Rachel Speght
Rachel Speght was born in London in 1597 and was the daughter of James Speght, a Calvinist minister and author. She gained recognition for her literary works, particularly for her groundbreaking pamphlet, "A Mouzell for Melastomus," published in 1616. This publication was a direct response to Joseph Swetnam's misogynistic text, "The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward and Unconstant Women," and showcased Speght's unique position as a woman engaging publicly in a male-dominated discourse. In her writing, she challenged societal norms by asserting the intellectual equality of women and advocating for their education. Furthermore, her subsequent work, "Mortalities Memorandum, with a Dreame Prefixed," was inspired by personal loss and emphasized the importance of women’s dignity and the eternal joys of the afterlife. Speght married William Proctor in 1621 and had two children, but details about her later life remain scarce. She is recognized as one of the first British women to identify as a polemicist, making significant contributions to discussions on gender roles in her time.
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Rachel Speght
Writer
- Born: 1597
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: Possibly 1630
Biography
Rachel Speght was born in London in 1597 to James Speght. James Speght was a Calvinist minister, the rector of two London churches, and the author of several religious tracts. Little is known about his wife, except that she and Rachel’s godmother, Mary Moundford, were influential in Rachel’s life. She died sometime between the publication of Rachel’s first and second works. Speght’s father and godmother are believed to have supported her education and so might be seen as having perhaps the greatest influence on the subject matter of her works.
On November 14, 1616, the Stationer’s Register records that Speght published a pamphlet titled A Mouzell for Melastomus (a muzzle for the black mouth). This work was a response to Joseph Swetnam’s 1615 attack on women, The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward and Unconstant Women. Swetnam’s misogynistic tract followed the conventions of that type of writing of the period; it was published anonymously and was a rhetorically based exercise in wit.
Speght’s response, however, challenged the conventions of the genre, and for this her work is most outstanding. First and foremost, she, a woman without wealth, title, or stature to recommend her, publicly responded to a man. Second, she published under her own name and cleverly managed in her own writing to expose Swetnam as the author of The Arraignment, causing his tract to be published under his name from that point on. Third, she attacked Swetnam on the grounds of logic, revealing the flaws in his logic and grammar. Finally, she reinterpreted Christian scripture, showing that scripture expresses the notion that women were created by God equal to man in all respects, but especially the intellect. In addition to emphasizing women’s dignity and worth, that pamphlet influenced the manner in which Protestants interpreted the Bible.
Mortalities Memorandum, with a Dreame Prefixed, inspired by her mother’s death and dedicated to Mary Moundford, was recorded in the Stationer’s Register on January 18, 1621. This volume of two poems is a Christian meditation on death that argues the vanity of transitory earthly pleasure versus the true joys awaiting one in the afterlife. A three-hundred line section titled “The Dreame,” following the conventions of allegorical dream visions, is particularly notable for its ennobling of women and its arguments for the necessity of women’s education in order for them to improve their minds and save their souls. Her argument is that since women are intellectually equal to men and since God requires the use of all talents, to leave a woman uneducated is to endanger her soul.
Speght married William Proctor on August 2, 1621, at St. Mary Woolchurch in London. Nothing more is known for about Speght’s life except that she and her husband had two children. Their daughter, Rachel, was christened in February, 1626, and their son, William, in December, 1630. Some critics say that Speght died in 1630, but others maintain that the date of her death is unknown. Rachel Speght is thought to be the first British woman to name herself a polemicist and a critic of gender roles.