Medieval POC: People of Color in European Art History is a Tumblr (a short-form blog or microblog) that is the largest publicly available collection of images of POC in pre-Enlightenment art. It was anonymously created to “address common misconceptions that People of Color did not exist in Europe before the Enlightenment, and to emphasize the cognitive dissonance in the way this is reflected in media produced today.” It advocates for both antiracism and historical accuracy by showcasing the presence of People of Color and attempting to introduce viewers to new works of art as well as to encourage viewers to look at well known works with a different perspective. I recommend that you read a linked post, “Pocket guide to some of the claims Tumblr Blof Medieval POC IS and IS NOT making” as it lays out pretty concisely the stakes at looking at people of color and race in pre-Enlightenment art and history. Because its author remains anonymous, this is vexed as a scholarly source, even though it gives clear citations for its posts and gives instructions on scholarly citation. Rather, like Wikipedia, it is useful as a beginning step for thought and research.
\nDespite the title, Medieval POC is less concerned with the Middle Ages per se (indeed it author complains about traditional notions of historical period in the 19th century) and more concerned with the historiography of race; that is how history is written and specifically how History as a discipline writes about and creates race. Thus it includes artworks from as early as the twelfth century and as late as the eighteenth. It takes submissions and has a space for submitting questions. The blog also has a useful page for what it calls “static” resources with links to Art History databases, History websites, archives, open source academic resources as well as subscription sources such as ArtStor.
\nIt is quite well organized, making robust use of both categories and tags, so that users can search for entries by time period or by subject. It has regular “theme of the week” posts which discuss across categories and periods. It also has a very useful User’s Guide. The content is also shared on a regular basis across social media: Twitter (@medievalpoc); a separate website, Facebook, etc. You do not need a password to access the content on Tumblr. or the website, but may for other platforms.
\nMedieval POC should be of interest to students of early modern women because it will introduce you to many depictions of the women of color who lived in the early modern period, but who were not necessarily women writers (as far as we know). The comments also contain a wealth of suggestions for future research. It might also be useful to examine the visual records of race in conjunction with the racialized language we see in some women’s writings. For example, we noticed the charged languages of black, fair and racial mixture in The Tragedy of Miriam; this Tumblr shows a 13th century manuscript’s (The Murthly Hours) depiction of Herod’s The Massacre of the Innocents, which depicts Herod as “black” and includes a comment that “it seems like Herod is one of those figures that was commonly depicted with dark or black skin in European Medieval manuscripts, and that at some unknown point, he became just another white figure.”
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\n\n
In Pumla Dineo Gquola’s article, she examines the ways in which Imoinda’s female body is crafted by the female narrator. She first makes a distinction between Behn and her female narrator in novel, but defends Behn’s authority as the creator. Through close reading analysis of Imoinda’s physical attributes (as described by the narrator), Gquola first addresses other critics such as Ballaster and Sussman who argue that the white narrator’s description of Imoinda’s body comes at the expense of the black female woman. Gquola explains that Imoinda is used as a literary archetype to represent courtly romance. She also makes the distinction between Oroonoko Europeanized characteristics and Imoinda’s more ‘Africanized’ appearance. Gquola acknowledges that Imoinda is a character who serves Oroonoko’s narrative, which proves challenging to Behn’s representation as a female heroine in the literary field.
\nGquola also addresses the conflict between Behn’s royalist views and her gender. She argues that Behn “does not question the systems of power which produce slavery and allow ownership of women to exist.” She follows the critical model of explaining that Behn rebels from within the patriarchal system rather than explicitly against it. How else would she be taken seriously? Behn’s criticism of slavery and the treatment of women, Gquola argues, is limited to women of higher classes (including her narrator). While this takes away power from Imoinda, it does give significant control to the narrator.
\nThrough comparing Oroonoko and Imoinda, Gquola argues that Oroonoko is a figure of social mobility and agency, while Imoinda is a figure of passivity. Ultimately, Gquola challenges the idea that Behn’s text is feminist given its passivity toward slavery of all kinds.
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*TRYING DOING A STANDALONE BIBLIOGRAPHY AS A FAUX INTRODUCTION> HAVE STUDENTS LIST NAMES AND TITLES HERE.
\nCONTRIBUTORS:
\nCavendish, Blazing World
\nCavendish, Convent of Pleasure
\nSharpe, Midwive's Book
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Focusing on her Cary’s rumored authorship of a biography of Edward II, Skura is interested if gender can make an impact on the style and topic of literature; she later claims that authorship is culturally defined by gender, class, and religious and political positions. She even goes as far as to state that Cary’s writing contains female characteristics: female writing is measured by the “metrical regularity of the prose (feminine endings, iambic end-stopped couplets), the proportion of dialogue to narrative, the elaboration of character and motive along with statecraft” (82).
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Skura’s article also describes Cary’s writing as more religiously motivated than politically or socially focused. While she acknowledges that many of Cary’s writings contained political themes, she believes the purpose to be to suggest religious persecution and acceptance at a high level rather than an interest in politics. She then goes on to explain the depth of importance religion had on Cary’s life, a life she believes also impacted Cary’s writings: “After Cary’s conversion had been made public, she was cut off from all support, and she was ordered into the custody of her mother ‘in the nature of a prisoner’” (92). Willing to undergo anything for her religious beliefs, the depth of her beliefs seeped naturally into her writings.
Skura’s article is interesting as it connects Cary’s interest in religion and her role as a female writer. According to Skura, Cary’s writing is fundamentally feminine, though it is unclear if she views this as a positive or negative. Does this mean that she considers the discussion of religion and politics to be characteristic of women? Added to her claim that Cary’s main interest is religion, it seems that Skura is claiming that it is because of her femininity and female independence that she is able to write about religion. We can therefore understand Skura’s article as linking religion and female authorship, whether it being female authorship that allows the discussion of religion, or the discussion of religion that allows for female independence and authorship.
In Mary Beth Rose’s English Renaissance Tragedy, the chapter “The Tragedy of Mariam: Political Legitimacy and Maternal Authority”, Rose introduces what she believes is the primary question of the play: What would happen in the absence of a patriarchy? Similarly to Beilin, she argues that legitimacy, or more precisely political legitimacy, resides in maternal legitimacy: “The Tragedy of Mariam argues unflinchingly that in the world of this play there is not now nor ever had been any coherent principle of legitimacy that the patriarchal family could honor and on which they can depend” (211). In this way, marriage of Herod and Mariam seem to be analogous for Kramer, Herod’s claim over political power illegitimate, as is his claim over Mariam.
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She goes on to explain how motherhood is the authority of origin, as well as knowledge, as they know the authentic fatherhood and legitimacy. Motherhood is a natural authority as opposed to fatherhood, and by conjunction patriarchy, who’s authority is fabricated. She then connects this to The Tragedy of Mariam by comparing the female characters, especially the mothers: often depicted negatively and as oppressive, Rose argues that this represents the negative effects of the erasure of female legitimacy in a patriarchal system.
Interestingly, Rose also uses the mother figures to criticize and limit Mariam, especially her martyrdom. In questioning Mariam’s moral stature, the legitimacy and authority of motherhood is confused, with Rose stating that “by the end of the play, the authority and knowledge invested in motherhood as the guarantor of legitimacy in the patriarchal family and state have been evacuated” (219).
Within the scheme of religion and female independence, Rose’s take on Cary seems to be leaning towards issues of gender and female independence, unrelated to issues of religion. However, understanding her criticism of motherhood within the realm of a patriarchal system as a criticism of patriarchy and not of women, there is still an unanswered question suggested by Rose’s reading. With Mariam’s mother’s questioning of her daughter’s martyrdom, and thus her saintlike attributes, is Rose suggesting that patriarchy not only threatens the natural authority of motherhood, but also threatens the sanctity of religion? In this way, we can understand Rose’s reading of The Tragedy of Mariam as a warning against patriarchy, as it threatens both female empowerment and religious beliefs.
Religion at the Price of Female Empowerment?
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Cary's Representation of Female Independence and Empowerment in Relation to Religion
Nathalie Barclay
Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam is often hailed as being a clear intermingling of religious writing and so-called ‘feminist’ ideals. The feminist ideals usually associated with Cary’s own gender and role as a woman writer, as well as with Mariam’s assertiveness and independence, the play does in some ways seem to advocate female empowerment. Religion is also an important aspect of the play, brought immediately to the attention of the reader with the full title The Tragedy of Mariam, Queen of Jewry. By the end of the play, Mariam seems to internalize both the religious and the feminine, beginning as an independent and assertive woman, and eventually becoming a saintlike martyr. However, while it seems as if these two concepts exist in tandem, there is the question of whether these elements may have a causal relationship. In looking primarily at The Tragedy of Mariam, we will be looking at the relationship between religion and female empowerment in Cary’s literature, and whether one might come at the price of the other.
Some academics, such as Ilona Bell in her “Private Lyrics in Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam”, religion and female empowerment are two entirely separate topics with no causal relationship whatsoever. Her article focuses on Cary’s use of language and appropriation of previously male rhetoric in order to promote female empowerment. This female empowerment through literary techniques seems completely unrelated to the religious themes present within the play.
However, for Mary Beth Rose, religion and female empowerment can exist together within The Tragedy of Mariam, but not independently: they can only exist in the absence of something else. More precisely, Rose explains in “The Tragedy of Mariam: Political Legitimacy and Maternal Authority” that female empowerment and religious sanctity can exist only in the absence of patriarchy. Patriarchy in Mariam threatens the natural order of things, such as the natural role of women in society, or the natural role of religion, and cannot exist in tandem with either one. Religion and female empowerment are therefore not linked here, but suffer from the same weakness.
There is also a link between female empowerment and religion in Cary’s writings for Meredith Skura, though this one is described as more of a causal relationship. In her article “Elizabeth Cary and Edward II: What Do Women Want to Write?”, Skura muses on what she views as Cary’s feminine writing style, as well as on Cary’s primary focus on religious matters. Cary’s authorship and incorporation of female martyrdom suggest that religion and female empowerment both exist within The Tragedy of Mariam, but she leaves the question of causality ambiguous: Is it female authorship and empowerment which lead to religious discussion or the opposite?
Miranda Nesler introduces a subtle causal relationship between female empowerment and religion in her article “Closeted Authority in The Tragedy of Mariam”, primarily due to Cary’s use of the closet drama genre. For Nesler, this genre promotes not only female authorship but also female agency, allowing women to enter into public discussions. It also allows Cary to utilize a performative genre while avoiding the licentious genre of theater. In this way, the empowerment of women through closet drama also allows for Cary to discuss and expand upon religion without the risk of being deemed sinful.
The relationship between religion and female empowerment is stronger in other readings, such as Elaine Beilin’s “The Making of a Female Hero: Joanna Lumley and Elizabeth Cary”. For Beilin, a discussion of religion comes at the price of female empowerment, or rather of maternal legitimacy. Beilin believes Cary’s characters to be rejecting tyranny and anti-religious fervors over promoting the legitimacy of female power. A similar choice of religion over female empowerment is seen in The Tragedy of Mariam by Kaley Kramer in her chapter “Elizabeth Cary and Intersections of Catholicism and Gender”. Unlike Skura, Kramer views Cary’s writing as masculine due to her subject matter, that is to say her interest in politics and religion. She also goes on to describe Cary’s biography and personal struggles with religion, revealing the importance of religion in Cary’s life and writings. In this way, Kramer is suggesting that Cary’s gendered writing of The Tragedy of Mariam and her focus on religion comes at the price of female authorship and empowerment.
It seems only through Nanda Perry’s “The Sound of Silence: Elizabeth Cary and the Christian Hero” that we see an opposite causal relationship in which female authorship and empowerment come at the cost of religion. Perry describes Mariam’s transformation from independent, outspoken woman to silent, religious symbol in conjunction with the female authorship of the play, and seems to suggest that this is a negative transformation. For Perry, Mariam’s martyrdom and religious symbolism are linked to the idea of the fallen independent woman, and not of religion in and of itself. The use of religion in The Tragedy of Mariam is therefore a way of calling to arms strong women, and female empowerment.
In comparing all these readings of Cary’s writings, religion and female independence seem to often be in relation with each other, but not in a consistent and clear fashion. While we cannot say with authority that one comes at the price of another, it seems clear that the two exist in tandem within the play and work together in order to further different agendas.
Volume 52, Number 2, Spring 2012
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Bell explains that Cary’s use of sonnets is unique for a woman writer, as she appropriates the traditionally male Renaissance lyric. Used most by the female protagonist Mariam, the female use of the Renaissance lyric is controversial, Bell explaining that this is a form typically used for the expression of a male poet or speaker’s thoughts and feelings. More than that, it is usually used with the result of taking away female agency: “Even though many of the greatest English Renaissance poetic sequences were written to and for women whose responses helped shape the genre, the sonnet or lyric sequence typically gives us ready access to only one side of the private lyrics dialogue—the male side” (18). According to Bell, Cary is giving women power through literary techniques which had previously been the very restraints of female agency and expression.
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A second essential point made by Bell is her assertion that The Tragedy of Mariam is a play about the dangers of undoubted truth and certainty. According to Bell, Cary’s play is a warning against definitive truths, each character within the piece expressing only one limited, and therefore fallible, point of view. Bell further relates this to Cary’s questioning of conventional tropes, especially those tropes related to women and their place in society.
Bell’s understanding and analysis of The Tragedy of Mariam is an interesting and complex one, heavily suggesting a female empowerment through the appropriation of patriarchal rhetoric. Unrelated to religion or to Cary’s own life, it seems as if this assertion of female independence stems from the act of writing in a traditionally male way. What’s more, through Cary’s characters, Bell is suggesting that the essential point of the play is to question all undoubted truths; such undoubted truths as the inferiority of women writers, and female intellect in general, could be in play. In this way, Cary seems to be using language and literature techniques in order to further female agency, and to change the previously male-written female narrative.
Miranda Nesler is first and foremost interested in Cary’s choice of the closet drama in her article “Closeted Authority in The Tragedy of Mariam”. Destined for women, the closet drama has the purpose of being read in a small, private space by women. It also creates a socially protected space for women’s authorship, and gives women agency. Nesler uses the character of Graphina in order to explain Cary’s form choice, as she is a character “linked to the written word and to the action of writing—positions protected because they are ‘silent’ in their lack of vocality but covertly public when in contact with readers” (371). The closet drama therefore becomes a private and safe way for Cary to converse with her readers, as well as a way for her to assist women in entering public discourses.
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Nesler continues to explain that closet dramas not only had the function of being read, but were also a performance in and of themselves. The reading of them would therefore necessitate an audience, or a bearing witness to. She raises the question of whether The Tragedy of Mariam, based on its form alone, is a safe, private closet drama or whether it is a performance with an audience. If the second, this would make the writing more controversial and daring on Cary’s part. Nesler explains this by stating that “despite the exposure [closet dramas] allowed, the texts maintained a reputation for being more private and socially acceptable than traditionally staged dramas” (369). Nesler describes closet drama being contrasted with theater, often associated at the time with licentious and sinful material.
Using Nesler’s presentation of the closet drama, it seems as if Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam is promoting not only through its content, but through its form, female agency and empowerment. Cary cleverly uses a literary form which allows for female authorship in order to utilize its performative characteristics and demand attention. She seems to be promoting through her authorship and form female empowerment. While this understanding of The Tragedy of Mariam does not contain obvious connections to Cary’s interest in religion, there remain some religious undertones within the form choice. Cary’s avoidance of theater as a form in preference of the more accepted closet drama is perhaps the choice to avoid the perceived anti-religious theater form in order to promote her religious views in an acceptable format. In this way, through a format which allows for female agency, Cary may also be promoting female empowerment and religious purity.
In Nandra Perry’s article “The Sound of Silence: Elizabeth Cary and the Christian Hero”, Perry discusses The Tragedy of Mariam’s Mariam and her links to Christianity. However, while she compares the two, Perry’s argument is highly based on Cary’s biography and experiences with Catholicism. Throughout her article, Perry highlights Cary’s religious difficulties in an anti-Catholic England, and how Cary illustrates these difficulties in The Tragedy of Mariam. According to Perry’s reading, interest in the character of Mariam resides in her Christ-like abilities and characteristics: \"In pre-Reformation hagiography, then, sanctity inheres not only in the exemplarity of the subject, but also in his or her power to facilitate access to the divine” (110). Mariam’s talkativeness, especially in the beginning of the play, is seen here as Cary’s effort to associate Mariam with access to the divine and to make her a Christian Hero.
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However, Perry also questions Cary’s depiction of a Christian Hero through her assessment of what could be described as a dichotomy between ‘feminist’ (for the time) and religious ideals. As a female writer, the act of writing is in and of itself an act of defiance against the male-dominated literary community; to make the protagonist a strong-willed and independent woman is even more controversial. Perry believes this female empowerment is clearly illustrated through Mariam’s loose tongue and her ability to stand up to patriarchal forces, such as her husband Herod. Perry then brings up how this is in some ways anti-Christian, as a loose-tongued woman is often believed to morally loose and sexualized. By the end of the play, as Mariam has been silenced by Herod and society, Perry argues that this is Cary’s transformation of Mariam from willful anti-heroine to stoic and silent heroine, as is expected of a saint.
Perry’s article raises many important questions about the ideas of female independence and its link to Christianity within The Tragedy of Mariam. Here they seem mutually exclusive, religion coming at the expense of being silenced. While this may be Perry’s argument, especially in light of Cary’s biography in which she was forced out of court, the very act of writing on Cary’s part is not the act of a silenced woman. In this way, while it may be true that her depiction of Mariam as a silent heroine ties into common saintlike associations, it does not seem as if Cary herself can be considered as promulgating religious acts. In her writing of The Tragedy of Mariam, she is defying religious and female silence, and forcing her voice to be heard.
In Kaley Kramer’s book Women During the English Reformations: Renegotiating Gender and Religious Identity, she focuses on the potentially mutually exclusive issues of religion and gender in her chapter “Elizabeth Cary and Intersections of Catholicism and Gender”. Unlike other sources, Kramer is primarily concerned with Cary’s biography and does make the connections with her writing and characters. She claims that within her writing, “Elizabeth Cary openly privileged Catholicism over gender [if doctrinal or salvific issues were involved]” (73). She furthers this argument by associating it with the destruction of Cary’s marriage to Henry Cary, wherein Cary openly chose her own religion over her duties as a wife and mother. This fell into a “highly publicized debate that centered on the capabilities, nature, and proper roles of women” during this time (74). This was however not the only reason for the falling apart of Cary’s marriage to her husband: her choice of profession, that of a female writer, and her subsequent rejection of male-dictated social roles, was a key problem in her marriage. Her husband’s inability to control her reinforced her power and independence, as well as her dedication to her gender.
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In addition to Kramer’s interest in Cary’s marriage and the power struggle between husband and wife, she also addresses the issue of gender in the act of writing. Is writing a gendered act? An obvious answer is yes, as writing is usually reserved for men. However, with Elizabeth Cary, Kramer raises the question of whether a female writer’s writing is male or female-gendered. According to Kramer, “by invoking conventions and issues of historical and political writing, Cary transformed safe, private, female-friendly closet drama into public, controversial, male-dominated literary genres” (73). In this way, she brings into the equation the chosen format of the writing as a means of gendering literature, as well as the chosen issues of the piece.
Looking at Cary’s private life, there is an interesting intermingling of religion and gender as priorities for the writer: on the one hand, she seems to be choosing her religion over her husband, while on the other hand, she seems to be choosing her own gender over her wifely duties. However, if we are to believe what Kramer says about writing being in and of itself a gendered act based on the chosen form and topic, it seems that Kramer is gendering Cary’s writing as masculine instead of feminine. In this way, we would perceive Cary as choosing religion over the empowerment of her own gender, the act of writing as a women being overshadowed due to her so-called masculine writing style.
In Elaine Beilin’s chapter “The Making of a Female Hero: Joanna Lumley and Elizabeth Cary” from Redeeming Eve: Women Writers of the English Renaissance, Beilin focuses primarily on the relationship between Cary’s own life and the essential power plays in The Tragedy of Mariam. As with most critics, Beilin is interested in Cary’s religious struggles as she converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and the ensuing repercussions. In addition to the religious strife, Beilin is interested in Cary’s struggle between personal independence and achievement, and her social duties as a daughter, wife and mother. She relates this to Mariam’s struggle to choose between her own independence and strength, and the pressure imposed upon her to play the role of Herod’s wife: “Mariam, based on Cary’s own experience, reveals ‘how a woman handles tyranny and maintains her own integrity’” (164). According to Beilin, Mariam seems to take on an autobiographical function, representing the struggle between two social roles: writer and woman.
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Another main topic of interest for Beilin within The Tragedy of Mariam, as well as within Cary’s own life, is the question of legitimacy. For Beilin, the only true legitimacy comes from motherhood. While paternity is often linked to the idea of power and lineage, it was never a certainty, and thus was never entirely legitimate. This was not the case of motherhood, where legitimacy was self-evident. Mother legitimacy may not have been represented legally, there is no question that it came with a modicum of power within social structures. However, within Cary’s own life and within her play, there seems to be a rejection of motherhood and therefore of legitimacy, with Cary’s loss of her children after her conversion and Mariam’s chosen martyrdom.
Beilin’s focus on social roles in Cary’s life and in the character of Mariam expresses two important ideas which are in some ways contradictory: if Cary and Mariam’s religious associations are symbols of their rejection of tyranny and patriarchy, why do they reject maternal legitimacy and power? One answer could be that Cary believes religious power is superior to maternal legitimacy, offering a woman more power in society than she would otherwise have. There therefore seems to be a preference for religious emancipation as granting independence over maternal legitimacy.