Melancholy and identity in early modern England: Lady Mary Wroth and the literary tradition

This dissertation examines how writers described melancholy as an identity in the early modern period and the effect that this identity had on expectations of behavior traditionally defined by sex and gender. It argues that melancholy provided an identity distinct from sex, since men and women adopted the melancholic persona in similar ways. Thus, it created an area where masculine and feminine traits could be assigned to characters of either sex. The identity of melancholy transcended boundaries of gender. The study of melancholy in literary and visual works suggests an alternative structure of power not defined by sex roles. Lady Mary Wroth's The Countess of Montgomery's Urania is the central focus of this study, but context is provided by the literary works of Katherine Philips, Margaret Cavendish, and Mary Sidney, as well as John Donne and William Shakespeare. This textual discussion is supplemented by an examination of visual representations of melancholy. The dissertation demonstrates the many ways in which men and women used melancholy in their writings to obscure gender definitions, challenge the roles of men and women in society, and criticize social mores. As melancholy was defined as a social disease in the early modern period it played a larger role in the social imagination.