This study explores why women in the English Renaissance wrote so few sonnet sequences, in comparison with the traditions of Continental women writers and of English male authors. In this focus on a single genre, Rosalind Smith examines the relationship between gender and genre in the early modern period, and the critical assumptions currently underpinning questions of feminine agency within genre.
'Smith shows that precedents of published women's writing can be as inhibiting as enabling, and therefore disrupts any smoothly progressive model of women's literary history.' - Times Literary Supplement
'Rosalind Smith has produced a well-organized and effective work, with much to recommend it...The strength of the work lies not only in its clearly defined remit but also in Smith's ability to range effortlessly from close textual analysis to a consideration of the wider context for these works, and to dovetail literary criticism with historical insight.' - Lucinda Becker, Modern Language Review
'Rosalind Smith has produced a well-organized and effective work, with much to recommend it...The strength of the work lies not only in its clearly defined remit but also in Smith's ability to range effortlessly from close textual analysis to a consideration of the wider context for these works, and to dovetail literary criticism with historical insight.' - Lucinda Becker, Modern Language Review