The Difference Roles Among Male And Female Poets

In the first chapter it deals with the contemporary issues of gender. The dissertation title is: the different voices for women in English Renaissance poetry. The notion of gender relates to the fixed gender roles of that period. This assignment mainly deals with the issue of how gender roles are different among male and female poets. In addition, to narrow the research only four Elizabethan poets, who were specialised in religious poetry. Poets such as John Donne, George Herbert, Mary Sidney Herbert and Aemelia Lanyer. The reason for choosing these poets is because their work sometimes portrays women in a negative and positive in their religious poetry. This assignment tries to achieve to see the various voices for women in Elizabethan religious poetry.

The Elizabethan period had certain cultural expectations for men and women. In other words, women were treated differently than men, who were able o have their own stable careers. In addition, men from upper class families such as Sidney and Herbert were educated in Latin and Greek. However, there was a certain amount of poetry written by women. Poets such as, Mary Sidney, who edited her late brother Philip’s work, and also translated poetry from Latin into English. The other female poet is Aemilia Lanyer was under the guidance of the countess of Cumberland and was taught reading and writing skills, which was only obliged to men. However, these poets were living in a period where there were strong cultural expectations, such as women should not pursue a male-centred career, instead to take care of the household. Whereas men were expected to be in epic battles and work to earn money.

The religious position of the four speakers varies. The fact of their dif...

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...f the speaker is it is filled by a flood of anger. The image of water signifies calmness, however, it is used as destructive. Thus, Mary Sidney portrays women as calm people. Whereas she portrays men as negative. Therefore, she gives women a voice by illuminating as misunderstood people.

To sum it up, these poets portray women in various ways, for instance, Donne depicts woman as a holy place, whereas, Lanyer gives women a voice by describing them as pure people. On the other hand, Herbert describes women as love and a guide in life. In relation, to Mary Sidney she depicts women as powerful, but have no voices due to men’s’ corruption on earth. Overall, these poets portray various ideas on gender and how we perceive gender roles. In other words a gender role are not fixed in that period, but was portrayed differently in renaissance religious poetry.