A Study On Women's Writing During The English Revolution In Seventeenth Century

A very special phenomenon during the English revolution was the collective appearance of women on the stage of history, where they fought for their own religious and political rights through writing, printing and collective actions for the first time. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the women's writing at that time, and explore what religious and political opinions women expressed in their writings.The text is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 explores the women's literacy in early modern England and makes a concrete analysis of the precondition for women's writing, in other words, drivers for the improvement of literacy, among which two factors were of great importance. The first one was the development of printing. The second one was "Educational Revolution" happened in 16th and 17th century England. With the development of popular education, women's access to education has greatly grown. Only because of these, women got opportunities to write and create independently.Chapter 2 investigates the connection between women's writing and the English revolution. Firstly, it examines women's social status and people's attitudes to women at that time. Secondly, it explores the opportunities that the Civil War brought to English women. Since men were forced to join the army after the outbreak of the Civil War, women could engage in a lot of businesses which are forbidden them to take before, which temporarily liberated them. Finally, it gives a summary of women's writing during the English revolution. The number of women's printed writings has greatly increased compared with former periods. The genres of their writings have been greatly enriched as well.Chapter 3 mainly discusses women's religious writing, especially religious debates between female and male writers and women's religious prophecy. Women could openly express their opinions and views through the religious debates, crying for religious tolerance and freedom, claiming for spiritual equality. At the same time, they have successfully made their words more reliable and authoritative by use of religious prophecy. Through those words, a beautiful blueprint for the country's future was unveiled, which then received a warm welcome from the common people. In fact, the idea of religious tolerance and freedom that those women have been trying to convey was the original form of gender equality, even though it was only constrained within the areas of religion and spirit.Chapter 4 focuses on the awakening of women's political and self consciousness. This chapter explores them from two respects, women's parliamentary petitions and the representative female writers'statements on political issues. On the one hand, women have been trying to argue that the female should be treated equally as the children of God and the citizens of the commonwealth as the male in their printed petitions. In their opinions, women definitely had the right to petition and protest on issues that were related to their interests, because they hold their own duties and responsibilities to public affairs. Although they achieved little, those women had made all the attempts to be involved in parliamentary decisions. On the other hand, certain female writers have presented very remarkable statements on political affairs and issues. They charged the reality that the social life was so male dominated, in the same breath proposed specific suggestions and reform measures for the government. Those all reflected the awakening of women's political and self consciousness.Chapter 5 summarizes the development of proto-feminism. Although there are still controversies over the existence of feminism in this period, but we can easily recognize the seed of feminism from the studies above. They have challenged the authority and hegemony status of their husband in domestic life, at the mine time, claimed their rights to protest and their responsibilities to the country in social and national life. Obviously, essential concerns of the feminism were all involved in their arguments. That can be regarded as an original form of the feminism.In conclusion, the dissertation takes the view that women's writing has experienced a fundamental change during the English revolution. Female writers have called for tolerance and freedom in religion as well as advocated political equality between men and women. According to their statements, women were also the citizens of the country, so that they had the duties and responsibilities to express their opinions on national affairs, and rights to petition and protest on particular issues. Considering the pioneering nature of their words, those women can be seen as the early feminists. English women who raised the principles of freedom and equality during the revolution have set an example for the liberal feminists in the 18th century, both in thought and action.