Before The Governour By Sir Thomas Elyot: Literary Analysis

Judith Sargent Murray’s On the Equality of the Sexes reveals the struggles women had in the 17th-18th centuries when it came to equal education opportunities. Women were expected to become people of domestication while men had many opportunities to expand their minds and be ambitious, and be leaders. Women were expected to focus on taking care of their family, not to have minds of their own. They wanted change.

An understanding of the educational background of women is necessary in discovering the female oppression of the Renaissance. Education was more than an issue of gender, especially in consideration of the consequences of wealth as well. Yet their oppression stems from their decision in whether or not they should study the liberal arts. Often was the case that women faced social stigmas and societal pressures from family members and learned men of the society for turning away from typically female activities. Lucrezia Marinella writes in her Exhortation, “Therefore, she who devotes her mind to learning – a domain that does

Women during this time had many restrictions in terms of not being able to vote, gain education and receive inheritance money. Regardless of their social position, they were never allowed to vote. The majority of women never attended school unless their family was considerably wealthy. Reading, writing, dance and skills like needlework were taught through husbands or parish priests. Many women however, remained illiterate. Women could neither inherit their father’s titles. All titles were passed from father to son or brother to brother.

Studying and academic pursuits were an important aspect means of gaining power in the public world. Women were not permitted to take the civil service examinations during the 18th century. However, women were not necessarily denied access to knowledge, to a large extent, they were educated. Many women were literate, and many women wrote poems and other literary works.

Focusing on the lives of women, they were not allowed such freedoms like we have in modern times. Education is something that these women were not granted a lot of access to. This is pointed out in the very beginning of the novel. One of the characters mentions, “You cannot read, Anna.” (Brooks, 1). Women were expected to be housewives, they would not need that much education to do that. It seems, though, that women in the book were able to learn a lot through experiences. They had no need of a proper education to be able to survive day to day. Going off the information I have learned and the information presented in this book, I believe that the author was able to properly portray the life of women in the seventeenth century.

Before the Reformation, education for women slightly improved but it was essentially limited to household training but this changed during the 15 and

This shows the value of many teachers in the development of Arthur because Arthur is taught by Archimedes basic and necessary skills which Arthur would use in his kingship, while Merlin teaches Arthur the importance of values and moral standards. This also shows that different teachers can impart equally relevant, but different wisdom. It mirrors society’s knowing of ‘human-ess’ because it show that the society believes one person does not know everything, and that a well-rounded individual needs many teachers to know the finer points of specific topics.

Never the less, Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz set the bar high during her time as far as dedication to venture outside of the realm of what was socially accepted and provide proof that women have the same ability to study, learn, and teach as men did. She wrote with such

Most times women were not taught how to read and write so the fact that Gliki took inspiration from her childhood and her father’s teachings she was able to become the woman that she was. Reading about this in our book made my view on the subject widen more than ever before, rather than just looking at one gender and how that one gender affected the seventeenth century. Women in the Jewish religion were able to do more than women who practiced other religions. One example, Catholic women could not do many things like for example, “Although every convent had to have a priest available to say Mass and hear confessions because the Catholic Church ruled these were functions that no woman could perform, all of the other administrative duties and much of the spiritual counseling of novices and residents were carried out by women” (209

Education was not equal between the sexes and neither between the classes. Gentlemen were educated at home until they were old enough to attend well-known or lesser schools. A lady’s schooling was

The education of women in Medieval Europe is hard pinpoint primarily because the view of the education of young girls and adult women were that they were intellectually inferior to men as well as naturally. It was believed that they could not learn anything but the basic things that could make them a better wife or nun; these thoughts regarding their intellectual abilities usually came from science and the Bible. Noble woman were usually educated and their literary works were protected from criticism because of their status. Some queens like Margaret of Navarre and Catherine Parr did write poems and meditations. A good deal about a women’s education can be deduced from the didactic works addressed to them throughout the Middle Ages, especially from the early 13th century onwards stated by (Power, 1975). The education of woman was mainly vocational meaning usually the nuns were the most educated but there were other ways for women to acquire education. One way was schools set up by nunneries which mainly taught women most of higher status secondly, you could be sent to the home of great ladies where you could `learn breeding or you could go the local elementary schools for girls and lastly by apprenticeships.

Thus, we see that in a sense, Catholicism acted as a catalyst in the development of female education. Paradoxically enough though, at the same time, it limited the possible level of knowledge they could attain. The thought of the supposedly foolish, sinful female sex breaking the bonds of ignorance made many people fear the possibility of women reading “forbidden” books. Dante’s “La vita nuova”, the Petrarchan sonnets and the “Decameron” are a few examples of books that were considered lasciviously dangerous and kept off-limits (Grendler, 1989). Indeed, women could be educated, yet within a certain framework. Their level of knowledge only went up to a point, in order to make sure they grew up to be exemplary, pious, Christian housewives.

This analogy in The Prince also applies to modern rulers. This method is used by

Many English monarchs believed in the divine right to rule. This right was given to them by God, therefore they believed that no one could take their crown or it would destroy the rightful line of succession. However, this was not always the case and some kings such as Richard II had their crown forced from them. If a king believed in the divine right he often had a close relationship with God. In William Shakespeare’s comedies, the divine right to rule a kingdom is present in the ways in which Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V are come to rule England. Both Richard II and Henry V were powerful rulers, whose ruling was heavily dictated by their divine right to rule and their relationship with God. Through exploring the King’s relationship to God in Shakespeare’s tragedies Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V, one can see that Henry V is the ideal Christian King.

The late 18th century can be known as the historical period of the Enlightenment. During this time, society was undergoing drastic changes that would impact people even today. These changes were known as “reforms,” and played a big role in politics and ruling during this time period. One of the bigger reforms of this time was that which would grant women a higher education and place them in a position closer to their male counterparts. The enlightenment authors, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft, took part in a debate in which they argued about the purpose and education of women. In an article recently written in The New York Times by Nicholas