"The study focuses on the social dimension of women's writing when that writing seems especially insular and when it does not fit neatly into the patterns of interaction predominantly followed by male writers. She reveals how - despite their appearances of self-enclosure - these poems enable their respective poets to rethink or even change their respective positions in society, and to add their own innovations to the history of the lyric. Hammons combines her study of the poetry of such figures as Katherine Philips and Aemilia Lanyer with that of the less well known Mary Carey and Gertrude Aston Thimelby; she engages with canonical male poets such as Ben Jonson and John Milton, as well as with little known ones such as George Payler and Vavasor Powell." "This study engages extensively with issues concerning manuscript and social texts in the context of print culture through the close examination of a variety of textual practices. It provides a thorough yet subtle grounding in recent feminist criticism, the social history of the family, and the history of authorship practices."--Jacket.