Speght, Rachel

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | 663 words | Copyright

Speght, Rachel (b. 1597, fl. 1621), daughter of a London Puritan minister, James Speght, who published at the age of 19 a spirited rebuttal of Joseph Sweetnam's misogynist Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward and Inconstant Women. Her A Mouzell for Melastomus (A Muzzle for a Black Mouth) (1617) objected to the ‘excrement of your raving cogitations’ as a slander on woman, who, as Eve's daughter, was fashioned from Adam's side, not his head or foot, ‘near his heart, to be his equal.’ In 1621 she published Mortalities Memorandum, with a Dreame Prefixed, the latter being an allegorical narrative poem urging the education of women.

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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Speght, Rachel." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 10 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Speght, Rachel." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (February 10, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-SpeghtRachel.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Speght, Rachel." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved February 10, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-SpeghtRachel.html

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