ABSTRACT
A history of literary criticism of Mariam reveals the need for the kind of attention that a feminist perspective can offer genre study. Since Mariam was written during the early years of Elizabeth Tanfield Cary’s marriage before her husband and she lived together, such biographical information certainly illuminates the issue of sexual politics in the play. The subject of Mariam places the work in the first category of closet plays, those written before 1603 with female heroes and with an emphasis upon domestic politics. In Mariam’s opposition to Herod, Cary demonstrates the precise way her heroine takes control of the sonnet’s social and political worlds. Cary’s dramatic strategy, while not de-emphasizing the philosophical issues, nevertheless stresses character and situation as the necessary contextual basis for Mariam’s decision. Mariam’s decision to be assertive rather than pliant is not simply an act of disobedience by an unruly wife, but a subversive political act that defies Herod’s authority as king.
