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David Wallace.
Strong Women: Life, Text, and Territory 1347-1645.

Publisher: Oxford University Press.
Series: Clarendon Lectures in English.
Publication due: May 2011.
Size: 216x138mm.
Page count: 320pp.
Illustrations: 34 black-and-white.

Publisher's recommended price
Hardback ISBN 9780199541713, £30.00

Description:

It takes a strong woman to secure bookish remembrance in future times; to see her life becoming a life. David Wallace explores the lives of four Catholic women - Dorothea of Montau (1347-1394) and Margery Kempe of Lynn (c. 1373-c. 1440); Mary Ward of Yorkshire (1585-1645) and Elizabeth Cary of Drury Lane (c. 1585-1639) and and the fate of their writings. All four shock, surprise, and court historical danger. Dorothea of Montau punishes her body and spends all day in church; eight of her nine neglected children die. Kempe, mother of fourteen, empties whole churches with a piercing cry learned at Jerusalem. Ward, living holily but un-immured, is denounced as an Amazon, a chattering hussy, an Apostolic Virago, and a galloping girl. Cary, having left her husband torturing Catholics in Dublin castle, converts to Roman Catholicism in Irish stables in London. Each of these women is mulier fortis, a strong woman: had she been otherwise, Wallace argues, her life would never have been written. The earliest texts of these lives are mostly near-contemporaneous with the women they represent, but their public reappearances have been partial and episodic, with their own complex histories.

Contents:
1: Borderline Sanctity: Dorothea of Montau, 1347-1394
2: Anchoritic Damsel: Margery Kempe of Lynn, c. 1373- c. 1440
3: Holy Amazon: Mary Ward of Yorkshire, 1585-1645
4: Vice Queen of Ireland: Elizabeth Cary of Drury Lane, c. 1585-1639