Askew… incredible

For some reason before reading Anne Askews Ballad, I looked up her background first and all I can say is wow.  The torture she had to indure and still refused to give in to the interrogation of her beliefs; resulting in a brutal  death.    I think her as a person impresses me more then her work.  Also it was neat to think that she wrote the Ballad while she was imprisoned.  I found the Ballad quite powerful and she writes in a very masculine way. Unfortunatly I was not there for class discussion so maybe this was brought up. I wonder if it was intentional for her to write in a masculine way? On the other hand I do know that Anne Askew as a women writer is my favorite so far. Perhaps I will consider her for my library assignment.

Queen Elizabeth I was interesting to look at as well.  I found her history more interesting than her writings.  However, one paticular quote from Elizabeth I really enjoyed was “Never think you fortune can bear the sway. Where virtue’s force can cause her to obey.”   The quote is self explanitory and Queen Elizabeth seemed that she was very careful of what to say when reading her essays and her other works.  Clearly she knew the world of politics at an early age and was very infulential as women writer and as a monarch.

My favorite from the required readings was  Isabella Whitney  “The Admonition by the Author to all Young Gentlewomen: And to all other Maids being in Love.”  I found the poem flowed very smoothly and it was not a typical love story. To sum it up she was saying be careful because love can hurt.  However, not too make her poem sound that simplistic it was very cleverly written and a hint of satire throughout the poem was very enjoyable to read.

Good O’l english

The Wife’s Lament was enjoyable to understand because I just learned how to read old english from another class. On the other hand, I did find the translations pretty accurate. Although the meaning does get lost sometimes even with just one simple word missused but in this case the translations were pretty accurate.  When reading The Wife’s Lament, I would like to think that it was from a female narrator, however, that was proabably not the case since women were limited towards education during the era.  Very quickly through the first few lines one can get the tone of the poem farily well.  The poem was kind of depressing however, it shows an oppressive woman and her current seperation with her husband.  I just wish once in any poem during this time era that  a woman would be super pumped that her husband left, because it gets a bit tiresome that the patrirach is viewed constantly as superior and women always have to dwell because they are incomplete without a man. 

I found it interesting when discussing about “The Wife’s Lament” that this was probably written during the time period where women were sent into tribes to marry someone and this could be a woman in this situation. All in all it was a short poem but a very detailed towards the narrators emotions.

In “Lanval”  the only thing I liked is that it was rewriting the courtly love tradition. Since I was in a class that beat this particular topic to death in a good way, it is interesting how Marie De France changed it around.  I did not like this as much as “The Wife’s Lament”, however, it does show the role of a woman in this particular female writer.