Early Modern Women Writers in the Dutch Republic

Abstract

In a cultural climate that was conducive to female literacy yet not necessarily encouraging of writing, numerous Dutch women circulated and published their works. Because in the Dutch Republic literary production was not associated with the court, as it was elsewhere in Europe, most women writers were urban, educated, and of the upper middle class. They mainly published devotional prose and poetry, occasional poetry, lyric poetry to female friends, and, more rarely, plays. A small number of women writers were singled out for male praise, which was often couched in patriotic terms, but such praise also restricted what women could and could not say. In spite of this, the corpus of Dutch women’s writing is both varied and impressive, including the especially noteworthy works by the learned philosopher and theologian Anna Maria van Schurman. Van Schurman’s deep ambivalence with regard to her own fame shows that it could both incite and inhibit women’s writing.