“Optimism of the Will”: Isabella Whitney and Utopia

Abstract

Isabella Whitney's “Wyll” has been misrecognized generically because temporal utopias–of which her poem is the first instance–are not supposed to exist in the sixteenth century. Because women had a different relationship to the social and economic disruptions of emergent capitalism that gave birth to the genre in More's Utopia, however, female utopian thought is differently manifested as well. In the “Wyll,” the contradictions attending the moment of transition are embodied in the dissonant form of a poem that, in its first half, describes a city of abundance, and in its second, the dark side of the “same” London for the poor. Proposing that London should be abundant for all its inhabitants through a redistribution of the city's wealth and pleasures, the “Wyll” situates the utopian city in a yet unrealized future that readers, as executors, are enjoined to realize.

The girlhood of Shakespeare's sisters: gender transgression, adolescence

“…The narrator's awareness of social inequality leads her to hope for cross-class marriages that will work as a de facto means of redistributing wealth from rich widows to young men and from rich men to poor girls: Because of this attempt to redistribute wealth, Crystal Bartolovich has described Whitney as a proto-Leveller whose utopian vision imagines a world in which social wealth was shared according to need. 79 The key for us as today's critics is that we do not assume that we know in advance what 'girlishness' means, not only because the meaning has changed since the early modern period but also because 'girlhood' has multiple and unstable meanings. Feminists seeking to refuse patriarchal positions as 'women' can tap into a discourse of girlhood, but that same discourse can be used by anti-feminists seeking to reclaim girlhood as a patriarchal category.…”

“…Early modern speakers and writers felt the need for a more multivalent vocabulary with which to negotiate these issues, and we as twenty-fi rst-century feminist literary critics need access to a vocabulary that is at least as rich as theirs was. Pulter,Hester,Diane,120 The Queen and Concubine (Brome) 'girl',5,40,41,144 As You Like It,3,5,43,46,109,144 Hamlet,5 1 Henry VI,63,[79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86]95 Henry VIII,9,105,107,108,135,136 Merchant of Venice,5,163 Merry Wives of Windsor,145,163,168 Midsummer Night's Dream,130 Pericles,9,105,106,107,118,120,121,127,136 Richard III,4,115,145,161 Romeo and Juliet,…”

“…120 differentiated from men, 2-4, 9, 10, 18n32 education, 10, 35, 67, 68, 70, 128-9, 132, 149-50 gender preferences for, 121, 128-9, 132, 135 gendering of, 2-4, 9, 10, 18n32, 32-4, 41, 67 lexical history, 30-1, 32-3, 40 paired with girls, 41, 112-13, 161-2, 163 place in gender hierarchy, 2-4, 9, 10, 12, 36-7, 158-9 roaring 41 Cunningham,Hugh,[10][11]13,66,123,147 Curzan,Anne,34 Damsels,20,21,22,23,30,37,48,90,112,126 43,55,63,79,[87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94]96 Fudge,Erica,George,9,63,81,82,95; see also Adventures of Master F. J. Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines,[5][6][7] as adolescents, …”

‘Ah Famous Citie’: Women, Writing, and Early Modern London

“…London is presented here as a place of plenty, teeming with fresh meat, bread and beer, and Whitney even remembers the fish for those who still maintain the old pre-Reformation fasting habits ‘thrice a weeke’. Her poetic topography depicts more than the apparently superficial and material: through its reading of these signs, it conveys an impression of the religious and cultural patterns underlying them (Bartolovich, 2009).…”

“…With typically practical concern, she bequeaths to the city everything required for the sustenance of its inhabitants: London is presented here as a place of plenty, teeming with fresh meat, bread and beer, and Whitney even remembers the fish for those who still maintain the old pre-Reformation fasting habits 'thrice a weeke'. Her poetic topography depicts more than the apparently superficial and material: through its reading of these signs, it conveys an impression of the religious and cultural patterns underlying them (Bartolovich, 2009). Whitney's 'Wyll and Testament' has been described as 'a shopper's guide to Elizabethan London' (Stevenson and Davidson, 2001: 48), an aspect of the poem that goes well beyond the concern with food seen above.…”