ABSTRACT
The contrast between Samuel Daniel’s figurative verbal architecture and Lady Anne Clifford’s physical architectural projects ought to alert us to the insufficiency of reading the diary as though it were a literary artifact or autobiographical narrative meant to stand on its own. Daniel’s desired public image was based on his own intellectual merits; it could be completely and very aptly expressed in the lines of a literary artifact. Clifford’s final verbal gesture, however, was to locate her own significance outside of herself. Clifford also dispersed herself over her architectural works in ingenious and sometimes unexpected ways. As the author have illustrated, she frequently used her inscriptions and her diaries to proclaim all the titles she had stockpiled by outliving her uncle, her cousin, and both her husbands. But she also sprinkled her initials “A.P.” over her churches and castles, strangely divested of their usual political and social garb, in a way that implies merely presence rather than preeminence.
