A PLACE FOR WOMEN: NEGOTIATING ANNA HUME’S TRIUMPHS AND WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES IN REFORMED SCOTLAND
Date
2020-09-15
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
0000-0003-0589-8078
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
In a seminal 2004 article, Sarah M. Dunnigan explored the “dutiful and dissenting” desires of the seventeenth-century Scottish author Anna Hume (120). The materials for Hume’s biography are slim; apart from her long efforts editing and advocating for her deceased father David Hume of Godscroft’s history of the noble Douglas family, she is best known for her translation. Dunnigan proposes that “Hume’s desire to translate I Trionfi in the first half of the seventeenth century may have been fostered by the intellectual and cultural conditions of contemporary women’s writing” (122). This suggestion merits further research and demonstration. By connecting Dunnigan’s notion of fostering to the cultural conditions of early seventeenth-century Scotland at the time of publication, this paper offers the contention that Hume’s translation of the Trionfi can be read through a wider lens; that is, as the creation of a wholly female, Scottish literary space in which readers are able to witness, engage with, and attempt to understand the complexities and incongruencies of early modern Scottish women’s lived experiences.
Description
Keywords
Scottish Literature, Female Authorship, Literary Spaces, Early Modern Literature
Citation
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
English
Program
English