SOURCE: "Female Writing Beside the Rhetorical Tradition: Seventeenth Century British Biography and a Female Tradition in Rhetoric," in International Journal of Women's Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, March/April, 1980, pp. 143-60.
In this essay, Sullivan compares Cavendish's Life of William Cavendish with Thomas Sprat's "Life of Cowley, " highlighting the influence of gender on the form and style of biographical writing. She asserts that Cavendish's use of extensive detail, heightened emotional pitch, and temporally sequenced narrative creates a human "life story " that contrasts with Sprat's objective analysis of his subject's contribution to society.
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