ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the ways in which some adventurous and resourceful women constructed for themselves a previously unrecognized poetic subjectivity, Isabella Whitney demands a primary place. The sales of the Copy of a letter must have been sufficient to warrant Jones's taking a second, more deeply committed chance on this woman poet. In 1567, a volume appeared on the London bookstalls, purporting to be The Copy of a letter, lately written in meeter, by a yonge Gentilwoman: To her unconstant Lover, With an Admonition to al yong Gentilwomen, and to all other Mayds in general to beware of mennes flattery. The sirens in the accompanying woodcut are depicted as mer-persons, with human torsos and fish tails. Whitney's Sweet Nosgay opens and closes with the speaker essentially isolated from those possibly 'spightful' inner circles of London marked by privileged class and financial security.
