David Wallace: Strong Women. Life, Text, and Territory 1347–1645

• Holly A. Crocker

This excellent book studies the tension between enclosure and mobility in the lives of four premodern mulieres fortes: Dorothea of Montau (1347–1394), Margery Kempe of Lynn (c. 1373–c. 1440), Mary Ward of Yorkshire (1585–1645), and Elizabeth Cary of Drury Lane (c. 1585–1639). The book’s organizing figure is drawn from Proverbs 31, which authorizes the heroic agency of the “strong woman” in Hebrew and Christian traditions. Wallace sees this ideal in motion, following the lives of four Catholic women who managed to take their enclaustration on the road, crossing borders of religion, territory, language, and gender in their spiritual journeying. With his careful and pro - vocative readings, Wallace provides a powerful account of each woman’s unique strengths. By asking what it takes to realize a Life as a strong woman, Wallace also makes a refreshing and somewhat surprising return to the crucial insights of feminist criticism.