{"product_id":"sex-and-style-elizabeth-scott-baumann-9780691272016","title":"Sex and Style: Literary Criticism and Gender in Early Modern England","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA new literary history that places women writers at the center of poetic theory and practice in English literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries \u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMany of the terms we use today to describe poetic style originated in the early modern period: original ideas, feminine rhyme, irregular rhythm, smooth verse. These terms were often wielded in negative and gendered ways--to write soft or irregular verses was said to be a feminine fault, and to write strong or original ones a masculine virtue. In \u003ci\u003eSex and Style\u003c\/i\u003e, Elizabeth Scott-Baumann argues that the language of poetry was always gendered, in ways that devalued women poets and feminine style; and that women, writing despite--and against--this sexist rhetoric, were important theorists of literature. Scott-Baumann documents and analyzes texts by women literary theorists, including Anne Southwell, Lucy Hutchinson, Katherine Philips, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn, and puts their writings into dialogue with such well-known early modern poets and theorists of poetry as Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, Abraham Cowley, and John Milton. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eScott-Baumann situates these women in the vanguard of the poetics of this period. Women who wrote theory and criticism--the forms that tell readers which writers to read and value--were among the leading voices defining poetic style and the place of poetry in society. Examining a wealth of critical writings by women, many of them newly found in prefaces and other paratextual works, Scott-Baumann shows that the history of style is also a history of exclusion and inclusion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Elizabeth Scott-Baumann\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0691272018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780691272016\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Princeton University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/30\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 192\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover","brand":"Elizabeth Scott-Baumann","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":46838449242367,"sku":"9780691272016","price":99.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_479ba4e1-d83f-41e9-99d1-1b16d700f7b7.jpg?v=1746589869","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/sex-and-style-elizabeth-scott-baumann-9780691272016","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}