The Pulter Project

Conviction, skepticism: how do Hester Pulter’s poems believe? Ken Graham addresses this key question as intricately and insightfully as the poet whose work he illuminates: doi.org/10.1093/litthe…

Ever tried writing from the sickbed? Hester Pulter did, and Emma Cohen’s new Curation sets Pulter’s verse in conversation with other art that transforms illness into a catalyst for creative exploration: #writing-from-the-sickbed" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ee/this-…

“Rest in hope, for though no help be found / Above, yet it may come from underground”: Hester Pulter’s centuries-old pep-talk still resonates for the unjustly imprisoned. Dig into some escapist literature in Tara Lyons’s new edition of her emblem poem: pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/arist…

Complex, convoluted, startling: Felicity Sheehy’s new edition of Hester Pulter’s emblem on jealousy shows it—both the poem and jealousy itself—to be all these things: #ae" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/the-l…

Elephant virtue, human vice: Karen Raber examines Hester Pulter’s emblematic juxtaposition in a new Amplified Edition and three new Curations for The Pulter Project: pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/the-e…

Ready for an ambitious Amplified Edition of Hester Pulter’s verse? Scott Maisano reads her emblem, “Ambitious Apes,” as “an imitation of an imitation, in which the poet pretends to be a monkey pretending to be the poet.” Intrigued? Read on: #ae" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/ambit…

New on the site: Vin Nardizzi’s visual essay on early modern emblem poems that (like one of Pulter’s) focus on flowers turning toward the sun: #staring-at-the-sun" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/helio…

Quickly: name a blue flower that follows the sun. Stumped? Pulter had one in mind for her 3rd emblem, and Vin Nardizzi tackles the job of “Identifying Pulter’s Fabulous Flower” in a new Curation for that poem: #identifying-pulters-fabulous-flower" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/helio…

Chastity, consent, desire: see what new Pulter Project contributor @EmmaKatwood makes of an emblem on these hot topics—plus, turtles: #ae" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/the-t…

What did seventeenth-century English poet Hester Pulter know about Brahmans—and how’d she know it? Learn about some sources for her emblem “The Brahman” in an essay by Daniel Juan Gil: #sources-of-the-brahman" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ee/the-b…

What came after life for Hester Pulter? She imagines many options in her poem “The Brahman”; Daniel Juan Gil explores them in a new Curation on dualism and materialism: #dualist-and-materialist-theories-of-resurrection" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ee/the-b…

For Hester Pulter, death was natural, physical, spiritual, personal, communal, destructive, restorative, and unknowable; @eileen_sperry explores all these facets of the poet’s approach to mortality in “Shades of Death”: #shades-of-death-hester-pulter-and-mortality" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/#shades-of-dea…

Straddling bird and beast, ostriches make for good metaphors—so argues @ClaireARichie in a companion essay to her edition of Hester Pulter’s poem on the same creature: #early-modern-ostriches" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/the-o…

Women wrote back to the political upheaval of mid-seventeenth-century Britain; David Norbrook puts the “pioneer”ing Hester Pulter in the context of her contemporaries: #women-writers-and-the-english-revolution" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/#women-writers…

Was Hester Pulter revolutionary? David Norbrook disentangles the term’s seventeenth-century political connotations in a new exploratory essay for The Pulter Project: #pulter-and-political-revolution" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/#pulter-and-po…

Your cousin is killed. How does the world respond? David Norbrook exhibits early literary treatments of the execution of Arthur Capel, Hester Pulter’s relation and fellow Royalist: #arthur-first-baron-capel" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/let-n…

Hester Pulter calibrates four executions in a poetic exploration of comparative trauma. Read David Norbrook’s new edition of the poem: pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/let-n…

How to mourn a murder? Ban sighs, or breathe out your soul? Hester Pulter contemplates options, as does David Norbrook in his new edition of “On the Horrid Murder of that Incomparable Prince, King Charles the First”: pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/on-th…

Consider “the stakes of reading history right” for Hester Pulter, as for us, in an edition of her emblem “Vain Herostratus” by Matthew Harrison: pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/vain-…

Bird, sunfish, soul: how is each like the other? And how does that matter to Hester Pulter? Find out in a new edition of her thirty-fifth emblem poem by @emilybarth: #ae" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">pulterproject.northwestern.edu/poems/ae/this-…