Early Modern Women's Writing

Paper Summary:

This essay discusses: the redemptive effects of writing poetry in Pamphilia's seemingly entrapped predicament; the particular usefulness of the sonnet form and sequence in relation to Wroth's subject matter; and the limitations of art as offering resolution but no "cure" for love's pain.

From the Paper:

"Pamphilia, as a character to whom Wroth designates the role of writer as well as speaker of poetry, gives a powerful account of both the limitations and empowerment involved in the process of creating art. The peculiar mix of the confrontation of distressing emotion and the gaining of artistic fulfillment has been described by Quilligan as characteristic of the entire sonnet genre: she writes about Wroth's image of blood drops as perhaps constituting "an image for sadomasochistic sonneteering itself" . The majority of explicit references to writing within the sonnet sequence, as with the title quotation, express Pamphilia's frustration about the usefulness of producing poetry. Despite the lucid exposition, "grief is not cured by art" , which comes early in the sequence, there is still a creative force which lures the poet-persona to keep on writing. Seamus Heaney has famously posited the power of poetry in terms of redress and its therapeutic potential: "poetry can be as potentially redemptive and possibly as illusory as love" . This essay will discuss: the redemptive effects of writing poetry in Pamphilia's seemingly entrapped predicament; the particular usefulness of the sonnet form and sequence in relation to Wroth's subject matter; and the limitations of art as offering resolution but no "cure" for love's pain."

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