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Lady
Mary Wroth (née Sidney; 18 October 1587 – 1651/3) was an English noblewoman and
a poet of the English Renaissance. A member of a distinguished literary family,
Lady Wroth was among the first female English writers to have achieved an
enduring reputation. Mary Wroth was niece to Mary Herbert née Sidney (Countess
of Pembroke and one of the most distinguished women writers and patrons of the
16th century), and to Sir Philip Sidney, a famous Elizabethan poet-courtier.
Lady
Mary Wroth was the first Englishwoman to write a complete sonnet sequence as
well as an original work of prose fiction. Although earlier women writers of
the 16th century had mainly explored the genres of translation, dedication, and
epitaph, Wroth openly transgressed the traditional boundaries by writing
secular love poetry and romances. Her verse was celebrated by the leading poets
of the age, including Ben Jonson, George Chapman, Josuah Sylvester, and others.
Despite the controversy over the publication in 1621 of her major work of
fiction, The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania, Wroth continued writing a second
part of her romance and composed a five-act pastoral drama, Love’s Victory.
Biography
The
eldest daughter of Sir Robert Sidney and Lady Barbara Gamage, Wroth was
probably born on October 18, 1587, a date derived from the Sidney
correspondence. She belonged to a prominent literary family, known for its
patronage of the arts. Her uncle, Sir Philip Sidney, was a leading Elizabethan
poet, statesman, and soldier, whose tragic death in the Netherlands elevated
him to the status of national hero. Wroth was influenced by some of her uncle’s
literary works, including his sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella (1591); a
prose romance, intermingled with poetry, The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia
(existing in two distinct versions, the second of which was published in 1590);
and a pastoral entertainment, The Lady of May (written in 1578 or 1579).
Wroth’s
father, Sir Robert Sidney, was also a poet (his verse survived in a single
manuscript and did not appear in print until 1984). Following the death of
Philip, Robert was appointed to fill his brother’s post as governor of Flushing
in the Netherlands, where he served throughout much of Wroth’s childhood. He
kept in close touch with his family through visits and letters; his friend and
adviser Rowland Whyte wrote Sidney frequent reports concerning his eldest
child, whom he affectionately nicknamed “little Mall.”
Because
her father, Robert Sidney, was governor of Flushing, Wroth spent much of her
childhood at the home of Mary Sidney, Baynard's Castle in London, and at
Penshurst Place. Penshurst Place was one of the great country houses in the
Elizabethan and Jacobean period. It was a centre of literary and cultural
activity and its gracious hospitality is praised in Ben Jonson's famous poem To
Penshurst. During a time when most women were illiterate, Wroth had the
privilege of a formal education, which was obtained from household tutors under
the guidance of her mother. With her family connections, a career at court was
all but inevitable. Wroth danced before Queen Elizabeth on a visit to Penshurst
and again in court in 1602. At this time a likeness of her as a girl in a group
portrait of Lady Sidney and her children was painted by Marcus Gheeraerts the
Younger in 1596, and is now on display at Penshurst. As a young woman, Lady
Mary belonged to Queen Anne’s intimate circle of friends and actively participated
in masques and entertainments.
On
27 September 1604, King James I married Mary to Sir Robert Wroth of Loughton
Hall. The marriage was not happy; there were issues between the two beginning
with difficulties over her father’s payment of her dowry. In a letter written
to his wife, Sir Robert Sidney described different meetings with Robert Wroth,
who was often distressed by the behaviour of Mary shortly after their marriage.
Robert Wroth appeared to have been a gambler, philanderer and a drunkard. More
evidence of the unhappy union comes from poet and friend Ben Jonson, who noted
that ‘my Lady Wroth is unworthily married on a Jealous husband’. Various
letters from Lady Mary to Queen Anne also refer to the financial losses her
husband had sustained during their time together.
During
her marriage, Mary became known for her literary endeavours and also for her
performances in several masques. In 1605 she danced at the Whitehall Banqueting
House in The Masque of Blackness, which was designed by Ben Jonson and Inigo
Jones. Mary Wroth joined the Queen and her friends in the production; all of
whom painted their skin black to portray Ethiopian nymphs who called themselves
the 'twelve daughters of Niger'. The masque was very successful and was the
first in a long series of similar court entertainments. The ‘twelve daughters
of Niger’ also appeared in The Masque of Beauty in 1608, also designed by
Jonson and Jones. However, despite the success there were some less than
favourable reviews, some referring to the women's portrayal of the daughters of
Niger as ugly and unconvincing.[9]
In
February 1614 Mary gave birth to a son James: a month after this her husband
Robert Wroth died of gangrene leaving Mary deeply in debt. Two years later
Wroth's son died causing Mary to lose the Wroth estate to John Wroth, the next
male heir to the entail. There is no evidence to suggest that Wroth was
unfaithful to her husband, but after his death she entered a relationship with
her cousin William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke. Mary and William shared
interests in arts and literature and had been childhood friends. They had at
least two illegitimate children, a daughter Catherine and son William. In
"Herbertorum Prosapia", a seventeenth-century manuscript compilation
of the history of the Herbert family (held at the Cardiff Library), Sir Thomas
Herbert – a cousin of the Earl of Pembroke – recorded William Herbert's
paternity of Wroth's two children. Mary Wroth's alleged relationship with
William Herbert and her children born from that union are referenced in her
work, The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania. It is also claimed that William
Herbert was a favourite of Queen Anne and that she is the reason he gained the
position of the King's Lord Chamberlain in 1615. In Urania, Wroth repeatedly returns
to references to a powerful and jealous Queen who exiles her weaker rival from
the court in order to obtain her lover, causing many critics to believe this
referenced
tension
between Queen Anne and Wroth over the love of Herbert.
The
publication of the book in 1621 was a succès de scandale, as it was widely (and
with some justification) viewed as a roman à clef. The diffuse plot is
organized around relations between Pamphilia and her wandering lover,
Amphilanthus, and most critics consider it to contain significant
autobiographical elements. Although Wroth claimed that she never had any
intention of publishing the book, she was heavily criticized by powerful
noblemen for depicting their private lives under the guise of fiction. However,
her period of notoriety was brief after the scandal aroused by these allusions
in her romance; Urania was withdrawn from sale by December 1621. Two of the few
authors to acknowledge this work were Ben Jonson and Edward Denny. Jonson, a
friend and colleague of Mary Wroth praised both Wroth and her works in
"Sonnet to the noble Lady, the Lady Mary Wroth." Jonson claims that
copying Wroth's works he not only became a better poet, but a better lover.
Denny on the other hand provides a very negative critique of Wroth's work; he
accused her of slander in a satiric poem, calling her a
"hermaphrodite" and a "monster". While Wroth returned fire
in a poem of her own, the notoriety of the episode may have contributed to her
low profile in the last decades of her life. There was also a second half of
Urania, which was published for the first time in 1999, the original manuscript
of which now resides in the Newberry Library in Chicago. According to Shelia T.
Cavanaugh, the second portion of the work was never prepared by Wroth for actual
publication and the narrative contains many inconsistencies and is somewhat
difficult to read.
After
the publication issues surrounding Urania, Wroth left King James's court and
was later abandoned by William Herbert. There is little known about Wroth's
later years but it is known that she continued to face major financial
difficulties for the remainder of her life. Wroth died in either 1651 or 1653.
Mary is commemorated in Loughton by the naming of a footpath adjacent to
Loughton Hall as Lady Mary's Path.
One
of the most powerful forces in shaping Wroth’s literary career was her aunt and
godmother, Mary Sidney, who was married to Henry Herbert, second Earl of
Pembroke. Her country estate at Wilton served as a gathering place for a
diverse number of poets, theologians, and scientists. The countess of Pembroke
wrote poetry and translations from French and Italian, but even more important,
she boldly published her works at a time when few women dared: her Antonius, a
translation of Robert Garnier’s French drama, appeared in print in 1592, along
with her translation of Philippe Duplessis-Mornay’s treatise A Discourse of
Life and Death. She also assumed an active role as editor of the surviving
works of her brother Philip and as a literary patron. One of her crowning
achievements was the completion of the metrical version of the Psalms she had
begun as a joint project with Philip; she heavily revised his first 43 psalms
and then added 107 of her own. Her experiments in a variety of metrical and
verse forms probably helped inspire Wroth’s own interest in lyrical technique.
Wroth offered highly sympathetic portraits of her aunt as the Queen of Naples
in the Urania, where she is described as “perfect in Poetry, and all other
Princely vertues as any woman that ever liv’d,” and as Simena (an anagram for
Mary Sidney) in Love’s Victory.
Wroth’s
education was largely informal, obtained from household tutors under the
guidance of her mother. Rowland Whyte reported in 1595 that “she is very
forward in her learning, writing, and other exercises she is put to, as
dawncing and the virginals.” Whyte’s letters make frequent reference to her
musical education; he reassured her absent father that the children “are kept
at ther bookes, they dance, they sing, they play on the lute, and are carefully
kept unto yt.” It is also likely that Wroth learned French during her childhood
trips to the Lowlands with her family.
Negotiations
for her marriage began as early as 1599, and she eventually married Sir Robert
Wroth, the son of a wealthy Essex landowner, at Penshurst on September 27,
1604. Disagreements between the couple began almost immediately. In a letter
Sir Robert Sidney described his unexpected meeting in London with the
bridegroom, who was greatly discontented with his new wife. Fundamental
differences of temperament and interests quickly became apparent.
Sir
Robert Wroth, knighted by James I in 1603, rapidly advanced in the king’s favor
because of his skill in hunting. He maintained country homes at Durrance and
Loughton Hall, which the king visited on hunting expeditions with his friends.
Ben Jonson commemorated the visits in his poem “To Sir Robert Wroth,” in which
he described how James I “makes thy house his court.” Unlike his wife, who
served as an important patron of the arts, Wroth appears to have had few
literary interests. During his entire career, only one book was dedicated to
him—a treatise on mad dogs.
Ben
Jonson in his conversations with William Drummond succinctly observed that Mary
Wroth was “unworthily maried on a Jealous husband.” More unflattering testimony
is offered by Sir John Leeke, a servant of Mary Wroth’s, who described a
relative’s husband as “the foulest Churle in the world; he hath only one vertu
that he seldom cometh sober to bedd, a true imitation of Sir Robert Wroth.”
Indeed, the experience of an unhappy marriage seems to have inspired many
episodes in Mary Wroth’s prose fiction, especially those involving arranged
marriages established primarily for financial reasons. On the other hand, her
husband’s favor with James I helped place Mary Wroth in the center of court
activities. She gained one of the most coveted honors, a role in the first
masque designed by Ben Jonson in collaboration with Inigo Jones, The Masque of
Blackness, performed at Whitehall on January 6, 1605. She joined Queen Anne and
11 of her closest friends in disguising themselves as Black Ethiopian nymphs.
She also appeared with the queen in The Masque of Beauty, performed at
Whitehall on January 10, 1608. She may have acted in other court masques for
which the performance lists are incomplete, and it is likely that she attended
masques such as Hymenaei (performed in 1606), The Masque of Queens (performed
in 1609), and Oberon (performed in 1611). In the Urania she alluded to Lord
Hay’s Masque (performed in 1607) by Thomas Campion and probably to Tethys’
Festival (performed in 1610) by Samuel Daniel. She also included descriptions
of imaginary masques, complete with spectacular stage effects, in the second
part of her romance.
Her
Writing Career
By
1613 Wroth had begun her writing career—as revealed in Josuah Sylvester’s elegy
for Prince Henry, Lachrymæ Lachrymarum (1613), in which he refers to her verse
and praises her as “AL-WORTH Sidnëides / In whom, her Uncle’s noble Veine
renewes.” Her poems apparently circulated in manuscript long before their
publication in 1621. Ben Jonson refers to “exscribing,” or copying out, her
verses in one of his poems addressed to her. An early version of her sonnet
sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus survives in a single manuscript, neatly
copied in Wroth’s own formal italic hand, now at the Folger Shakespeare
Library.
This
autograph version of Wroth’s sequence consists of 110 songs and sonnets, plus 7
miscellaneous pieces. The sequence opens with the dream vision of Pamphilia,
whose name means “all-loving,” in which she describes the triumph of Venus and
Cupid over her heart. The first section of 55 poems reveals Pamphilia’s
conflicting emotions as she attempts to resolve the struggle between passionate
surrender and self-affirmation. The Petrarchan model of the male lover wooing a
cold, unpitying lady posed a genuine challenge to Wroth, who could not simply
reverse the gender roles. Instead of presenting her female persona in active
pursuit of Amphilanthus, whose name means “lover of two,” Wroth completely
omits the Petrarchan rhetoric of wooing and courtship. She addresses most of
the sonnets to Cupid, night, grief, fortune, or time, rather than directly to
Amphilanthus, whose name appears only in the title of the sequence.
A
revised version of the sonnet cycle, printed at the end of the prose romance
Urania (1621), consists of 83 sonnets and 20 songs. Wroth tightened the
structure of the sequence by rearranging the poems in four distinct yet
interrelated sections. While the order of the first group of 55 poems was left
relatively unchanged, the second was heavily revised to explore the darker side
of passion, especially through the use of the blind boy Cupid as a symbol of
infantile, self-centered, sensual emotion. Pamphilia’s harsh mockery of Cupid
produces a guilty reaction when she suddenly repents of treason against the god
of love and vows to reward him with a “Crowne” of praise, a group of fourteen
sonnets imitating the Italian verse form the corona, in which the last line of
the first sonnet serves as the first line of the next.
Wroth’s
“Crowne of Sonnets” represents a technical tour de force, as well as a central
turning point in Pamphilia’s inner debate. In this third section the persona
attempts to redirect her thoughts to glorify Cupid as a fully mature monarch, a
figure of divine love. Critics differ in their interpretations of this section,
with some regarding Pamphilia as achieving an ascent to heavenly love. Others
maintain that Pamphilia ends as she began, trapped in fearful perplexity: “In
this strang labourinth how shall I turne?” (the line that opens and closes the
“Crowne”).
Some
of the sonnets in the final group of the sequence are extremely melancholy in
tone, with predominant imagery drawn from the winter world of clouds, shadows,
and darkness. Yet a fragile hope emerges in the last two sonnets, where
Pamphilia claims that her suffering has taught her how to value spiritual love,
and in her farewell poem she vows to leave behind the discourse of Venus and
Cupid.
In
many of the songs found throughout the sequence, Wroth adopts the pastoral
mode, wherein Pamphilia speaks as a lovelorn shepherdess. The pastoral disguise
allowed Wroth to set a vision of idyllic, innocent love alongside the actuality
of the corrupt and inconstant passion of the court. As Ann Rosalind Jones has
argued, the pastoral mode provided Wroth and other women poets with a vehicle
to criticize sexual politics and masculine power. For example, one of Wroth’s
late songs, “Come merry spring delight us,” begins with a cheerful invocation
of spring and the renewal of nature, but the final stanza turns to the image of
Philomela, who had been transformed into a nightingale following her rape by
Tereus. Unlike her male predecessors, Wroth insists upon Philomela’s continued
pain and suffering, which memory cannot erase. Significantly, Wroth
incorporated the pastoral mode in all three of her major works—her sonnet
sequence, prose fiction, and drama.
Because
Wroth composed her sequence long after the Elizabethan rage for sonneteering in
the 1590s had passed, she had many earlier models at her disposal. Her father’s
unpublished collection of sonnets served as a particularly important influence.
These love poems addressed to a lady named Charys, probably written during
Robert Sidney’s wartime exile from England, express a dark atmosphere of
brooding hopelessness and death. Sidney attempted to write a corona as part of
his sequence, but completed only four poems and a quatrain of a fifth. Perhaps
Wroth regarded this unfinished “Crowne” as a challenge for her poetic talents
in writing her own version. Also various verbal echoes of her father’s imagery
can be found in other poems. Similarly, Wroth appears to have drawn on her
uncle’s Astrophil and Stella, especially for the treatment of wayward Cupid and
for verse forms. Yet Wroth avoids Philip Sidney’s ironic raillery by creating
instead a tone of more repressed anger and restrained sorrow.
Another
influence on Wroth may have been the verse of her first cousin and lover,
William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke. Some of his surviving lyrics, which
were not printed until 1660—such as his poem beginning, “Can you suspect a
change in me, / And value your own constancy?”—can be read as answers or
comments on Pamphilia’s constancy. Wroth knew Pembroke from childhood, when she
met him at family gatherings at Wilton and at Baynard’s Castle, the London home
of the Pembrokes. His younger brother, Philip, actually lived for a while in
the Sidney household, and William visited three or four times a week.
Although
Wroth and Pembroke shared close ties of kinship, they were separated by a great
disparity in wealth. Because Pembroke was one of the richest peers in England,
his family anticipated a marriage that would enhance his vast holdings of
property, but he appears to have resisted their efforts to select a bride;
instead he conducted an affair with the courtier Mary Fitton, who bore his
child. When he steadfastly refused to marry her, he was sent to Fleet Prison for
a brief period in 1601. After his father’s death, Pembroke negotiated his own
marital settlement with Mary Talbot, who was coheir to the immense wealth of
Gilbert Talbot, seventh Earl of Shrewsbury. In The History of the Rebellion and
Civil Wars in England (1702–1704), Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon,
commented on Pembroke’s financial motivation, “for he paid much too dear for
his wife’s fortune, by taking her person into the bargain.” They were wed on
November 4, 1604, less than three months after Mary Wroth’s marriage.
It
is clear from the Sidney correspondence that Mary Wroth’s relationship with
Pembroke continued after her marriage, for he was a visitor at her home,
Loughton Hall, and participated in many of the same family and court
gatherings. During this period Pembroke steadily progressed in royal favor,
becoming a leading statesman under James I, and serving successively as lord
chamberlain and lord steward. He also became a distinguished patron of Jonson
and William Shakespeare; the first folio of Shakespeare’s plays was jointly
dedicated to Pembroke and to his brother Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery.
One
of the few concrete means of identifying Pembroke as the “Amphilanthus” of
Wroth’s sequence occurs in the text of the second part of the prose romance
Urania. Here Wroth assigns to the character Amphilanthus a poem that was
identified as Pembroke’s in three early 17th-century manuscript collections:
“Had I loved butt att that rate.” Wroth did not risk explicitly identifying
Pembroke within the sonnet cycle itself, however, and only in the final sonnet
is there even a possibility of a pun on his first name: “The endless gaine
which never will remove.”
Pembroke’s
presence may certainly have contributed to the unhappiness of Mary Wroth’s
marriage, but Robert Wroth’s last testament suggests that her husband finally
rested on good terms with both parties. He specifically chose Pembroke as one
of the overseers of his will and left him a bequest of silver plate. Wroth
described Mary as a “deere and loving wife,” who deserved far better recompense
than his debts would allow. He made special provision in his will to assign
Mary “all her books and furniture of her studdye and closett.” Wroth’s husband
died on March 14, 1614, only a month after the birth of her first child, James,
who was named in honor of the king and christened with Pembroke and her mother
in attendance.
Wroth’s
financial situation was radically altered after her husband’s death, for she
found herself with a young child and an estate charged with a 23,000-pound
debt. When her son died on July 5, 1616, her predicament was made even more
difficult because much of the estate fell to Robert Wroth’s uncle, John Wroth.
As
a widow, Wroth appears to have lived for a period at Pembroke’s London home,
Baynard’s Castle, for its name appears on several of her letters, and one of
her correspondents refers to her “study” there. During this period she bore
Pembroke two illegitimate children, whose births are recorded in a manuscript
history of the family compiled by Sir Thomas Herbert of Tintern, which is now
at the Cardiff Central Library. One was a son, William, who later became a
captain under Sir Henry Herbert and a colonel under Prince Maurice; the other
was a daughter, Catherine, who married a Mr. Lovel living near Oxford. The
dates of their births are not listed, but Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury,
sent a congratulatory poem to Mary Wroth which includes a likely reference to
one of the children: “A Merry Rime Sent to Lady Mary Wroth upon the birth of my
Lord of Pembroke’s Child. Born in the spring.” He may have sent a copy to
Pembroke, who wrote a letter, dated March 28, 1620, thanking him for
“congratulating with me yo’r little cousin.” However, the evidence for dating
the births of the children is very inconclusive.
Following
her husband’s death, Wroth suffered a decline in royal favor. She lost her
place among Queen Anne’s intimate circle of friends, although the exact cause
of her downfall is uncertain. In some of the autobiographical episodes in the
Urania, Wroth attributed her loss of the queen’s favor to slander spread by
envious rivals. Her relationship with Pembroke may have fueled the gossip, but
certainly after her husband’s death she lacked the financial ability to
participate in the lavish court entertainments. She was, however, named as a
member of the official procession of the state funeral for Queen Anne in 1619,
and James I showed her a small measure of favor by issuing a warrant in 1621 to
William Cecil, second Earl of Salisbury, to provide her with deer from the
king’s forest.
Wroth
maintained her close ties to the Sidney family, as Anne Clifford recorded in
her diary, where she mentions seeing Wroth at Penshurst, the Sidney home, and
hearing her “news from beyond sea.” One of Wroth’s sources of foreign
information was probably Dudley Carleton, ambassador to the Hague, with whom
she corresponded in 1619. In these letters she mentions his recent presence at
Loughton Hall, refers to some “rude lines” she had given him, and thanks him profusely
for a gift. During this time there was also some speculation that Wroth might
marry Henry de Vere, 18th Earl of Oxford (1593–1625), but he eventually married
Diana Cecil.
The
earl of Oxford’s sister was Wroth’s closest friend: Susan Vere, the first wife
of Sir Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery (Pembroke’s brother). The two women
had known one another as early as 1605, when they participated together in The
Masque of Blackness, and they exchanged frequent visits. As Pembroke’s
sister-in-law, Susan was a part of a tightly knit circle. She was also known
for her literary patronage, extending from religious works (John Donne sent her
a copy of one of his sermons) to secular prose romances of all types. In the
dedication to a translation (1619) of the 14th-century Spanish romance Amadis
de Gaule, Anthony Munday thanked the countess for her help in obtaining the
best Spanish editions of the romance. Among other fiction, the first English
translation (1620) of Honoré d’Urfé’s Astrée (1607–1627) was dedicated to the
countess and her husband.
When
Wroth began to compose her own prose romance in the period 1618–1620, the
countess of Montgomery was the logical dedicatee of her work. Wroth also paid
her the highest compliment in creating the fictional character Urania in her
honor. Named after the heavenly muse, Urania appears in the opening scene of
the romance as a grief-stricken shepherdess who has just learned that the
country couple who reared her from childhood are not her actual parents. To
discover her true identity, she must undertake an arduous quest, which
eventually leads to a climactic scene late in the romance when she receives a
book describing her royal heritage. Wroth’s characterization of Urania is the
first extended portrait of a woman by a woman in English. In addition, Wroth’s
treatment of the friendship between Urania and Pamphilia provides one of the
most important links in a vast panorama of tales and tellers.
Wroth’s
sonnet cycle describing the intense, ambivalent passion of Pamphilia for Amphilanthus
appears to have furnished the nucleus for her fiction, in which she developed
the background and motivation of each of the central characters in far greater
detail. In the prose romance, Pamphilia, the eldest daughter of the King of
Morea, is designated by her unmarried uncle as the heir to his kingdom of
Pamphilia (located on the south coast of Asia Minor). Despite her feelings for
Amphilanthus, she vows to remain a virgin monarch and to dedicate her life to
the service of her country, undoubtedly in imitation of Elizabeth I. Her
beloved Amphilanthus, the eldest son of the King of Naples, is crowned King of
the Romans and eventually emperor, but despite his many virtues, he has one
major flaw, his inconstancy. In the course of the Urania he betrays Pamphilia
with a variety of female characters but returns each time begging her
forgiveness.
The
title page of the Urania features an engraving of one of the central episodes
of the fiction, the Throne of Love. The Dutch artist Simon van de Passe based
his engraving on Wroth’s detailed description of an adventure in Cyprus, the
traditional habitation of Venus (according to poets from Ovid to Petrarch).
Wroth describes how a violent tempest shipwrecks the major characters on the
island, where they soon discover a splendid palace high on a hill, which may be
reached only by means of a bridge topped by three towers. The first tower to
the left is Cupid’s Tower, or the Tower of Desire, reserved as a place of
punishment for false lovers. The second, belonging to Venus, is the Tower of
Love, which may be entered by any suitors able to face such threats as
Jealousy, Despair, and Fear. The third tower, guarded by the figure of
Constancy, cannot be entered until the other obstacles have been overcome.
Constancy holds the keys to the Throne of Love, a palace that is open to a very
few. This episode not only provides a central point of reference for the entire
romance, but it also functions as a landmark to measure the central couple’s
troubled relationship.
The
end of the first book seems to affirm the special status of Pamphilia and
Amphilanthus as heroic lovers. Despite all their misunderstandings, the pair
returns to Cyprus, where they are able to free their female friends who are
trapped inside the first two towers. When Pamphilia holds the keys to
Constancy, the statue on the third tower actually metamorphoses itself into her
breast. Although the Throne of Love may at first appear to be an idealized
vision of the relation between the sexes, Wroth soon shows that it is a
delusion that frustrates and thwarts the major characters. The anticipated
marriage between the King of Cyprus and the Princess of Rhodes fails to
materialize, as do most of the other promised unions, including that of the
central pair of lovers. At the end of the second book Pamphilia herself falls
prisoner at the enchanted Theater of the Rocks, so that her role is transformed
from that of rescuer to victim. When Amphilanthus comes to her aid, he appears
arm-in-arm with two other women, emblems of his infidelity. In the fourth book
Wroth presents the “Hell of Deceit,” in which each lover sees the other
undergoing torture but is powerless to intervene; the insurmountable wall of
doubt and suspicion is never overcome, even in the second, unpublished part of
Wroth’s romance.
The
complete Urania includes more than 300 characters, and thus a brief summary
does not do justice to its intricate plot with many first-person narratives and
inset tales. Wroth emphasizes the social conditions that oppressed early-17th-century
women, especially their lack of freedom to choose a marital partner. She offers
tales describing the horrors of enforced marriage, where a woman’s consent
might be obtained by means of physical or psychological abuse. Wroth also
presents female figures who demonstrate active resistance to parental
authority, although their acts of self-determination are often fraught with
tragedy. As Maureen Quilligan has argued, one of the most important underlying
concerns in the Urania is the “traffic in women,” whereby males freely exchange
females as property.
Some
of the tales appear to be autobiographical, but Wroth mingled fact and fantasy
in the portraits of herself, carefully modifying and refashioning the major
events of her life. Pamphilia herself tells the tale of Lindamira (an anagram
for Lady Mary), “faigning it to be written in a French Story,” but at the
conclusion her audience suspects that it is “some thing more exactly related
then a fixion.” In this tale Wroth traces her own career as a courtier and
poet, including her loss of royal favor, which she protests as unjust.
Lindamira concludes with a group of seven sonnets, an exact mirror of the
larger Urania, with its appended sonnet sequence. The tale of Bellamira also
seems to be largely autobiographical, although it includes a fictional subplot
involving her father. Wroth’s multiple self-portraits within the
Urania—Pamphilia, Lindamira, Bellamira, and others—suggest a continuous
struggle of self-representation, in which the author seeks to assert and
justify her behavior in the face of a hostile, disapproving court.
Throughout
the text of the Urania , Wroth intersperses a total of 56 poems, which
underline key moments of crisis or discovery. Ranging in genre from sonnets to
madrigals, dialogues, ballads, and pastoral narratives, the poems reveal
experimentation in a variety of meters, most notably sapphics. Wroth adapts the
poems to fit the different personalities of her characters, from the nervous,
high-strung Antissia to the comically loquacious Florentine. She also includes
poems specifically based on her uncle’s Arcadia, such as a sonnet Pamphilia
carves on the bark of an ash tree. Despite the outward similarity of this poem
to Sidney’s, Wroth recasts the view of woman from a passive subject of love’s
mastery to an active, controlling artist.
Indeed,
many of Wroth’s borrowings from earlier sources reveal an effort to transform
the original material by reversing major conventions. In the first scene of her
romance Wroth alludes to the opening of Sidney’s revised Arcadia, in which two
shepherds lament the disappearance of the mysterious shepherdess Urania, who
never actually appears in Sidney’s fiction. Wroth, however, creates her Urania
as a fully human female, who refuses to accept society’s narrow roles. When
Perissus mistakes her for a spirit, he apologizes, saying, “but now I see you
are a woman; and therefore not much to be marked.” Urania disputes his sexist
judgment by demonstrating her ability to save him, a pattern that is continually
repeated in the romance.
Other
sources include Amadis de Gaule, which provided Wroth with details for some of
the major enchantments. Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590, 1596) furnished
the inspiration for some episodes, including the account of the Hell of Deceit
at the end of the published Urania. D’Urfé’s Astrée, with its portrayal of the
inconstant male figure Hylas, may have influenced Wroth’s treatment of
Amphilanthus. Another Continental romance, Jorge de Montemayor’s Diana,
translated by Bartholomew Yong (1598), includes a female seer, Felicia, who
probably served as a model for Wroth’s Mellissea. Finally, the appearance of
Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1605), translated into English in 1612,
popularized the satirical, self-critical romance, a mode which clearly appealed
to Wroth in shaping the Urania.
Another
significant development in the genre was the roman à clef, which includes
allusions to actual persons and places. Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron
(1558) as well as Sidney’s two Arcadias include thinly veiled characters, but
John Barclay’s Argenis (1621) was a systematic roman à clef, which commanded a
wide audience at the Jacobean court. Wroth seems to have based the major
characters of the Urania on members of the Sidney-Herbert family, although she
exercised considerable artistic freedom. In addition, Wroth derived subplots
from court figures and scandals. Her contemporaries recognized the allusions,
as revealed in John Chamberlain’s letters and in Sir Aston Cokayne’s verse:
“The Lady Wrothe’s Urania is repleat / With elegancies, but too full of heat.”
One
of the courtiers who identified himself in the fiction was Sir Edward Denny,
Baron of Waltham, who was outraged to find his personal affairs recounted in
the episode of Seralius and his father-in-law. He responded by launching a
vicious attack against the Urania and its author, with his complaints
eventually reaching the ears of the king. He even wrote an insulting poem,
addressed “To Pamphilia from the father-in-law of Seralius,” in which he
vilified Wroth as “Hermophradite in show, in deed a monster / As by thy words
and works all men may conster.” Undaunted, Wroth returned his insults in rhymes
which match his, word for word: “Hirmophradite in sense in Art a monster / As
by your railing rimes the world may conster.”
Writing
to her friends in an effort to rally support, she assured King James’s
favorite, George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham, that she never meant her
work to offend and volunteered to stop the sale of it. Her letter is especially
revealing because she states that the books “were solde against my minde I
never purposing to have had them published” (December 15, 1621). It is clearly
possible that her manuscript may have been pirated and entered for publication
in the Stationers’ Register without her permission; the absence of any
dedicatory epistles or prefatory matter in the book is very unusual. On the
other hand, Wroth admitted sending the duke of Buckingham her own personal
copy, and the illustration for the title page was chosen by someone very
familiar with the nature of her romance.
Following
the storm of criticism, the book was never reprinted, but it continued to be
read throughout the 17th century. The Urania may have furnished the dramatist
James Shirley with plot material for his play The Politician (1655). Edward
Phillips, John Milton’s nephew, listed Wroth in his catalogue of “Women Among
the Moderns Eminent for Poetry” (Theatrum Poetarum, 1675). Nor was she
forgotten by other women writers, for Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle,
quoted the final couplet from Denny’s diatribe against Wroth in the preface to
her Sociable Letters (1664); Cavendish was the first woman to publish her
fiction in more than 40 years after the controversy over Urania.
Wroth
herself was not completely silenced by the quarrel, for she continued writing a
second, unpublished part of the Urania, which survives in a holograph
manuscript of nearly 240,000 words at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The
manuscript is divided into two volumes and picks up immediately with the final
word of the printed book. This unfinished, second part of the Urania describes
the continuing struggles of Pamphilia and Amphilanthus, along with a second
generation of princes and princesses. Of special interest is Wroth’s account of
several children, born out of wedlock, who occupy important positions by virtue
of individual merit rather than birth. Wroth also tells how the major couple
falls victim to the manipulations of a lying servant, who tricks each partner
into believing in the other’s betrayal. Pamphilia’s marriage to the Tartarian
king, Rodomandro, is described in great detail as is Amphilanthus’s wedding to
the Princess of Slavonia. Only near the very end of the manuscript do the
characters rejoin on the island of Cyprus, where amid reminders of the earlier
enchantment of the Throne of Love, they achieve a reconciliation as Platonic
lovers. The manuscript breaks off shortly after in midsentence, with
Amphilanthus left in search of one of the illegitimate children, the mysterious
Faire Designe.
While
writing the second part of Urania in the 1620s, Wroth was probably also at work
on her play Love’s Victory, since the two works share a common plot and
characters. In the second volume of the Urania manuscript, Wroth describes a
group of eight lovers, led by a distinguished brother and sister who excel in
writing poetry. Appearing in both works are the disguised shepherds Arcas and
Rustick, along with the fickle Magdaline (her name is shortened to Dalina in the
play), and in both works the young lovers suffer as a result of Cupid’s
revenge. Wroth’s drama is a pastoral tragicomedy, probably written for private
presentation, although no record of its performance has been discovered so far.
It
is not surprising that Wroth would undertake a play, given her interest in
dramatic entertainments. In addition to performing in masques, she was a
participant in Ben Jonson’s nonextant pastoral drama The May Lord, according to
William Drummond’s Conversations, recorded in 1619. Jonson himself dedicated to
her one of his finest plays, The Alchemist (1612). Her writings include many
allusions to playacting, with several specific references to the cross-dressed
boy actors. Pembroke’s London home, Baynard’s Castle, where Wroth frequently
stayed, was located next to the private theater Blackfriars; immediately across
the Thames was the Globe. Pembroke himself was directly involved with the
players both as patron of an acting company, Pembroke’s Men, and in his
official capacity as lord chamberlain.
Wroth’s
drama depicts four contrasting couples who illustrate a variety of human
responses to love. The virtuous lovers Philisses and Musella triumph over a
period of serious misunderstanding as well as parental interference. The second
couple, Lissius and Simena, must learn to overcome baser emotions—scornful
pride and jealousy. At the other end of the spectrum are the Neoplatonic
lovers, the Forester and Silvesta, who have dedicated themselves to chastity.
Their comic counterparts are Rustic and Dalina, who frantically pursue earthly
pleasures. Three rival lovers complicate the plot (Lacon, Climena, and Fillis),
together with the villainous shepherd Arcas.
Presiding
over the action are the mythological figures Venus and Cupid, who serve as
internal commentators and appear before each act of the play. Because Venus
believes that humans disdain their immortal power, she urges Cupid to make the
young lovers suffer by shooting them with arrows of jealousy, malice, fear, and
mistrust. The opening of Wroth’s play echoes one of the best-known dramatic
pastorals, Torquato Tasso’s Aminta (1573), where a belligerent Cupid appears as
prologue to the play. Many subsequent dramatists copied Tasso’s device,
including Ben Jonson, who placed Cupid as a commentator in several of his
masques and plays, especially Cynthia’s Revels (1601). Wroth’s patterned design
of multiple pairs of lovers also shows the influence of earlier pastoral dramas
such as Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il Pastor Fido (1590), John Fletcher’s The
Faithful Shepherdess (1609?), and Samuel Daniel’s Hymen’s Triumph (1615).
Wroth’s use of the sleeping potion in the fifth act may derive from
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1597), although it was a common stage device.
Wroth’s
play survives in two versions: a complete fair copy at Penshurst, and an
incomplete, earlier version at the Huntington Library (which omits the opening
dialogue between Venus and Cupid, their dialogue at the end of act 3, and most
of the fifth act). The incomplete version, however, provides a clear indication
of Wroth’s methods of composition, in which the mythological parts appear to
have been written last and inserted into the rest of the text. Wroth also
developed the play’s setting to provide for Venus’s temple and a chorus of
priests, as well as some further stage directions, such as the appearance of
Venus and Cupid in the clouds (a masquelike feature).
Wroth’s
pastoral drama resembles her other works by including thinly disguised personal
allusions. The name of the protagonist Philisses probably refers to her uncle
Sir Philip Sidney, while Musella combines the muse of poetry with the Stella of
Sidney’s sonnet sequence. Philisses’ sister, Simena, resembles Mary Sidney,
Countess of Pembroke, who after her husband’s death was linked with the London
physician Dr. Matthew Lister (possibly Lissius). The drama thus includes family
associations appropriate to the intimacy of private theatricals performed in
country houses.
The
later period of Wroth’s life seems to have been devoted largely to settling her
financial difficulties. To forestall her creditors, she repeatedly applied to
the crown for warrants of protection, which were granted at regular intervals.
In one case Sir Edward Conway (principal secretary of state under James I and
Charles I) wrote to her father requesting that he pressure Wroth for immediate
payment of outstanding bills. To his credit Sir Robert Sidney defended his
daughter by stating that she was handling her own affairs and planned to
discharge all of her debts. She appears to have continued living at Loughton
Hall, and her father visited her there. Little evidence survives of her two
children by Pembroke, but in 1640 one of Wroth’s former servants, Sir John
Leeke, wrote that “by my Lord of Pembroke’s good mediation,” the king had
provided her son with a “brave livinge in Ireland.” Because Pembroke died in
1630, Leeke is here referring to Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery, who
succeeded to his brother’s title. Wroth apparently spent the last years of her
life in Woodford, where her name appears in connection with the sale of lands
and in tax rolls. The only record of Wroth’s death occurs in a Chancery
deposition of 1668, in which the event is said to have occurred in 1651, or
more likely in 1653. No literary works survive from the last 30 years of her
life.
Wroth’s
creative accomplishments are still impressive. She created a pair of female
heroes whose friendship lies at the center of the Urania, an encyclopedic
romance of nearly 600,000 words in length. Her sonnet sequence, justly praised
by Ben Jonson for its psychological insight, surmounted the gender constraints
of the Petrarchan form and opened the possibilities for women writers of
succeeding generations.
In
popular culture
In
2019, Harvard literary historian Vanessa Braganza identified a copy of
Xenophon's Cyropaedia which she found at a rare book fair as Wroth's based on a
cryptic monogram cipher on its cover.[16] The letters of the cipher spell the
names "Pamphilia" and "Amphilanthus," autobiographical
personae for Wroth and Herbert themselves. To date, the Cyropaedia is the only
surviving book from Wroth's library except for manuscripts of her own works.
The discovery sparked public interest in Wroth's use of ciphers and her
previously little-known status as the first female English novelist.[17]
Works
Love's
Victory (c.1620) – pastoral closet drama.
The
Countess of Montgomery's Urania (1621) – The first extant prose romance by an
English woman.
Pamphilia
to Amphilanthus (1621) – The second-known sonnet sequence by an English woman.
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