Playing the Rhetoric Game: Anna Trapnel's Report and Plea
Anna Trapnel’s 1654 account of her travels to Cornwal and her religious and political implications sheds an interesting light on one woman’s involvement and the creation of her path in the larger English social sphere. As a literate, well-spoken woman, she confidently prophesied the end of the world and claims that God’s message flowed through her. Trapnel stressed the importance of following a set calling and not falling to “satan’s temptations” (Trapnel 4). Although her voice (gender, and background) eventually land her a place in Bridewell, Trapnel unapologetically details her visions and conversations with God, connecting them to vital parts of her body including her heart and mind. By connecting her spirituality to her own body, she seems to play on societal standards or maternal bodies and purity. Trapnel is an interesting example of the introduction of the body into the conversation about one’s credibility, as seen earlier in The Tragedie of Miriam’s chorus. By bringing her physical and spiritual self into her arguments, she is able to directly address those who attempt to objectify her. In a time of naturalization of the “english citizen” Trapnel uses her gift in rhetoric to respond to ideas bouncing around different religious groups by spreading her Baptist-based beliefs, as well as responding to the social hierarchy by working through it.
Trapnel is put off specifically by the popularization of cheap print pamphlets that spread information against her word of mouth like wildfire. She does not let these rumors put her to rest, however, responding to these “scurrilous” pamphlets in the name of her faith and commitment to her Baptist beliefs. In describing the reactions of these naysayers when coming to see her in person, Trapnel argues, “I was a woman like others that were modest and civil, and many commending words they uttered; which (because it's of my own particular) forbear to mention; and what I do mention is to advance free grace shewed me, in making gain-sayers to receive a check in their own consciences, and to be ashamed that they took up reports'' (49). Dismissing these pamphlets as exaggerating noise and gossip, she calms the rumors against her using her own femininity and popularized gender stereotypes. She addresses this response to “men” and signs it, “your praying friend,” both using her womanhood as well as belittling it and covering it up with the more conventionally accepted cloak of religious devotion (59). The motif of her hiding and showing her gender can be used as a lens to view other early women writers as well, as Trapnel was not the only one to use, as well as obscure, her feminine qualities in her rhetoric.
She goes on to advise, “be humbled and repent, that your evill words, and unjust actions, and thoughts of your heart may be forgiven you, and for you I shall pray” (Trapnel 59). Here she uncovers some of her femininity in order to use it in her rhetoric, as these words are reminiscent of those from an advising mother, queen, or elder. However, she also claims to pray for her enemies, much like a priest offers up prayers for sinners. By ending with this statement, she is able to insert a sort of motherly advice without losing her grip on an audience because of assumptions about her gender. Instead, she embodies both a woman, but also a religious savior and preacher figure who is able, to an extent, to exist outside of conventional gender roles. Overall, Trapnel was able to enter into the religious conversation of the time as well as be physically pushed out of it due to her incredible ability to write herself in and out of the popularized idea of the sphere of womanhood itself.
Source: Trapnel, Anna. Anna Trapnel’s Report and Plea. Printed at London for Thomas Brewster, 1612. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership, http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A63061.0001.001
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