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English Literature
Women's issues in Renaissance England
What are activities today that we still consider more appropriate for men than for women or for women more than men? Why do you think this is the case?
Gender equality is something that has been debated for many years. There are two sides to the argument about the equality of men and women. There are those that believe that men are superior to women, while on the other side there are those that believe that women can do anything that men can. In the reading Female Orations by Margaret Cavendish she tries to show both sides of this argument. She points out that women shouldn't do certain things because it is men's work, but that women do some things better than men because that is the way nature is.
There are many activities today that are still considered as things that are better done by men than women. One of these is fighting on the front line during a war. This is still an activity that has been deemed to be something...
There are many women that believe that they should be able to risk their lives for their country the same way that men can. But the side of this debate that believes that women need to be protected still presides.
There are many occupations that have traditionally been known as women's work and to this day still have this stigma. These include being nurses, teachers and stay at home parents. Although there are more and more men becoming nurses and teachers and even stay at home dads these roles have traditionally been seen as nurturing roles and better carried out by women. Just because women are more nurturing by nature does not mean that they should be relegated to just these types of occupations. Women should not have to suffer for the way that they are just because they are women. This notion can be seen in the poem Eve's Apology in Defense of Women by Amelia Lanier. In the poem Lanier says that Eve was just trying to share something good that she found with Adam and that…
Yet, I suggest that while Anne Clifford succeeded in life -- she was at last able to join the fellowship at Penshurst and through long life and tenacity to reclaim her lands -- Aemilia Lanyer succeeds in an imaginative vision: out of marginality, out 'of absence, darkness..., things which are not,' indeed out of weakness, Lanyer creates in Salve Deus a remarkable community of strength, present more powerfully and
It also widened her female audience much further than the small group of upper-class women with whom she was acquainted (ibid). Overall, this work represented Lanyer as a complex writer who possessed significant artistic ambition and "who like other women of the age wrote not insincerely on devotional themes to sanction more controversial explorations of gender and social relations" (Miller 360). In her work, Lanyer issued a call to political action
medieval romance has inspired literature for generations. The magic of the Arthurian romance can be traced to Celtic origins, which adds to it appeal when we look at it through the prism of post-medieval literature. The revival of the medieval romance can be viewed as an opposition against modern and intellectual movement that became vogue in modern Europe. These romances often emphasized the human emotions rather than the human
In addition, Lett (1987) emphasizes that, "Cultural materialists maintain that a society's modes of production and reproduction determine its social structure and ideological superstructure, but cultural materialists reject the metaphysical notion of Hegelian dialectics that is part of dialectical materialism" (80). Indeed, according to Bradshaw (1993), "the British cultural materialist knows that the 'radical,' 'subversive,' 'marginal,' or 'dissident' perspective is always superior (9). This author maintains that British cultural
Chastity in Renaissance Literature and Political Power Chastity was a concept that was promoted throughout Renaissance society by the church and those in political power. Chastity was promoted not only as a virtue and measure of the worthiness of a woman at the time of her marriage, it was also utilized as a means to repress women and their ability to gain their own power in society. However, in some ways,
Catherine the Great vs. Elizabeth I Elizabeth I of England and Catherine II or Catherine the Great of Russia were both of noble birth. Elizabeth was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his second queen, Anne Boleyn (911 Encyclopedia 2004). She was born on September 7, 1533 at Greenwich Palace almost 200 years before the birth of Catherine the Great of Russia. Elizabeth's death was met with much frustration