ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how a few female storytellers in romances manipulate the often prohibitive rhetorical conditions they face into successful storytelling moments. For Mary Wroth and Anna Weamys, however, there is much more concern for the women themselves, both for their practical well-being and their speaking opportunities. In the case of Urania, for example, these authors reject sidney's allegorical treatment, for which neither Urania's presence nor her voice is necessary. Bringing closure to several of Philip Sidney's narrative threads, including Urania's uncertain future and Mopsa's tale, she focuses more on her female characters' tangible needs than on the development of the female voice generally. Significantly, however, by planning for the lady's education in the English language, the poem concedes that she will speak and thus implicitly acknowledges the increasing reality of female speech in sixteenth-century England. The storytellers' conformity to early modern notions of ideal womanhood distinguishes them from their less successful, or stereotypically "bad," storytelling counterparts.
