The fair triumvirate of wit

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The fair triumvirate of wit refers to the three 17th and 18th century authors Eliza Haywood, Delarivier Manley, and Aphra Behn.

Eliza Haywood British actor and writer

Eliza Haywood, born Elizabeth Fowler, was an English writer, actress and publisher. An increase in interest and recognition of Haywood's literary works began in the 1980s. Described as "prolific even by the standards of a prolific age", Haywood wrote and published over seventy works during her lifetime including fiction, drama, translations, poetry, conduct literature and periodicals. Haywood is a significant figure of the 18th century as one of the important founders of the novel in English. Today she is studied primarily as a novelist.

Delarivier Manley English writer

DelarivierManley was an English author, playwright, and political pamphleteer.

Aphra Behn British playwright, poet, translator and fiction writer

Aphra Behn was an English playwright, poet, translator and fiction writer from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. She wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her into legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, she declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming poem to the new king William III. She died shortly after.

Contents

Term and usage

The term was coined by poet-critic Rev. James Sterling in a dedicatory verse to Haywood's Secret Histories, Novels, and Poems, and acknowledges the authors' stature as the three most influential women writers of the time. [1] Subsequent feminist literary criticism has helped restore their work–which includes plays, poetry, novels, and essays–to prominence. [2] As the verse appears in the dedication to Haywood's book, it is perhaps unsurprising that Sterling positions her as the most impressive of the three, writing:

James Sterling (1701–1763) was an Irish cleric and poet.

Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or more broadly, by the politics of feminism. It uses the principles and ideology of feminism to critique the language of literature. This school of thought seeks to analyze and describe the ways in which literature portrays the narrative of male domination by exploring the economic, social, political, and psychological forces embedded within literature. This way of thinking and criticizing works can be said to have changed the way literary texts are viewed and studied, as well as changing and expanding the canon of what is commonly taught. It is used a lot in Greek myths.

Pathetic [lower-alpha 1] Behn, or Manley's greater Name;
Forget their Sex, and own when Haywood writ,
She clos'd the Fair triumvirate of Wit. [3]

Notes

  1. "Pathetic" here is used in an obsolete sense meaning "affecting the feeling"; see pathos .

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References

  1. Kastan, David Scott (2006). The Oxford encyclopedia of British literature. Oxford University Press. p. 10. ISBN   978-0-19-516921-8 . Retrieved 17 March 2012.
  2. Haywood, Eliza Fowler; Pettit, Alexander; Croskery, Margaret Case; Patchias, Anna C. (1 April 2004). Fantomina and other works. Broadview Press. p. 20. ISBN   978-1-55111-524-5 . Retrieved 17 March 2012.
  3. Anderson, Paul Bunyan (February 1936). "Mistress Delariviere Manley's Biography". Modern Philology. 33 (3): 261–278. doi:10.1086/388202. ISSN   0026-8232.