Whitney was a very unusual and progressive woman, especially for the sixteenth century. She was unconventional in many ways. While almost all women writers of the time were well connected and noble, Whitney was not, and because of this, she often criticized the financial situations of her time in her writing, as well as criticizing gender roles. She also hoped that her writings would bring her and her family some sort of income. Some critics claim that Whitney's poetry proclaimed her as an outsider, or “other,” who pursued her own interests publicly.[17] Whitney was often upfront in the way that she wrote. A common theme in her works were of women in powerless positions and romance. During the time period she was living in, it was important for women to remain modest and under control, however, Whitney did the opposite of this.[18] As Whitney had apologized for borrowing some of her ideas, she is one of a few who named their contemporary sources.[9] Even more importantly, she gave a “public voice to breezily expressed secular concerns”.[7] Furthermore, Whitney was the first writer, male or female, “to exhibit any concern for gender-based phrasing, a practice that took another four hundred years to catch on”.[9] Similarly, scholars have argued that with her use of “complaint, manifesto, satire, [and] mock will,” Whitney was attempting to show a temporal utopia, long before utopia was a generic custom.[17]
According to most critics, Isabella Whitney's works contained a certain degree of autobiographical material. This can be seen in two of her connected poems: A Communication Which the Author had to London before she Made Her Will and The Manner of Her Will, and What She Left to London and to All Those in it, of her Departing where the writer is not only lacking in finances, but also spends the majority her time amongst "the poor, the imprisoned, and the insane", otherwise known as the commonwealth of London.[19] Her most innovative poems were her verse epistles, many of which were addressed to female relatives.[20] She addressed her poem "Will and Testament" to the city of London, mocking it as a heartless friend, greedy and lacking charity.[21] These works were written in ballad metre and contained both witty and animated descriptions of everyday life. Judging from these popular inclusions, it is likely that the reason for the publishing of her works was simply to supplement her scanty income.[19] As she states in an epistle to "her Sister Misteris A.B." in A Sweet Nosegay, "til some houshold cares mee tye, / My bookes and Pen I will apply," possibly suggesting that she sought a professional writing career to support her in an unmarried state. Whitney's publisher, Richard Jones, was a prominent figure in the contemporary market for ballads, and his purchase of her manuscripts makes sense in this regard, even if little evidence of their relationship survives beyond the front matter to The Copy of a Letter (1567).[22]
Isabella Whitney pioneered her field of women poets. While a lot of her practices (familiar allusions, exaggerations, the ballad measure) were common for contemporary male authors of the mid-sixteenth century, as a woman she was quite the trendsetter (in both her epistles and mock testament).[7] She published her poetry in a time when it was not customary for a woman, especially one not of the aristocracy, to do so. In addition, her material contained controversial issues such as class-consciousness and political commentary as well as witty satire, and was made available to the upper and the middle class.[19] Whitney's two best known works are The Copy of a Letter written in 1567?, and A Sweet Nosgay written in 1573.
