Ziegler is curator of “Shakespeare’s Sisters: Voices of English and European Women Writers, 1500-1700,” a new exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library that opened Friday and runs through May 20.
What material is on display in the Shakespeare’s Sisters exhibition?
We have poetry, drama, fiction, religious writings and more by about 50 English and European women writers, dating from 1500 to 1700.
Why did you decide to do this exhibit?
I’ve been interested in women writers for years, and when the two women teaching our high school seminar on “Shakespeare’s Sisters” thought it would be nice to have an exhibition, I agreed and offered to do it — as long as I could also include French and Italian writers. Everybody knows that the Folger has English books from Shakespeare’s time, but It is important to highlight our large European collection as well.
Why is this material important?
This material is important because it gives the public a much more full and honest view of our literary heritage. Many of these women writers were ‘lost’ to modern readers, either because their works were never published in their own time, or the original publications were not readily available, or — in the case of European writers — available in translation. Over the past 30 years or so, many scholars — mostly women! — have dug in the archives for manuscripts and printed books which they have made available in modern editions for new generations of scholars and students to explore.
What challenges did you face in putting the exhibit together?
The main challenge was that so many of the books are small and not illustrated, but it was important to show them. Therefore I searched for portraits of the writers themselves, and the hall is now full of colorful pictures. Our designer helped by decorating the case labels with flowers copied from the designs in a 16th century manuscript by Esther Inglis.
— Emily Babay
