Lady Mary Wroth’un Pamphilia‘dan Amphilanthus’a Başlıklı Eserinde Kadın Rollerinin Yeniden Ele Alınışı

Lady Mary Wroth (1587-1653) bir İngiliz asilzadesi ve İngiliz Rönesansı’nın önemli edebi figürlerinden biridir. Lady Mary Wroth Aşkın Zaferi (Love’s Victory) (c. 1620), Montgomery’nin Urania Kontesi (The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania) (1621) ve Pamphilia’dan Amphilanthus’a (Pamphilia to Amphilanthus) (1621) başlıklı eserleriyle tanınır. Pamphilia’dan Amphilanthus’a başlıklı eserinde Lady Mary Wroth kadınları hem şair hem de aşklarını Petrarca sone geleneği çerçevesinde ifade edebilen âşık olarak dışlayan ataerkil ideolojiye meydan okur. Egemen gelenek erkek âşıkları merkezileştirirken kadınları idealize edilmiş sessiz sevgililer olarak marjinalleştirir. Böylece kadın karakterleri erkek âşıkları tarafından sevilecek uysal nesnelere dönüştürür. Lady Mary Wroth, sone geleneğinde kadın yazar ve âşık kavramlarının antifeminist muamelesine karşı koymak için, hem sone geleneği dahilinde hem de ona karşı yazar ve eril türü manipüle ederek ona kadın sesini dahil eder. İlk olarak, egemen geleneğin benimsediği itaatkâr rolleri üstlenir. Bu rolleri tartışır ve akabinde güçsüzleştiren geleneği yeniden yazarak bunları kendi yararına olacak şekilde manipüle eder. Bu geleneksel rollere karşı mücadelesi ve daha sonra bu rolleri manipülasyonu karşılaştığı baskıya direnmek için fırsatlar yaratır. Dolayısıyla, belirli stratejiler kullanarak kadın karakterlerin sınırlı rollerini sone geleneğinin dinamikleri içinde altüst eder. Bu bağlamda, bu makale Pamphilia’dan Amphilanthus’a başlıklı eserde Lady Mary Wroth’un kadın karakterlere biçilen geleneksel rolleri yıkma stratejilerini incelemektedir ve Wroth’un sone geleneğindeki cinsiyetçi erkek şair kavramına meydan okuyan şiirsel yeniliklerini araştırmaktadır.

Female Roles Revisited in Lady Mary Wroth’s Pamphilia to Amphilanthus

Lady Mary Wroth (1587-1653) was an English noblewoman and one of the significant literary figures of the English Renaissance. She is renowned for her works, namely, Love’s Victory (c. 1620), The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania (1621), and Pamphilia to Amphilanthus (1621). In Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, Lady Mary Wroth challenges the patriarchal ideology that excludes women both as sonneteers and lovers who are able to express their love in Petrarchan sonnet tradition. The dominant tradition centralizes the male lovers and marginalizes women as idealized silent beloveds. Thus, it transforms female characters into docile objects to be loved by their male lovers. In order to confront the misogynistic treatment of these concepts of female author and lover in the sonnet tradition, Lady Mary Wroth writes within and against the sonnet tradition and manipulates the masculine genre to insert the female voice into it. First, she assumes submissive roles the dominant tradition appropriates. She negotiates these roles and accordingly manipulates them to her own advantage. Her contestation and later manipulation of these traditional roles create opportunities to resist the oppression she faces by rewriting the disempowering tradition. Hence, she subverts the limited roles of female characters in the dynamics of sonnet tradition by employing specific strategies. In this regard, this article analyzes Lady Mary Wroth’s strategies of subversion of the conventional roles for female characters in Pamphilia to Amphilanthus and explores Wroth’s poetic innovations that challenge the gendered concept of the male poet in the sonnet tradition.

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