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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women's Writing pp 1–6Cite as

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Makin, Bathsua

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Abstract

The biography of the educator, poet, linguist, and renowned polyglot, Bathsua Makin (née Reynolds) (c. 1600–1675), has been marked by misidentification and uncertain provenance. Although known today mainly for her essay promoting a humanist education for women, An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen in Religion, Manners, Arts & Tongues (1673), her writing career is more extensive and began as early as 1619. Skilled in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, German, Spanish, French, and Italian, Makin’s academic reputation gained her the position of tutor, rather than governess, to Princess Elizabeth Stuart, and later to Lucy Davies Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon. Her correspondence with family, friends, patrons, and scholars reveals a woman who remained active in teaching and educational reform throughout her long life.

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Bibliography

  • Makin, Bathsua. 1673. An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen, in Religion, Manners, Arts & Tongues with An Answer to the Objections against this Way of Education. London: Printed by J.D., Cheapside.

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  • Pal, Carol. 2012. Republic of Women: Rethinking the Republic of Letters in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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  • Reginalda, Bathsua. 1616. Musa virginea Græco-Latino-Gallica, London: E. Griffin imp. J. Hodgets.

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  • Salmon, Vivian. 1996. Language and Society in Early Modern England: Selected Essays 1982–1994. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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  • Teague, Frances. 1993. “The Identity of Bathsua Makin.” Biography 16, no. 1 (Winter): 1–17.

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  • ——— 1998. Bathsua Makin, Woman of Learning. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.

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  • ——— 2016. “A Voice for Hermaphroditical Education.” In ‘This Double Voice’: Gendered Writing in Early Modern England, Danielle Clarke and Elizabeth Clarke, 249–69. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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  • Teague, Frances, and Margaret J.M. Ezell, eds. 2016. Bathsua Makin and Mary More with a Reply to More by Robert Whitehall: Educating English Daughters: Late Seventeenth Century Debates. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe Series vol. 44. Toronto: Iter Academic Press.

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Further Reading

  • Brink, Jean R. 1980. “Bathsua Makin: Educator and Linguist.” In Female Scholars: A Tradition of Learned Women Before 1800, J.R. Brink, 86–100. Montreal: Eden’s Press.

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  • ——— 1991. “Bathsua Reginald Makin: ‘Most Learned Matron’” Huntington Library Quarterly 54, no. 4: 313–326.

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  • Ross, Sarah Gwyneth. 2009. The Birth of Feminism: Women as Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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  • Saunders, Anne Leslie. 2002. “Bathsua Reginald Makin.” In Women Writing Latin: From Roman Antiquity to Early Modern Europe, Laurie J. Churchill, Phyllis R. Brown, and Jane E. Jeffrey, 247–70. New York/London: Routledge.

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  • Uckelman, Sara L. 2018. “Bathsua Makin and Anna Maria van Schurman: Education and the Metaphysics of Being a Woman.” In Early Modern Women on Metaphysics, Emily Thomas, 95–110. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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  • Van Beek, Pieta. 1995. “‘One Tongue is Enough for a Woman’: The Correspondence in Greek between Anna Maria van Schurman and Bathsua Makin.” Dutch Crossing 19 no. 1 (Summer): 24–48.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Delilah Bermudez Brataas

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  1. Delilah Bermudez Brataas
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Correspondence to Delilah Bermudez Brataas .

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  1. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Suzanne Trill

  2. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Natasha Simonova

  3. University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    Lisa Walters

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Brataas, D.B. (2021). Makin, Bathsua. In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women's Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_200-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_200-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-01537-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-01537-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Makin, Bathsua
    Published:
    04 April 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_200-2

  2. Original

    Makin, Bathsua
    Published:
    07 December 2021

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_200-1

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