The Pulter Project<\/a><\/em> presents the sophisticated and extensive body of work by the female poet in a way that encourages a fresh approach to literary history.<\/p>\n\u201cEven though it\u2019s been over 20 years since her work was rediscovered, even experts in the field still often haven\u2019t heard her name, let alone read her works,\u201d says Associate Professor Leah Knight in Brock\u2019s Department of English Language and Literature, who is leading the project with Professor of English Wendy Wall at Northwestern University.<\/p>\n
The open-access project already features contributions from a team of editors, reviewers, curators and advisors from across the Anglophone world, and offers scholars and students the rare opportunity to reflect on how a writer\u2019s profile is created through scholarship.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomewhat uniquely, our edition of Pulter\u2019s poetry is deliberately and experimentally plural,\u201d says Knight. \u201cWe decided that we wanted to showcase the variety of ways in which Pulter\u2019s work resonates with different editors, rather than locking down her work with a single interpretation generated by a single mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than presenting a single authorized edition of Pulter\u2019s work, the project brings together digital scans of the original manuscript, a basic readable transcript of the poems, and editions that provide more expansive and imaginative ways of presenting the poetry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope that this open and even playful, but still rigorous, approach to editing might help transform that field of scholarly endeavour,” says Knight. “It’s sometimes unduly attached to unexamined ideas of the definitive, the authentic and the authoritative.”<\/p>\n
Pulter, who was born in the Dublin area in 1605, lived through interesting times. Her father worked his way into James I\u2019s English court, eventually joining the aristocracy and becoming the first Earl of Marlborough in 1626. Her poems reflect the events of the war-torn 1640s, referencing the royals\u2019 flight from London, the imprisonment and beheading of Charles I, and the execution of key commanding officers. She also engages with more personal themes, including the births and deaths of her children, as well as her own experiences of war, illness, melancholy, aging and grief.<\/p>\n
The on-going project provides scholars with the opportunity to explore the scientific, theological, political and cultural contexts of Pulter\u2019s poetry, and to contribute to the understanding of her poetry in relation to literature, history and politics.<\/p>\n