Gwynne Kennedy - Just anger: representing womens anger in early modern England

The first scholar to investigate the subject of womens anger in early modern England, Gwynne Kennedy analyzes portrayals of and attitudes toward womens anger in printed texts by or purporting to be written by women during the period. Kennedy draws from recent critical work on emotions by historians, literary scholars, philosophers, and psychologists as well as comparative studies of the emotions by cultural anthropologists. Kennedy also examines a number of male-authored works, including sermons, conduct literature, philosophy, rhetoric, and medicine. The focus of her work, however, is on representations of womens anger in printed works signed with womens names in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. She addresses the ways these writings conform to, conflict with, or appear to reconfigure prevailing beliefs about womens anger.Kennedy looks at such literary texts as Mary Wroths romance, The Countess of Montgomerys Urania, the first fiction by an English woman; Elizabeth Carys play, The Tragedy of Mariam, the earliest extant play in English by a woman; and Aemilia Lanyers verse collection, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. She also discusses religious writings by Protestant martyr Anne Askew and Elizabeth Carys history of Edward II. Kennedy considers as well defenses of womens nature authored by women (Rachel Speght and Aemilia Lanyer) or published under female pseudonyms (Jane Anger, Ester Sowernam, and Constantia Munda). Kennedy demonstrates the importance of class and race as factors affecting angers legitimacy and its forms of expression. She shows how early modern assumptions about womens anger can help to create or exaggerate other differences among women. Her close scrutiny of anger against female inferiority emphasizes the crucial role of emotions in the construction of self-worth and identity.