ABSTRACT
In 1641, Clarendon remarked that Elizabeth Cary was ‘a lady of a most masculine understanding, allayed with the passions and infirmities of her own sex.’ In 1962, Douglas Bush wrote that ‘Lucius Cary was the son of…a devoutly Catholic mother of literary, masculine, and eccentric character.’1 The attribution of masculinity that has haunted Elizabeth Cary’s intellectual achievements may explain why women so carefully guarded or apologized for their abilities. For many reasons, Cary-a scholar, dramatist, poet, religious polemicist, wife, and mother-encountered difficulties in practically every aspect of her life; a source of continual conflict was her attempt to live the ‘masculine’ life of the mind while devotedly carrying out the role and duties of a woman.
