Literary Property and the Single Woman in Isabella Whitney's "A Sweet Nosgay"

This essay offers a new perspective on the Tudor poet and maidservant Isabella Whitney's way of constructing herself as a female author in the early modern literary marketplace. While Whitney is most often read as a writer desiring textual communities through patronage and the exchange of lette...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Studies in English literature, 1500-1900 1500-1900, 2005, Vol.45 (1), p.1-22
Main Author: Ellinghausen, Laurie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Apostolic letters
Ballads
Commodities
English literature
Literary criticism
Plutarch (46?-120?)
Poetic meter
Poetry
Poets
Single status
Single women
Whitney, Isabella
Writers
Writing
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Summary:This essay offers a new perspective on the Tudor poet and maidservant Isabella Whitney's way of constructing herself as a female author in the early modern literary marketplace. While Whitney is most often read as a writer desiring textual communities through patronage and the exchange of letters, I note that throughout her miscellany A Sweet Nosgay (1573) she continually emphasizes her isolation from family and community. This stance, I argue, helps Whitney develop a sense of herself as a professional writer who must, after losing her post as a servant, achieve economic independence through the sale of her own verse.
ISSN:0039-3657
1522-9270
1522-9270
DOI:10.1353/sel.2005.0005