Daughters of debate: Literary women in early modern British politics

Early modern culture urged women to be chaste, silent, and obedient, but Mary, Queen of Scots, and Lady Wroth defied conventions to write and take part in political life. In examining their texts, I focus on the strategies these women used to accommodate cultural demands while seeking to influence their societys' political agendas. I argue that as members of their respective societies, Queen Mary and Lady Wroth were shaped by cultural demands, while at the same time they participated in shaping their cultures. The texts of Queen Mary and Lady Wroth indicate that despite cultural pressures to remain silent and "housebound," early modern women looked beyond their hearths to join their cultures' political conversations.;In Chapter One, I analyze Queen Mary's Sonnets, contextualized with historical accounts of her reign, to understand the strategies she used to balance the contradictory demands of "prince" (dominant) and "woman" (submissive), appearing passive while acting aggressively. I further examine how Mary manipulated masculine sonnet conventions in developing their own sonnet voice.;In Chapter Two, I explore Wroth's depiction of the exercise of power in the private and public spheres and the relationship between the two. I argue that in her stories of abused wives in the Urania, Wroth exposes the threat implicit in the household-state analogy by presenting the consequences of an unequal disposition of political power in the family and the state.;In Chapter Three, I analyze the rhetoric of Queen Mary's religious essay, "On Adversity," which I believe furthers Mary's overt attempts to win her freedom from prison. The Neostoic philosophy informing the essay, which places Mary within the Stoic revival of the late sixteenth century, establishes an ethos supportive of the agenda of her work.;In Chapter Four, I argue that in her prose romance, The Countess of Montgomery's Urania, Wroth comments on the crisis of counsel surrounding James and criticizes the king for his creation of powerful favorites. Wroth skillfully weaves a Neostoic analysis of court corruption with the traditional discourse on tyrants and corrupt flatterers to inflict a scathing condemnation of James.