Abstract
Isabella Whitney was the first woman to publish secular verse in English, and her second volume of poetry, A Sweet Nosegay (1573), deploys smell to launch a moral critique of the economic forces and cultural values that leave a woman writer without the material means to support herself. Utilizing smell first to mark her liminal emergence as an author, she subverts traditional associations of smell with women and domestic work and then goes on to emphasize both the material presence of her embodied self as well the dangers that surround her, ultimately forecasting the smell of her decaying corpse. She manipulates cultural associations with olfaction to fashion herself as a woman writer and to lament the fact that she cannot support herself through her labor.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 131-143 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Senses and Society |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2010 |
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Keywords
- Isabella Whitney
- Materiality
- Renaissance
- Smell
- Women's writing
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Communication
- Cultural Studies
Cite this
Isabella Whitney's Nosegay and the smell of women's writing. / Fox, Cora.
In: Senses and Society, Vol. 5, No. 1, 03.2010, p. 131-143.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Isabella Whitney's Nosegay and the smell of women's writing
AU - Fox, Cora
PY - 2010/3
Y1 - 2010/3
N2 - Isabella Whitney was the first woman to publish secular verse in English, and her second volume of poetry, A Sweet Nosegay (1573), deploys smell to launch a moral critique of the economic forces and cultural values that leave a woman writer without the material means to support herself. Utilizing smell first to mark her liminal emergence as an author, she subverts traditional associations of smell with women and domestic work and then goes on to emphasize both the material presence of her embodied self as well the dangers that surround her, ultimately forecasting the smell of her decaying corpse. She manipulates cultural associations with olfaction to fashion herself as a woman writer and to lament the fact that she cannot support herself through her labor.
AB - Isabella Whitney was the first woman to publish secular verse in English, and her second volume of poetry, A Sweet Nosegay (1573), deploys smell to launch a moral critique of the economic forces and cultural values that leave a woman writer without the material means to support herself. Utilizing smell first to mark her liminal emergence as an author, she subverts traditional associations of smell with women and domestic work and then goes on to emphasize both the material presence of her embodied self as well the dangers that surround her, ultimately forecasting the smell of her decaying corpse. She manipulates cultural associations with olfaction to fashion herself as a woman writer and to lament the fact that she cannot support herself through her labor.
KW - Isabella Whitney
KW - Materiality
KW - Renaissance
KW - Smell
KW - Women's writing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77049088712&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=77049088712&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2752/174589310X12549020528374
DO - 10.2752/174589310X12549020528374
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77049088712
VL - 5
SP - 131
EP - 143
JO - Senses and Society
JF - Senses and Society
SN - 1745-8927
IS - 1
ER -