Elizabeth Cary and Intersections of Catholicism and Gender in Early Modern England

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Historians have analyzed the life of Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland, primarily in the context of her highly publicized conversion to Catholicism and her equally public separation from her Protestant husband, Henry Cary. Through this scrutiny, she has become one among many English Catholic recusant heroines. Literary critics, in contrast, have celebrated Cary's literary corpus both for its challenge to traditional ideals of early modern women as chaste, silent, and obedient and for its reevaluation of women's roles within marriage. 1 To circumscribe our understandings of Cary in such ways obscures one of her greatest contributions. Elizabeth Cary, albeit unintentionally, provided an alternative model of Catholic woman hood that sought to negotiate a new balance between religion and gender, thus challenging assumptions about women's roles in English Catholic communities and about the rigid character of Catholicism in the Reformation era.

Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publicationWomen During the English Reformations: Renegotiating Gender and Religious Identity
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2014

EGS Disciplines

  • History

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