Constantia Munda
摘要
Constantia Munda published The Worming of a mad Dogge: or, a Soppe for Cerbervs the Iaylor of Hell (London, 1617) as a response to Joseph Swetnam’s misogynist attack on women, The Araignment of Lewde, Idle, Froward, and Inconstant Women (1615). The Worming was the third pamphlet to defend women against Swetnam’s attack, and is part of the Swetnam Controversy, a Jacobean addition to the querelle des femmes. In The Worming Munda aggressively attacks Swetnam’s character and writing using some traditional defenses of women, but also writes in a manner reminiscent of Joseph Hall’s Characters, of Juvenalian satire, and of the sometimes personal printed exchanges between John Webster, John Stephens, John Cocke, and Thomas Coryat, amongst others. Munda’s writing can be read as an example of an addition to the querelle des femmes, as an example of the range of expression available in a female-voiced communication, and as a male-authored text that displays the author’s “literate” skill in satire, multiple discourses, manipulation of classical allusions, and participation in contemporary literary debates at the expense of women.