Voice to Ease Her

Abstract

The depth and range of emotions in Lady Mary Wroth's sonnet sequence, Pamphllla to Amphllanthus, intrigued me from the first moment I encountered her poetry in a graduate seminar at Oklahoma State University. As I began to consider her work as part of the poetic tradition of Renaissance sonnet sequences, such as her uncle Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, I was disheartened to reallze that many critics have focused on Wroth's poetry merely to search for interesting autobiographical details. Other critics have become enthralled with the seventeenth-century scandal which surrounded the publication of her work, diverting attention away from the capabilities of a female poet attempting to respond creatively and critically under unquestionable societal constraints. Understanding that Wroth wrote in a social and literary climate that insisted upon silence, obedience, and chastity as the definitive qualities of a virtuous woman, I began to question what difference the female voice of Pamphilla makes to Pamphilla to Amphllanthus--a sequence which is part of a male-dominated tradition. Reading the poems as the self-exploration of the sonnet speaker, I encountered ambivalence in the voice due to the conflict between the powerful role of the sonneteer and the limitations of a seventeenth-century woman. This study does not try to prove that Lady Mary Wroth wrote very early feminist poetry; it does, however, aim to present Wroth's innovations through a discussion of Pamphilla' s various responses to her role as female sonneteer.