Two Extraordinary Women: Comparing Isabella Whitney and Gaspara Stampa Anwesha Ghosh College

Isabella Whitney was born around 1543 and expired around 1573. She flourished in her career of writing around 1567-1573. Gaspara Stampa, on the other hand, was born in 1523 and breathed her last in 1554. Both have made remarkable contributions to Literature in the form of their poems in spite of not belonging to the aristocratic class. Thus, Isabella Whitney can be considered as an younger contemporary of Gaspara Stampa. The lives of Isabella Whitney and Gaspara Stampa are also similar to a certain extent. Both are regarded as non-identities as per the norms of the 16th century as both of them did not marry. Both Isabella Whitney and Gaspara Stampa were abandoned by their respective lovers which brought out the hidden poets in them.

Isabella Whitney is particularly significant because she is the first English woman to become a professional writer despite not belonging to aristocracy. At a time when “Writing for an audience defied codes of modesty; furthermore the idea of paying a lady for her services suggested the trade of sex,” Isabella Whitney dared to do something herself. She dared to think differently. She dared to fetch for herself by writing, that too, autobiographical pieces.

At a time when women were only expected to...