Women and Romance Fiction in the English Renaissance (review)

Helen Hackett has produced a valuable study of the multifaceted relationship between women and the early modern genre of romance. Weakened only by its endeavor to include everything about an important topic in a modestly-sized study, Women and Romance Fiction in the English Renaissance offers readers important information about the authors, readers, and content of the many romances produced in England during this period. Useful for both specialists and newcomers to this field, Hackett's book provides insight into women's reading and writing practices in addition to discussing the ways that female characters and concerns are described in these narratives. Her study, therefore, makes a significant contribution to several areas of current scholarly interest.

In her introduction and first chapter, she examines claims by Louis Wright and others that identify women as the predominant audience for romances in England and the Continent. Noting that almost all of these narratives were actually written by men, Hackett questions the traditional assumption that women were the primary readers of romance fiction in this era. Citing the difficulties incumbent on determining exactly how many women were literate, and reminding her audience that the texts claiming female readership were themselves "literary texts" (6), Hackett argues convincingly that common representations of romance-reading women "are exaggerations and caricatures with clear rhetorical purposes, probably constructed by male authors implicitly addressing a male audience" (19). Barring new historical data, it is unlikely that we will ever have a clear picture of female literacy during this time. Hackett's assertions, therefore, provide an important corrective to conventional speculation about the numbers of women reading these texts.

Although her short chapter tracing correlations and disjunctures between modern romance and Renaissance texts does not advance her argument significantly, Hackett's subsequent chapters offer important background on the Continental romances that influenced much English fiction. She also provides useful readings of narratives by Lyly, Rich, Greene, Sidney, Spenser, and Wroth. While she does not discuss Shakespeare's dramatic romances in much detail, one of the chapters that will most interest readers of this journal focuses on "Shakespeare's romance sources."As noted, these wide-ranging sections cover substantial territory in short order, but they still illuminate a variety of interrelated questions concerning early modern women and their relationship to Renaissance romance.

In her discussion of late-sixteenth-century novellas, for instance, Hackett notes the popularity of these forms of writing, as well as relates the concerns prompted by their uncertain "moral propriety" (42). In the novellas, for example, she describes tensions between the "moral didacticism" (37) often found in the texts and the criticism leveled against their "'bold bawdrye'" (42) by writers such as Roger Ascham. She resists the temptation to generalize about how women are portrayed in these narratives, noting many instances where "women are prominent only as the objects of masculine actions and the vehicles of masculine interests" (35), in contrast to texts such as Gascoigne's Adventures of Master F.J., where "women exercise considerable power" (45). Concluding that "the fashion for novellas, then, moved through several phases" (54), Hackett offers a concise accounting of this fiction that will be particularly welcomed by the many scholars who have not read these texts recently.

Her next chapter, which focuses on Spanish and Portuguese romances, plays an important role in her overall argument but will also prove invaluable for readers who are currently engaged with Lady Mary Wroth's Urania, since Wroth often drew inspiration from these stories. Although these texts were extremely popular during the period in question, they are not as widely known now. Nevertheless, Hackett rightly emphasizes their centrality in issues involving women and romance in early modern England. These texts are almost unimaginably lengthy. Accordingly, Hackett's description and analysis of their importance provides a necessary summary for those scholars who are interested in these narratives but...