Lady Mary Wroth - Biography and Works

Lady Mary Wroth was one of the English poets of the Renaissance. She was born in the family that have extended relationship with the Elizabethan Court. Though her education was informal, she had written The Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania, which today is regarded as the first surviving prose romance by an English female writer.


Lady Mary Wroth (1587-1651)

Meanwhile, her Pamphilia to Amphilanthus is a sonnet sequence and is also considered as the first sonnet by a lady writer. Though there were other female writers of the sixteenth century who confined themselves to the translation and epitaph writing, she broke the tradition and wrote about secular love, poetry and romances.

As she came from a prominent literary family, known for its patronage of the arts, she was radical in her time. Women were expected to be innocent, silent and submissive, but she did not follow the tradition and write a novel full of romance. She was thought to violate the rules of society and many questions were raised upon her moral character by some critics too. her literary works are influenced by her uncle, Sir Philip Sidney. Her literary creations are the pioneer in the history of female writers in English literature.

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