Studies in Philology

Abstract:

In The Womens Sharpe Revenge (1639), the pseudonymous authors Mary Tattle-well and Joane Hit-him-home resurrect a ghost from England’s folkloric past—the raucous ghost of Long Meg of Westminster—to argue the worth of women. Yet Long Meg bears little resemblance to the chaste, silent, and obedient women often marshaled as exempla in apologies for women. Her presence in the pamphlet, then, requires explanation beyond assigning the text the label of pseudo-defense. Reading The Womens Sharpe Revenge in tandem with the attacks on women to which it responds (specifically those authored by John Taylor) provides a more meaningful analysis of the Sharpe Revenge that also posits John Taylor himself as the author of the defense pamphlet, a suggestion buttressed by further comparison among Taylor’s writings about women and his broader poetic interests. Taylor was one of the most prolific poets of the seventeenth century and, like his contemporary Ben Jonson, he harbored a deep anxiety about the qualities and education necessary to claim the title of “poet” for himself. Known as the “waterpoet,” Taylor addresses this anxiety throughout his oeuvre by reimagining the potential sources for poetic authority, and Long Meg proves to be a figure through which he can continue to authorize his own non-erudite creative license. Revealing Taylor as the author of The Womens Sharpe Revenge highlights the extent to which the early modern debate about women was a useful vehicle for serious literary concerns.