The Countess of Pembroke and the Practice of Piety

Abstract

One of the Countess of Pembroke’s most notable textual habits was that of revision; to the regret of many editors, she was also an assiduous reviser of others’ writings, notably those of her brother, Philip. The extension of her literary practices beyond the parameters of her ‘own’ work has resulted in such activities sometimes being viewed negatively, as a distraction from the task of unearthing what Sir Philip Sidney actually wrote, cleansed of the accretive layers that led Ringler to brand her — not affectionately — as an ‘inveterate tinkerer’, and who, in Freer’s words, was ‘congenitally incapable of leaving a poem long enough to produce a definitive copy’.¹ The dismissive tone of these comments reflects a prevalent attitude to female authorship prior to the extensive rehabilitation of Renaissance women writers that marked much of the scholarship of the 1980s and 1990s, one that more recent work, particularly on manuscript materials, is finally beginning to displace. A series of developments in the theorization of textuality and authorship have started to unsettle notions of singular authorship, in ways that make it possible to situate the Countess’ work within the broader context of Renaissance habits of composition and production. The Psalter, by the Countess’ own admission, is a composite work, a form of aesthetic compilation, where the input of the individual is ultimately subordinated to the work, and finally, to God.