Abstract & Overview
The growing and increasingly central interest in writings by six teenthand seventeenth-century women is beginning to have some material effects on the literary profession. In the fifth edition of the Norton Anthology (published in 1986), for example, a literature teacher could find a couple of poems by Lady Mary Wroth, one psalm by the Countess of Pembroke, and two poems by Queen Eliza beth. In the just-published sixth edition (1993), the number of texts by women has significantly increased, both in number and variety. One notable change is the inclusion of Aemilia Lanyer as a major au thor, a figure until very recently entirely absent from literary history, much less the canon.