The Poets, II: Mary Fage

"The Early Modern Englishwoman" is designed to make available a comprehensive and focused collection of writings in English from 1500 to 1700, both by women and for and about women. The volumes reproduce carefully chosen copies of the texts, incorporating significant variants.

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The dates of Mary Fage are not known, it is assumed however that she was flourishing around 1637. Fames Roule comprises a series of over 400 acrostic verses, each containing an anagram and each addressed to one of the noble and powerful of Caroline England. As such it constitutes a verbal salute to court culture. While they may not be of great literary value, her verses are an extreme example of the pervasive word play of her time, and their contents afford an extended glimpse at social construction of upperclass reality in Caroline England. Reproduced here is the copy held at the Huntington Library.