Repurposing Rhetoric:

Abstract

The division between male and female Classical scholars, articulated in early modern discourse, presents a real tension between female scholarship and the humanist movement’s claims of cultivating male leaders. Such rhetorical difference, however, underplays the extent to which female Latinists were able to access and utilise Latin as part of a dynamic and distinctly sixteenth-century sociocultural code. The education and humanistic activity of Lady Jane Lumley (1537–78) are a valuable case study for our understanding of the use of Latin as a cultural resource for both men and women in sixteenth-century England. Through the interrogation of Lumley’s personal library, this article claims that, in addition to her well-researched translations from Greek, her education in early modern Latin provided her with a set of skills and practices which had significance beyond a public, political context. Outlining the development of reading practices, collecting, and network-building, this study demonstrates the extent of intellectual reciprocity between supposedly male and female humanist curricula, and the cultural value to both sexes of the practices taught.