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This poem written by Walter Raleigh has a melancholy feel as the Nymph rejects the Shepherd because she is scared of bad things happening in the world and won't accept his materialistic ideas of happiness.

"Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,

The Coral clasps and amber studs,

All these in me no means can move

To come to thee and be thy love."

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Judith is one of the most powerful and recognizable women written in the Bible. Depicted as strong, cunning, and a holy figure.

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"I grieve and dare not show my discontent,

I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,"

Written by Queen Elizabeth I in 1582 "On Monsieur's Departure" explores what its like to be a woman in power.

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"For all that Judith said

Glory to the Lord of hosts, who honor to her gave,

Fame in realm of earth, and meed in heaven too,

Reward in the glory of heaven, because true faith she had

Ín the Almighty ever; now at last she doubted not"

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"Ay me, to whom shall I my case complain, That may compassion my impatient grief? Or where shall I unfold my inward pain, That my enriven heart may find relief?"

The Doleful Lay of Clorinda by Mary Sidney Herbert is a far stretch from a traditional romantic Lay and works to subvert our expectations for that time and genre.

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"The Rape of Lock" by Alexander Pope is a satirical poem that is about a man cutting a woman's lock of hair for him to keep and her struggle to find and retrieve it.

“How vain are all these Glories, all our Pains,
Unless good Sense preserve what Beauty gains:
That Men may say, when we the Front-box grace,
Behold the first in Virtue, as in Face!”

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"The Hunting of the Hare" is a poem written by Margaret Cavendish about the unfortunate and brutal experience of a hare being chased and caught by hunters. While it is obviously about animal rights we can also relate the experience to being a woman trying to live in a male dominated world.

"As if that God made Creatures for Mans meat,

To give them Life, and Sense, for Man to eat;

Or else for Sport, or Recreations sake,

Destroy those Lifes that God saw good to make"

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"Oroonoko" is a short novel written by Aphra Behn that explores slavery and puts a woman's narrative onto the tragedy of slavery.

"Thus Dy’d this Great Man; worthy of a better Fate, and a more sublime Wit than mine to write his Praise; yet, I hope, the Reputation of my Pen is considerable enough to make his Glorious Name to survive to all Ages; with that of the Brave, the Beautiful, and the Constant Imoinda"

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Women and Feminism through the Middle Ages

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Women and Feminism through the Middle Ages

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This is a great article by Encyclopedia.com about women's literature through the Middle Ages and how the culture surrounding these women matters as they affect the writing and tone of each piece of literature.

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Contemporary feminist theory has allowed social and literary critics to observe and reconstruct the past through the lens of the woman, and more specifically, through that of the woman writer. Looking to the premodern eras of antiquity and the Middle Ages, feminist scholars have studied women's roles as artists, leaders, and agents of history. Likewise, they have examined the status of ordinary individuals as the subjects of social and historical change across the millennia. Importantly, most classicists and medievalists who employ the tools of feminist theory in their work have been careful to note that feminism is a decidedly contemporary development, cautioning those who would describe women of the distant past as feminists to be aware of the consequent anachronism. Nevertheless, in their explorations of early literature and past civilizations, these scholars have recognized an emerging consciousness regarding women's issues. While women writers of ancient Greece, Alexandrian Egypt, or feudal Japan can scarcely be labeled feminists by contemporary standards, their unique awareness of themselves and their status in their societies has inspired the endeavor to read and write the history of women in art and literature.

Scholars have unearthed, in the early records of antique civilizations from Bronze Age Greece and Old Kingdom Egypt to ancient China and imperial Rome, suggestions of similar elements within the diversity of women's literature and social roles. Bringing together numerous common themes, such as the conflict between women of influence and the strong patriarchal tendency to marginalize the feminine and codify it symbolically, feminist criticism has offered a new way of looking at the ancient past that seeks to question some of the underlying assumptions of traditional humanist criticism. By examining textual and archeological evidence, critics have endeavored to reassess the society, daily lives, and literary production of women in various cultures of the ancient world. Because women writers of antiquity tended to be individuals with unique talent, their status is generally viewed as highly exceptional. Writers such as the Greek poet Sappho, the Alexandrian mathematician and philosopher Hypatia, and the Chinese scholar Pan Chao (Ban Zhao), in some fashion and for some limited period enjoyed favorable social or familial circumstances that assisted them in their vocations. For feminist critics, their rarity and the treatment they received in society-Hypatia, for instance, was murdered in the streets of Alexandria-suggest a prevalent lack of opportunity and respect for creative and intellectual women in antiquity. Such conclusions have led scholars to probe the origins of misogyny in the patriarchal societies these writers represent and to analyze the system of masculine and feminine semiotics upon which the notion of misogyny rests. Beginning with ancient Greece, commentators have evaluated the gendered distinction between private and public spheres, usually described as a symbolic tension between the feminine oikos (household) and masculine polis (city-state or society). Thus, women of the Athenian classical period in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. were expected to attend to their domestic duties without mingling in political affairs. Women's ritual lives were also generally kept separate from those of men, giving rise to the feminine mysteries of ancient Greek religion. Ancient Sparta, in contrast, promoted a more egalitarian view of the sexes, but a woman's primary role remained the bearing of strong future warriors to defend the militaristic city-state. In later times, Roman law placed rather severe restrictions on women, making their legal and social status completely subject to the authority of their fathers and husbands. In a few cases, however, the position of aristocratic women in the ancient world may have been somewhat more favorable. In Ptolemaic Egypt, for example, Queens Nefertiti and Cleopatra appear to have been treated with much the same regard as their male counterparts. Notwithstanding these rare instances, the lives of most antique women were generally circumscribed by limits on education, mobility, and vocation precluding virtually all possibilities that might conflict with either domestic or reproductive responsibilities.

Women's relatively limited social roles are also reflected in the arts and literature of the antique period, from Athenian vase painting to Homeric verse, which suggest that the most common position of ancient woman was in the home, occupied with household duties-cooking, weaving, child rearing,-leaving men to handle political issues, which often meant war. Feminist critics have noted that such representations of women in the ancient period derive from the patriarchal assumptions of premodern societies, which were reflected in the symbolic order of the mythic past. Greco-Roman mythology-embodied for the purposes of literary scholarship here in the Homeric epics the Iliad and Odyssey, and in Ovid's Latin Metamorphoses-encapsulates classical perceptions of the feminine, depicting women as powerful goddesses, vengeful queens, cunning witches, and as the objects or victims of male aggression. Such mythic stereotypes inform an array of world literature and are precisely the sorts of ingrained depictions of women that contemporary feminists wish to discover and understand. Likewise, classical drama, perhaps best typified in the works of Aeschylus, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Sophocles, presents a somewhat divergent view of women, but one that nevertheless betrays antique assumptions about the nature of woman and man that modern feminists seek to question. Literary depictions of women in the Bible, additionally, contributed to a reductive dichotomy that informed the fundamental gender bias of medieval European society and literature. While self-possessed and heroic female figures such as Esther and Judith are present in the Bible, their stories are usually categorized with the Old Testament Apocrypha. For the most part, perceptions of women in biblical contexts became symbolically aligned with one of two poles-the sinning temptress Eve or the flawless Virgin Mary.

Studying continuity from classical and biblical perceptions of women, feminist scholars interested in the Middle Ages have generally focused on the social roles of women depicted in a wide array of texts, in the visual arts of the period, and in the works of a growing pool of female writers. The medieval epoch in Europe and Asia witnessed major developments in women's writings in large part due to the spread of religious education. Consequently, feminist critics have been drawn to the works of female mystic writers, among them Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Birgitta of Sweden. Their writings generally include revelatory visions of Christ and the Virgin Mary, religious poetry, and similar works of a spiritual nature. Other medieval European writers, such as Marie de France and Heloise (in her well-known correspondence with Pierre Abelard), offered unique contributions to the romantic and epistolary genres, respectively. In the Far East, the ninth-century Chinese poet Yu Xuanji produced some of the finest lyric poetry in her language, while writers such as Murasaki Shikibu, in her innovative novel The Tale of Genji, and Sei Shonagon, in her Pillow Book, recorded the flowering and decadence of the imperial court in Heian Japan around the turn of the eleventh century. Despite such literary accomplishments, the essential social and political status of women in the medieval period changed relatively little from that of the antique, and in some respects may even have declined. For the most part, women continued to be valued only for their domestic skills and reproductive role. Those who protested, and thereby failed to acquiesce to the patriarchal social order, were often harshly treated at all levels of society. Among the aristocracy, the example of the twelfth-century Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine demonstrates this point. Scornfully denounced in popular legend as the embodiment of feminine guile and malevolence for requesting a divorce from her husband, Eleanor was unfairly burdened with maintaining the integrity of her family at all costs and regardless of circumstances. Far worse, from the point of view of most men, was that a woman should be guilty of unchaste behavior-an accusation also leveled against the Queen. Critics have observed that this common theme in medieval society and literature was probably best articulated by Geoffrey Chaucer in his Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale. Ironically in the view of modern critics, Chaucer, with his compelling description of the Wife of Bath as a self-possessed, outspoken, and boastfully licentious woman, rendered an epitome of the medieval antifeminist tradition, while at the same time sketching a figure in whom many have seen the first inklings of an incipient feminist consciousness.

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women and women's writings from antiquity through the middle ages: introductioncontemporary feminist theory has allowed social and literary critics to observe and reconstruct the past through the lens of the woman

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through that of the woman writer. looking to the premodern eras of antiquity and the middle ages

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feminist scholars have studied women's roles as artists

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Women and Women's Writings from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages: Introduction

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WOMEN AND WOMEN'S WRITINGS FROM ANTIQUITY THROUGH THE MIDDLE AGES: INTRODUCTIONContemporary feminist theory has allowed social and literary critics to observe and reconstruct the past through the lens of the woman, and more specifically, through that of the woman writer.

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This article by Linda Napkinski with thoughtco.com does a great job of briefly exploring the role art as a whole plays into the feminist movement and vise versa.

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The Feminist Art Movement began with the idea that women's experiences must be expressed through art, where they had previously been ignored or trivialized.

Early proponents of Feminist Art in the United States envisioned a revolution. They called for a new framework in which the universal would include women's experiences, in addition to men's. Like others in the Women's Liberation Movement, feminist artists discovered the impossibility of completely changing their society.

Historical Context

Linda Nochlin's essay "Why Are There No Great Female Artists?" was published in 1971. Of course, there had been some awareness of female artists before the Feminist Art Movement. Women had created art for centuries. Mid-20th-century retrospectives included a 1957 Life magazine photo essay called "Women Artists in Ascendancy" and the 1965 exhibit "Women Artists of America, 1707-1964," curated by William H. Gerdts, at the Newark Museum.

Becoming a Movement in the 1970s

It is difficult to pinpoint when awareness and questions coalesced into the Feminist Art Movement. In 1969, the New York group Women Artists in Revolution (WAR) split off from the Art Workers' Coalition (AWC) because the AWC was male-dominated and would not protest on behalf of women artists. In 1971, female artists picketed the Corcoran Biennial in Washington D.C. for excluding women artists, and New York Women in the Arts organized a protest against gallery owners for not exhibiting women's art.

Also in 1971, Judy Chicago, one of the most prominent early activists in the Movement, established the Feminist Art program at Cal State Fresno. In 1972, Judy Chicago created Womanhouse with Miriam Schapiro at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), which also had a Feminist Art program.

Womanhouse was a collaborative art installation and exploration. It consisted of students working together on exhibits, performance art and consciousness-raising in a condemned house that they refurbished. It drew crowds and national publicity for the Feminist Art Movement.

Feminism and Postmodernism

But what is Feminist Art? Art historians and theorists debate whether Feminist Art was a stage in art history, a movement, or a wholesale shift in ways of doing things. Some have compared it to Surrealism, describing Feminist Art not as a style of art that can be seen but rather a way of making art.

Feminist Art asks many questions that are also part of Postmodernism. Feminist Art declared that meaning and experience were as valuable as form; Postmodernism rejected the rigid form and style of Modern Art. Feminist Art also questioned whether the historical Western canon, largely male, truly represented "universality."

Feminist artists played with the ideas of gender, identity, and form. They used performance art, video, and other artistic expressions that would come to be significant in Postmodernism but had not traditionally been seen as high art. Rather than "Individual vs. Society," Feminist Art idealized connectivity and saw the artist as part of society, not working separately.

Feminist Art and Diversity

By asking whether a male experience was universal, Feminist Art paved the way for questioning exclusively white and exclusively heterosexual experience as well. Feminist Art also sought to rediscover artists. Frida Kahlo had been active in Modern Art but left out of the defining history of Modernism. Despite being an artist herself, Lee Krasner, wife of Jackson Pollock, was seen as Pollock's support until she was rediscovered.

Many art historians have described pre-feminist women artists as links between various male-dominated art movements. This reinforces the feminist argument that women somehow do not fit into the categories of art that were established for male artists and their work.

Some women who were artists rejected feminist readings of their work. They may have wanted to be viewed only on the same terms as artists that had preceded them. They may have thought that Feminist Art criticism would be another way of marginalizing women artists.

Some critics attacked Feminist Art for "essentialism." They thought each individual woman's experience was claimed to be universal, even if the artist had not asserted this. The critique mirrors other Women's Liberation struggles. Divisions arose when anti-feminists convinced women that feminists were, for example, "man-hating" or "lesbian," thus causing women to reject all of feminism because they thought it was trying to foist one person's experience onto others.

Another prominent question was whether using women's biology in art was a way of restricting women to a biological identity-which feminists were supposed to have fought against-or a way of releasing women from the negative male definitions of their biology.

Edited by Jone Lewis.

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How the Feminist Movement and Women's Experience Changed the Art World

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The Feminist Art Movement began with the idea that women's experiences must be expressed through art, where they had previously been ignored or trivialized. Early proponents of Feminist Art in the United States envisioned a revolution. They called for a new framework in which the universal would include women's experiences, in addition to men's.