The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino will host an in-person lecture by Wendy Hall, Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University, on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 4:30 to 6 p.m.
In the lecture, Professor Hall will describe how Hester Pulter, while sick and confined to her bedroom after giving birth to her 15th child in the 17th century, sought solace in an unusual way: she wrote poems about taking off into space to explore planets in the heliocentric universe.
In her lifetime, 1605 to 1678, Hester Pulter was an unknown contributor to British literature. It was only in 1996 when Mark Robson discovered “Poems breathed forth by the Noble Hadrassas,” a previously unknown set of poems by Pulter, and “The Unfortunate Florinda,” in the Leeds University Brotherton Library in England. The Leeds Manuscript, as it came to be known, includes about 130 folios of poems by Pulter, and 30 folios of the prose romance, “The Unfortunate Florinda.”
The Leeds Manuscript demonstrates Pulter’s knowledge in writing and astronomy. While intellectuals of the day feared that new conceptions of astronomy undermined cherished religious beliefs, Pulter was exhilarated in incorporating cutting-edge ideas about space into a new type of devotional poem.
How can this relatively newly discovered female poet enlarge our understanding of ways that writers used poetry to interconnect religion, science, and the imagination? How might Pulter’s poetry reveal previously unacknowledged ways that early modern women engaged in intellectual production and the mapping of the heavens, even from their remote estates or bedrooms? Professor Hall’s lecture is expected to respond to these questions.
Proof of COVID-19 vaccination is required at this event, as well as all other indoor events at The Huntington. By attending this event, you attest and agree to provide proof of full vaccination. Masks are required indoors, and recommended outdoors, per Los Angeles County’s current COVID-19 safety protocols.
The lecture is free to attend, but reservations are required.
To reserve your spot, visit www.huntington.org/events/
For more information, call (626) 405-2100.
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens are located at 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino.
