Tigner- English 4399 Early Modern Women and Literary Production

Professor Amy L. Tigner, University of Texas, Arlington

Engl. 4399: Early Modern Women and Literary Production

In this course, we will be reading early modern women’s texts, in manuscript form, to consider the cultural and political nodal points of gendered writing in a highly patriarchal society. Most women’s writing courses have been primarily concerned with tradition literature: poetry, non-fiction prose, plays, and novels written by women who have formed the canon in this period, as established by feminist scholars in the 1980s and 90s. Instead we will be exploring other kinds of writing, particularly letters and, receipt books (what the early moderns called cook books), to investigate a larger sense of literacy, writing and the concerns of women in this period. This class will participate in two related digital humanities projects: Early Modern Recipes Online Collective (EMROC) run by a group of international scholars interested in recipes and with Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO) which is the project of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. In both of these cases, students will be transcribing and coding the manuscripts to create accessible databases. We will also be collaborating and communicating with Professor Lisa Smith’s students at the University of Essex to talk about 17th century recipes, their strange ingredients, and the culture surrounding the recipes. Students will study 16th and 17th century handwriting (paleography) so that they will have the skill set to work in the digital archives.

 

 

This syllabus is subject to change by the discretion of the instructor.

 

Date Reading Assignment and theme Activity Work Due
Th

8/25

Introduction to the class

Introduction to paleography and the Cambridge Handwriting site

 

 

  Assignment:

Find a feather that could be made into a quill.

 

Tu

8/30

Read: Herman’s A Short History of Early Modern England: British Literature in Context, Chapter one p. 1-26

 

Wolfe “Woman’s handwriting”

in Cambridge Companion 21-39

 

Reading Quiz

Ink recipes: Granville pp. 42, 101 (spanish),102,103

 

What goes into making ink

 

Cambridge handwriting

 

Paleography and Ink

 

 

Assignment from Cambridge Handwriting
Th

9/1

Read: Herman’s A Short History of Early Modern England: British Literature in Context, Chapter Two p. 27-58

Reading Quiz

 

Paleography

More on alphabets

 

 

 

 

Cambridge Handwriting

 

Italics and Secretary.

Assignments from Cambridge Handwriting site
Tu

9/6

Read: Herman A Short History of Early Modern England: British Literature in Context, Chapter

Three p. 59-91

Daybell The Material Letter in Early Modern England “Materials and Tools of Letter Writing” (Blackboard)

 

Reading Quiz

Ink and Quill:

 

Read: http://irongallink.org/igi_indexd7ce.html

 

Quill making

Ink Making at 11:45 p.m.

 

Ink recipes: Granville pp. 42, 101 (spanish),102,103 (handout)

 

 

Making Ink and quills Assignments from Cambridge Handwriting site

 

Th

9/8

Read: Herman A Short History of Early Modern England: British Literature in Context,   Chapter Four p. 92-114

 

Letters

Wolfe “ The Practice of Letter Locking”

(Blackboard essays)

Read: Daybell “Letters”

Cambridge Companion, 181-193

Reading Quiz

 

 

Introduction to Letters  
Tu

9/13

Read: Herman, A Short History of Early Modern England: British Literature in Context, Chapter Five p. 115-148

Daybell, “Female literacy and the social conventions of women’s letter-writing in England, 1540-1603” in Early modern women’s letter writing, 1450-1700 (Blackboard)

 

Reading Quiz

 

Cambridge Handwriting

  Due: Alphabet

Anne Broughton letter transcribed

Th 9/15 Read: Herman, A Short History of Early Modern England: British Literature in Context, Chapter Six, p. 149-180

 

Reading Quiz

 

Background of Bess of Hardwick

Paleography test

 

Read: Maxwell, “Lives and Letters”

(Blackboard)

 

Letters from Bess of Hardwick correspondence.

See http://luna.folger.edu to look up letters by manuscript number

 

 

Letter from Dorothy Stafford to Bess of Hardwick

Folger MSS.X.d.428 128

 

Letters  
Tu

9/20

Read: Herman, A Short History of Early Modern England: British Literature in Context, Chapter Seven, p. 181-213

Maylay “Elizabethan Court Culture..”

Group 1: Letter from Wm Cavendish to Bess of Hardwick

Reading Quiz

Folger MSS X.d. 428 (24)

 

Group 2: Letter from Mary Talbot to

Bess of Hardwick

Folger MSS. X.d.428 (118)

 

Letters Letter Transcription due
Th

9/22

Read: Herman, A Short History of Early Modern England: British Literature in Context, Chapter Eight, p. 214-251

 

Reading quiz

 

Group 1: Letter from Mary Talbot to

Bess of Hardwick

Folger MSS. X.d.428 (119)

 

Group 2: Earl of Essex to Bess of Hardwick

Folger MSS X.d.428 (26)

Letters Letter Transcription Due
Tu

9/27

Introduction to Recipes and

Chocolate as a case study

Read: Carruth/Tigner “Recipes as Vernacular Literature”

Read blog: “Chacolet” by Connell and Nicosia http://collation.folger.edu/2016/01/chacolet

 

Recipes Letter Transcription Due

 

 

Th

9/29

7 min. presentations of papers with illustrations from the letters using power point.

 

 

 

 

  Due: 500-word critical essay on one of the letters we transcribed
Tu

10/4

Read: Leong and Pennell “Recipe Collecting…”(Blackboard)

Read: Blog: “Chocolate in the Classroom” by Amanda Herbert https://recipes.hypotheses.org/3114

 

Recipes for chocolate:

Transcribe: Fanshawe

Winche

Granville

Making a chocolate drink—the 17th century way.

Chocolate making at noon.

 
Th

10/6

Read: Pennell “Perfecting Practice” (Blackboard)

Read Wall “Women in the Household” Cambridge Companion 97-109

Begin working with Dromio and transcriptions for EMROC

 

   
Tu

10/11

Read: Sherman_

“Reading the Matriarchive”

(in Blackboard)

 

Dromio and transcription: Baker

 

   
Th

10/13

Read: Field “Many Hands Hands”

(in Blackboard)

 

Dromio and transcription: Baker

 

  Short paper due: 500 words on a recipe you transcribed
Tu

10/18

Read: Wall “Literacies: Handwriting and Handiwork” In Recipes for Thought (Blackboard)

 

Dromio and transcription: Baker

 

   
Th

10/20

Read: DiMeo and Laroche “On Elizabeth Isham’s Oil of Swallows” (Blackboard)

 

Dromio and transcription: Baker

 

Bibliography workshop

Abstract Workshop

Discussion of final paper

 
Tu

10/25

Read: Goldstein “Woolley’s Mouse” (Blackboard)

Transcriptions : Baker

 

 

   

 

Th

10/27

Read: Fissell “Women in healing spaces” Cambridge Companion 124-139

 

How to write the Abstract and the Annotated bibliography

 

 

  Short paper due: 500 words on a recipe you transcribed
Tu

11/1

Read: Tigner “Preserving Nature” (Blackboard)

 

Distillation day

Distillation of waters (workshop at 12 pm) Annotated Bibliography

(10 sources)

 

Th

11/3

Read: Wall “Knowledge: Recipes and Experimental Cultures” (Blackboard)

Transcriptions

  Abstract due: 250 words
Tu

11/8

No class

 

   
Wednesday

11/9

Transcribathon: This is not a regular class day, but you will need to try to participate in the Transcribathon, either in the assigned room (Carlisle 212) with the group or on your own.    
Th 11/10 No class   Transcription Assignments
Tu

11/15

 

Watch class videos;

Transcriptions

Dromio and transcription: Baker

 

  Video of a 17th century recipe you made.

Transcription Assignments

Th

11/17

Watch class videos

Transcription

Dromio and transcription: Baker

 

  5 page draft of final paper due

 

Tu

11/22

Writing Workshop    
Th

11/24

No class

Thanksgiving

   
Tu

11/29

Presentation of final paper (10 min)

with power point

 

   
Th

12/1

Presentation of final papers (10 min)

with power point

   
Tu

12/6

Cooking from the Archives   Final paper due before class on Blackboard

Student Learning Outcomes:

To become:     Better Critical readers, writers and thinkers

Archival researchers

Participants in two international Digital Humanities Projects

Knowledgeable about the early modern period

Knowledgeable about women’s writing in the early modern period

 

 

 

Major assignments/tests and grading

10 Annotated bibliographies for critical works (using template) due on the day of the reading 20%

2 short (500 word essays) 10% each for 20%

Transcription test 5%

Individual and Group Transcriptions, Videos, Small Assignments 20%

Final presentation 5%

Final paper 30%

 

 

Required Text:

Knoppers, Laura. The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.

Herman, Peter. A Short History of Early Modern England: British Literature in Context, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.