Animalizing Women and Men in an Episode of the Querelle des femmes : John Lyly vs Jane Anger

Jane Anger’s Protection for Women (1589), the first defence in English written by a female authorial persona, is part of the controversy known as the Querelle des femmes. As such, it posits an opponent whose arguments are rebutted. In this paper, this opponent, whose identity remains uncertain, is c...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in17 - 18 Vol. 76
Main Author Dubois-Nayt, Armel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Société d'études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles 2019
Société d'Etudes Anglo-Américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles
Subjects
bestiary
gender order
Jane Anger
John Lily
misogyny
John Lily
Jane Anger
gender order
misogynie
bestiary
bestiaire
ordre des sexes
misogyny
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Jane Anger’s Protection for Women (1589), the first defence in English written by a female authorial persona, is part of the controversy known as the Querelle des femmes. As such, it posits an opponent whose arguments are rebutted. In this paper, this opponent, whose identity remains uncertain, is considered to be John Lyly in his Cooling Card for Philautus (1578). Both texts are analyzed through the bestiaries they build to define both female nature and male nature. In a first part, it analyzes the philosophical stakes of these animal similes. In a second part, it discusses Lyly’s defence of the gender order based on his positioning of the female sex at the boundary between the human group and the animal group. Finally, it shows how Anger retorted by demonstrating that misogyny and misogamy were taking men straight back to bestiality.
ISSN:0291-3798
2117-590X
DOI:10.4000/1718.3710