- Sources.
Other authors: Aughterson, Kate, 1961-
Control No.: 95009518