Reframing Feminine Modesty, Complaint, and Desire in the More Family

Thomas More educated women of his circle to a level equal to that of leading male humanists in his day, encouraging proficiency and fluency in rhetoric and declamation, and tutoring female scholars in political advocacy. Morean scholarship tends to focus on one particular woman, text or era, but fails to appreciate the familial legacy in rhetorical practice evident throughout several generations of More women. By considering their textual oeuvre as a chronological whole, the far-reaching literary legacy framed by women utilising feminine modesty tropes and political complaint is evident, broadening the magnitude of the More women's textual practices across centuries.