Workshop 28

28.
The Early Modern Woman's Preface:
From Structures to Subjectivities

Organizers:

Julie A. Eckerle, English, SUNY-Brockport
Laura Burch, French & Italian, University of Minnesota
Marcela Kostihova, English, Feminist Studies, University of Minnesota

Description:

We propose a workshop focused exclusively on textual prefatory material authored by women. Prefaces offer the perfect site for considering questions of authorial subjectivity, especially in regard to gender, since this is where authorial identities and intentions are most often and most explicitly articulated. Furthermore, as textual spaces that can take a variety of forms (letters, dedicatory poems, prose prefaces, and addresses to the reader, for example), prefaces allow us to consider how early modern women built their authorial identities within particular textual structures: both the preface in general but also the prefatory subgenres. Significantly, prefaces offered a unique space for authorship, one often disconnected from the purpose or subject of the primary text it introduced. In some cases, women authored prefaces to texts written by men. And in others, they used prefaces to their own works to defend female authorship even when their primary texts dealt with entirely different subjects. The preface, in part because of its location on the margins of a text and in part because of the already built-in humility topos, allowed such bold maneuvering and even produced particular rhetorical strategies to enable such gestures.

To facilitate a lively and wide-ranging discussion about these issues, we plan to provide workshop participants with a range of prefatory material by several different female authors and from a variety of texts (see preliminary list below). We will also invite participants to suggest further reading, if not for the session itself for reasons of time limitation, then certainly to be included in a "Suggested Further Readings" bibliography, which will be distributed at the session.

We will use about 15 minutes at the beginning of the workshop to provide minimal background material--such as the particular rhetorical strategies built into the preface from its roots in the classical tradition--and to raise questions about how women use the space of the preface to negotiate, introduce, and create their authorial subjectivities and how they use particular prefatory genres to different ends. Other issues of particular interest to us include how women writers relate to men (both relatives and patrons), how they relate to other women writers and patrons, how they use prefaces to introduce arguments about female equality, and how they develop rhetorical strategies uniquely suited to establishing a relationship with their readers. We are further interested in addressing the complexities of women's prefaces rather than reducing them to a single model or approach, and so we will suggest a consideration of differences as well as similarities across genre, class, and nationality. After raising these kinds of questions, we will open discussion to the entire group and pursue issues of most interest to all.

Preliminary List of Readings and Images:

Ascham, Margaret. Prose dedicatory letter to William Cecil. For her husband's The Schoolmaster, 1570.
Dowriche, Anne. Two prose letters. For The French Historie, 1589.
Gournay, Marie de. "A la reine lui présentant l'Egalité des hommes et des femmes." In Egalité des hommes et des femmes, 1622.
Lanyer, Aemilia. Prose letter to the reader & a few dedicatory poems. For her poem Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, 1611.
Locke, Anne. Five prefatory sonnets. For her Meditation, 1560.
Scudéry, Madeleine de. "Epître aux dames." In Femmes Illustres, 1642.
Speght, Rachel. A selection of prefatory materials for her various tracts.
Suchon, Gabrielle. "Avis sur le titre," and "Avant-propos." In Traité de la morale et de la politique, 1693.
Tyler, Margaret. Prose letter to the reader. For her English translation of a Spanish romance, The Mirrour of Princely Deedes and Knighthood, 1578.
Weamys, Anna. Prose dedicatory letter to Anne and Grace Perpoint. For her romance A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, 1651.
Wheathill, Anne. Prose letter to the reader. For her original prayer collection, A Handfull of Holesome (though Homelie) Hearbs, 1584.

* Please note that most prefaces are no more than a page or two, and many are short poems.
* All participants will also receive a longer bibliography of "Suggested Further Readings" at the time of the conference. This list will include both primary texts (additional prefaces written by female writers, including different nationalities and a slightly broader time frame) and scholarly works on the subject.