The Virgin Mary in the early modern literary imagination

The Virgin Mary operates as a lieu de memoire, recalling the Catholic medieval past, but she was refashioned in new terms in the early modern period to ruminate on issues such as mnemonic prayer, material spirituality, motherhood and breastfeeding, female voice, appropriate grief and female authority.

By reading a variety of genres, written by both men and women, Protestant and Catholic, from across the period, the thesis argues for the Virgin's sustained relevance. It demonstrates how the Virgin was contested and adapted for various ideological ends. often against the customary religious and gendered understandings of her significance. The Virgin Mary’s body is central to literary appropriations and the thesis argues that Marian imagery retained potency, relevancy and power precisely because of the figure's controversial femininity and her bodily status as virgin mother.