Women and Romance Fiction in the English Renaissance

by Helen Hackett

This book traces the progress of Renaissance romance from a genre addressed to women as readers to a genre written by women. Exploring this crucial transitional period, Helen Hackett examines the work of a diverse range of writers from Lyly, Rich and Greene to Sidney, Spenser and Shakespeare. Her book culminates in an analysis of Lady Mary Wroth's Urania (1621), the first romance written by a woman, and considers the developing representation of female heroism and selfhood, especially the adaptation of saintly roles to secular and even erotic purposes.

244 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2000

Reviews

[Roman Clodia]

Hackett here takes issue with the standard literary historical view that the popularity of the romance genre can be unproblematically linked with the rise of female literacy and the growth of 'lower middle class' female readers. Instead she probes the way the 'women' readers conjured up so often in dedications and prefaces of male-authored romance are semantic and cultural signs encoding qualities of the texts to which they are attached, and explores the ideological purpose of these imagined readers.

The book takes in some readings of less well-known European romances but does spend a lot of time on Sidney's two Arcadias, before discussing Wroth's Urania.

As is often the case with these kinds of volumes, this frequently feels more like a survey than a monograph - so it makes some very interesting points but doesn't really have the space to pursue them in more depth. So a stimulating book, undoubtedly, and one which raises a host of questions which warrant further research.