Closeted Authority in The Tragedy of Mariam

This article argues that in The Tragedy of Mariam, Elizabeth Cary reveals to readers that the closet drama form and its relationship to conduct literature provided a socially protected space for women's public authorship and acting. According to didactic writers, closet writing was a silent and admissible performance for women because it occurred in ostensibly isolated locations. Yet publication and household acting increased the exposure of women's ideas and authorial agency, allowing women writers such as Cary to influence audiences beyond their own homes. Whether operating as authors by generating literary texts or as actors through the communal reading of closet dramas, women licensed their public expression by seeming safely enclosed. Cary not only enacts such disruptive compliance through the creation of her own text; but also uses her character Graphina to metadramatically comment on such activity.