‘A book, and solitariness’: Melancholia, Gender and Literary Subjectivity in Mary Wroth’s Urania

Abstract

Many critics of Mary Wroth’s writings have found it useful to read them in terms of topographies of public and private space.¹ It seems especially obvious to do this with her 1621 prose romance, The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania, since its hero, Amphilanthus, spends most of his time ranging abroad on quests and amorous adventures, while its heroine, Pamphilia, withdraws to her closet or to secluded groves to lament his absence. Specifically, his absence and her consequent withdrawal into private spaces produce female literary activity: in her solitude she habitually writes poetry and reads romances. Pamphilia can seem like a case study in the relationship between private architectural space and the enabling of psychological interiority and subjectivity, ideas explored from other angles in the present volume by James Knowles and Sasha Roberts.