Gillian Wright

Teaching Close Reading: A VLE-based Approach

This article discusses the effectiveness of using an approach based on a virtual learning environment (VLE) to enhance the close-reading skills of first-year English undergraduates. The first two sections explore the practical and theoretical issues involved in adopting such an approach; the third describes the design and functions of a VLE close-reading resource designed for this purpose; and the fourth and fifth elucidate the methodology and findings of a two-year research project which aimed to evaluate the resource’s effectiveness. Analysis of the findings shows: first, that student usage of the resource is significantly enhanced by tutor recommendation; second, that student usage strategies are highly instrumental (i.e. that students disproportionately choose texts likely to feature in the end-of-year exam); and third, that the expansion of the number of particular kinds of worked examples would increase the usefulness of the resource. The implications of these findings for use of the VLE resource are discussed.

Manuscript, Print, and Politics in Anne Finch's "Upon the Hurricane"

“Upon the Hurricane” is one of relatively few poems by Anne Finch to survive in several states of authorial revision. A response to the Great Storm of November 1703, it is also one of the first poems she is known to have written following the death of James II in September 1701. This article compares the early manuscript and print versions of the poem, reading them for evidence both of Finch’s practice as a poet and a reviser and of her complex political and emotional response to James’s death. “Upon the Hurricane” follows Jacobite orthodoxy in seeing the widespread destruction caused by the storm as confirmation of the nation’s perfidy in rebelling against its rightful king. It also indicates the limits of Finch’s Jacobitism through its failure to look to James’s son and heir for political redemption and its insistence that safety can only be found in God.

The Politics of Revision in Samuel Daniel's The Civil Wars

Samuel Daniels historical poem The Civil Wars has traditionally been regarded as a conservative text, committed in presentation and in practice to upholding the principle of hereditary right in monarchy. Such a view overlooks Daniels many complex revisions to the poem between its first appearance in print in 1595 and the final—though still unfinished—version published in 1609. Comparative analysis of the different printed editions of the poem shows that between 1595 and 1609 Daniels political priorities changed significantly, especially on the question of the role and legitimacy of kingship. Whereas the 1595 Civil Wars does indeed adopt a broadly conservative attitude to the rights of hereditary monarchs, the 1609 text of the poem no longer automatically endorses kingly authority but instead consistently privileges the monarchs commitment to the “publique good” and the just execution of the laws. This subtle but radical pattern of change culminates in Daniels vignette of Elizabeth Grey and Edward IV (1609, Book VIII), which departs from the poets sources in representing Greys resistance to Edwards attempted seduction in explicitly politicized terms. This observable shift in Daniels political values also foreshadows later aspects of his historiography in the prose Collection of the Historie of England (1618). (G.W.)

Women Reading Epictetus

Although little read today, the teachings of the Stoic thinker Epictetus enjoyed high levels of popularity in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when they were frequently associated with women readers. This article discusses the reasons why women of this period might have been encouraged to read Epictetus, as well as exploring the various ways in which writers such as Katherine Philips, Mary Chudleigh and Elizabeth Carter interpreted Epictetuss teachings. It also considers the significance of translation both in facilitating and limiting womens engagement with the ideas of classical philosophy.

Piety and Sociability in Early Modern Women's Letters

The letters of early modern women demonstrate that their experience of religion was essentially social, contrary to the impression created by much modern work on diaries or meditations. The stereotypical melancholic, pious lady is far from the ideal offered by spiritual advisors, women and men, in their correspondence. Letters demonstrate how women created networks of spiritual support within and beyond their families. Letters also testify to the agency exercised by early modern women in religious matters, particularly in their assumption of the role of religious advisor and in their engagement with ecclesiastical politics. While this is far from showing that religion empowered all early modern women, it does offer a corrective to the unduly gloomy view of the role of religion in such womens lives. Letters provide indispensable testimony to the social nature of womens responses to the changing religious culture and politics of the eighteenth century.

A computational approach to the poetry of Katherine Philips

ABSTRACT Katherine Philips’s poetry survives in several early manuscript and printed sources. While these witnesses have been extensively studied by literary scholars, much about their textual origins and relationships remains unclear. In this article, the authors apply computational methods to analyse such aspects of these witnesses as similarity, compilation and organization. The authors also consider how use of such methods can shed light on long-standing literary questions about Philipss poems.