LADY MARY WROTH’S PAMPHILIA TO AMPHILANTHUS: A FEMALE VOICE IN THE MALE TRADITION

Abstract

Lady Mary Wroth(1587? - 1651?) as a female author of the Jacobean period did what was distinctive of her sex in a period when women were restricted to the domestic sphere devoid of their authentic voice: she appropriated the sonnet tradition, a genre allotted to men ever since its invention, and presented a female subjectivity through her lines. What differentiates Wroth from her contemporaries is that in her sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus,she creates a female voice within a male genre without merely imitating her predecessors but fashioning her own style to reveal her posture and, in so doing she goes further than her female counterparts who solely deal with religious works and translations. Wrothis the first English woman to write a complete sonnet sequence and her subversive work deserves more scholarly attention. In this context, I will attempt to demonstrate the distinctive qualities of Wroth’s selected sonnets suggesting that she deviates from the male sonneteers in order to create private space for herself within her lines in which she can reveal the inner self in the suffocating atmosphere of the Jacobean society.