Elizabeth Melville: Protestant Poetics, Publication, and Propaganda

This chapter discusses the poetry, poetics, and publication strategies of Scottish poet Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross (fl. 1599–1631), locating her within Scottish and English cultural networks. It is often assumed Melville was exceptional if not unique as a practising poet: she was the first Scottish woman to publish poetry, and the first to produce the sizeable corpus of over 4,000 lines of verse. This chapter tests these assumptions by considering issues of poetics and influence, and publication and propaganda. The chapter also considers how Melville’s religion and poetics reflect the contents of a neglected Melville family library. Melville’s publication strategies suggest various ways in which her poetry functioned socially, including occasional and targeted manuscript publication in support of friends. This chapter ultimately suggests that Melville was perhaps never an outlier, but also that her voice and contribution, not only to women’s writing but also to Scottish and British letters, were distinct.