The Rehabilitation of Eve in Rachel Speght and Dorothy Calthorpe

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The figure of Eve has long been foundational for literary, cultural, and theological conceptions of women. In most cases, Eve appears entangled within the masculinist discourse of female fallibility and culpability. Women writers—both modern and early modern—have turned to the narrative of the Fall to redeem Eve narratively, if not always theologically. This paper examines the writings of two understudied early modern women which address the contentious issues of female agency, identity, and fallibility by rewriting Eden and reimagining Eve. I direct critical attention to Rachel Speght’s “The Dreame” and Dorothy Calthorpe’s “A Description of the Garden of Eden,” two fascinatingly complex texts that have received far less critical attention than they deserve. Analyzing the strategies employed by Speght and Calthorpe, I explore the ways in which they disentangle their Eves from the traditional masculinist discourse that has long shaped what it means to be a woman.

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