The Literary Career and Legacy of Elizabeth Cary, 1613-1680 [Hardcover]

This is the first book to study the work and influence of Elizabeth Cary, author of the first original play by a woman to be printed in English, The Tragedyie of Mariam (1613). Previous criticism focused concentrated on this and The History of Edward II , this volume incorporates critical and historical analyses of other genres too.PART I: THE TRAGEDY OF MARIAM Private Lyrics in Elizabeth Cary's Tragedy of Mariam ; I.Bell Mariam and Early Modern Discourses of Martyrdom; E.E.Kelly Elizabeth Cary's Historical Conscience: The Tragedy of Mariam and Thomas Lodge's Josephus; A.Shell PART II: EDWARD II 'Royal Fever' and 'The Giddy Commons' in Elizabeth Cary's History of the Life, Reign, and Death of Edward II ; C.Perry 'Fortune is a Stepmother': Gender and Political Discourse in Elizabeth Cary's History of Edward II; M.Suzuki

'This is a splendid collection of essays, treating the entire range of Elizabeth Cary's writing and its literary, political, and religious resonances and affiliations. Several essays offer new critical perspectives on Cary's closet drama, The Tragedy of Mariam, and others explore the relations between and political import of the two printed versions of her The History of Edward II and the two recently discovered manuscripts of that work. Some essays treat her translation of the Roman Catholic controversalist Du Perron and her epitaph (and elegy?) on the assassination of Buckingham, works which involved her directly with fraught contemporary issues. Still others treat her private letters, her patronage of writers and Irish social projects, her association with court and intellectual circles, and her influence on the writings of her children. The collection significantly advances our knowledge of Cary and her age, as well as testifying to the maturity the study of early modern women's writing has now attained.' - Barbara Lewalski, Kenan Professor of English Literature, Harvard University