Martha Moulsworth Page
"The Memorandum of Martha Moulsworth / Widow," written in 1632, is not only one of the first autobiographical poems in the English language but also issues perhaps the earliest call by an Englishwoman for founding a women's university. In a carefully crafted work of fifty-five couplets (one for each of her fifty-five years), the thrice-widowed Moulsworth recounts (and reflects on) the most important details of her existence, including her relations with her parents (especially her father), her husbands, her children, and her God. Written with wit but also with deep emotion, the "Memorandum" expresses a whole complex of emotions, include love, satisfaction, frustration, regret, faith, and abiding hope. Perhaps its most startling lines occur when Moulsworth, recalling the educational limitations she faced as a Renaissance woman, protests (and warns) that "The muses females are / And therefore of us females take some care. Two universities we have of men; / Oh that we had but one of women then! / Oh then that would in wit and tongues surpass / All art of men that is or ever was!" (ll. 31-36).
From the time of the manuscript's first discovery in the early 1990s, Moulsworth's poem has been the subject of intense scholarly interest. One book, "My Name Was Martha": A Renaissance Woman's Autobiographical Poem (edited by Robert C. Evans and Barbara Wiedemann), first printed the poem and examined it within a variety of contexts. (For a full on-line edition, check here.) Another book, "The Muses Females Are": Martha Moulsworth and Other Women Writers of the English Renaissance (edited by Evans and Anne C. Little), offered a mass of new biographical and historical information about Moulsworth and her times and also printed essays by many noted scholars of Renaissance history and literature. (For more information, check here) Finally, a third book printed essays submitted from throughout the world by undergraduate and graduate students, as part of an effort to break down artificial distinctions between "teaching" and "research." ( See "The Birthday of My Self" )
PROFITS FROM SALES OF ALL THREE BOOKS BENEFIT VARIOUS STUDENT PROJECTS AND SCHOLARSHIP FUNDS AT AUBURN UNIVERSITY AT MONTGOMERY
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Martha Moulsworth's "Memorandum": Old-Spelling Text, with Notes and Commentary