TY - JOUR

T1 - "Neither Maide, Wife or Widow"

T2 - Ester Sowernam and the Book of Esther

AU - Carruthers, Jo

PY - 2003

Y1 - 2003

N2 - Ester Sowernam's pamphlet, Ester Hath Hang'd Haman (1617), although explicitly anti-misogynistic, has been treated with suspicion in feminist studies because its title-page riddle and pseudonym problematize female authorship. This article discusses the issues surrounding authorship that the pamphlet provokes, and more specifically the tension between biological and discursively constructed identity that concerns gender studies. It also provides the most extensive contextualization of the work to date: a reception history of its prime intertext, the Book of Esther. By providing the framework through which the pamphlet would most likely have been read, both the pamphlet and the hitherto unsolved riddle are illuminated.

AB - Ester Sowernam's pamphlet, Ester Hath Hang'd Haman (1617), although explicitly anti-misogynistic, has been treated with suspicion in feminist studies because its title-page riddle and pseudonym problematize female authorship. This article discusses the issues surrounding authorship that the pamphlet provokes, and more specifically the tension between biological and discursively constructed identity that concerns gender studies. It also provides the most extensive contextualization of the work to date: a reception history of its prime intertext, the Book of Esther. By providing the framework through which the pamphlet would most likely have been read, both the pamphlet and the hitherto unsolved riddle are illuminated.

U2 - 10.1080/0144035042000328879

DO - 10.1080/0144035042000328879

M3 - Journal article

VL - 26

SP - 321

EP - 343

JO - Prose Studies : History, Theory, Criticism

JF - Prose Studies : History, Theory, Criticism

SN - 0144-0357

IS - 3

ER -