ABSTRACT
When we try to reconstruct an image of the Renaissance Englishwoman, what archetypes spring to mind? Most of us will probably visualize one of the many portraits of Elizabeth I, the virgin queen and icon of late sixteenthcentury England, emblem of what John Knox in 1558 called 'the monstrous regiment of women' (Knox A1r). Others might think of a less public and more familial 'regiment,' with the Renaissance mother heading ranks of children in descending order of height; we will recall many a family portrait or memorial sculpture in which the woman features in this role, often as one of several wives (chronologically speaking) to a long-lived patriarch. 1 We might, on the other hand, call to mind the visual image of the woman in peaceful domestic activity, most commonly sewing or perhaps-if books are to enter the picture-reading the bible or an appropriately devotional text (see Figure 1). The Renaissance woman is constructed for us by history and the evidence of the visual arts as either exceptional - the virgin queen with the heart and stomach of a king - or as domestic, bearing and bringing up children and upholding their (and her own) spiritual standards. How, in the spectrum of these existing stereotypes, do we begin to visualize the Renaissance woman as writer? What are the available icons here?
