Rachel Speght Criticism
Rachel Speght, an early 17th-century English pamphleteer and poet, is increasingly recognized for her pioneering advocacy of women's rights. Her notable work, A Muzzle for Melastomus (1617), directly counters Joseph Swetnam's misogynistic pamphlet and argues for the spiritual and intellectual equality of women, using biblical exegesis to support her claims. This work is considered one of the earliest feminist texts by a woman under her own name during the Jacobean era, as noted by Ann Rosalind Jones. Despite initial skepticism and hostility from contemporaries, as evidenced by Cis van Heertum's study of misogynist annotations, Speght's arguments have been re-evaluated for their historical significance.
Speght also authored Mortalities Memorandum, with a Dreame Prefixed (1621), where she poetically explores themes of mortality and the pursuit of knowledge, a right she insists is as divine for women as it is for men. The "Dreame" from this collection is particularly noted for its allegorical narrative advocating women's access to education, as discussed by Elaine V. Beilin and Kim Walker. Despite the limited recognition during her lifetime, largely attributed to societal constraints on women, her work is now appreciated for its early feminist perspectives, challenging the dominant narratives of women's inferiority as supported by Desma Polydorou.
Speght's contributions, long overlooked, are now recognized by scholars as crucial to understanding early feminist literature, calling for her inclusion in the canon of Renaissance literature to highlight the era's few female voices, as argued by Barbara Kiefer Lewalski. Her works offer a unique perspective on gender equality and intellectual liberation, resonating with contemporary discussions on women's rights and education.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Essays
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A Hostile Annotation of Rachel Speght's A Mouzell for Melastomus
(summary)
In the following essay, van Heertum describes the misogynist annotations found in an early copy of Speght's A Muzzle for Melastomus, which the critic maintains give an idea of how Speght's defense of women might have infuriated many seventeenth-century men.
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Piety and Poetry: Isabella Whitney, Anne Dowriche, Elizabeth Colville, Rachel Speght
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Beilin focuses on the allegorical dream in Speght's Mortalities Memorandum, which, she argues, is radical in its assumption that women have the right to acquire knowledge and the ability to teach all humanity.
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The Genesis of Gendered Subjectivity in the Divorce Tracts and in Paradise Lost
(summary)
In the following excerpt, originally published in 1987, Nyquist contends that Speght's arguments for gender equality in A Muzzle for Melastomus place her work as one of the earliest feminist responses to Genesis and to John Milton's Paradise Lost.
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Writing Public Poetry: Humanism and the Woman Writer
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Beilin argues that Speght was one of the earliest feminist writers to insist that education for women should not merely prepare them for domestic life but should also enable them to engage in public discourse.
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Counterattacks on ‘The Bayter of Women’: Three Pamphleteers of the Early Seventeenth Century
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Jones examines Speght's scripturally based arguments for women's rights in A Muzzle for Melastomus, the first of several works written to refute Joseph Swetnam's popular anti-female pamphlet, The Araignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward and Unconstant Women.
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Defending Women's Essential Equality: Rachel Speght's Polemics and Poems
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Lewalski discusses Speght's life and two major works, A Muzzle for Melastomus and Mortalities Memorandum, which the critic argues establish Speght as one of the earliest European feminists who contested popular and biblically based ideas on the inferior status of women.
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‘This worke of Grace’: Elizabeth Middleton, Alice Sutcliffe, Rachel Speght, and Aemilia Lanyer
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In the following excerpt, Walker discusses how Speght's “Dreame,” one of the poems in her Mortalities Memorandum, intends to show that women have the same ability as men to move from ignorance to knowledge.
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Gender and Spiritual Equality in Marriage: A Dialogic Reading of Rachel Speght and John Milton
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Polydorou contrasts Speght's and John Milton's interpretations of biblical passages on gender roles and Christian marriage in order to argue that Speght far more than Milton should be seen as being at the forefront of seventeenth-century articulations of gender equality.
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‘Lawfull Avarice’: Rachel Speght's Mortalities Memorandum and the Necessity of Women's Education
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In the following essay, Vecchi argues that the central message of Speght's Mortalities Memorandum can best be understood by comparing its two poems, “The Dreame” and “Mortalities Memorandum,” the first of which bespeaks the author's thirst for knowledge, and the second of which exposes how difficult it was, even for an educated, self-confident woman like Speght, to escape the prison of seventeenth-century women's life.
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A Hostile Annotation of Rachel Speght's A Mouzell for Melastomus
(summary)
- Further Reading