Anglo-Dutch Exchange and Book History

Women and Stoic ethics in early modern England

“…Our principal focus will be on women who engaged with the ideas of Seneca's Letters and Dialogue s, Marcus Aurelius's Meditations , and Epictetus's Manual ( Enchiridion ). There is considerable indirect evidence of women's active interest in Stoicism: including translations of Stoic works (such as Elizabeth I's translations of Seneca and Boethius; Elizabeth I, 2009), or of Neostoic religious meditations (such as Mary Sidney's 1576 translation of Excellent discours de la vie et de la mort by Huguenot Phillippe de Mornay, seigneur de Plessis‐Marly); as well as marginalia and marks of ownership in Stoic books (see van Elk, 2021 on Margaret Lowther's copy of Roger L’Estrange's 1682 translation of Seneca's Morals ); and public recognition of particular women as Stoics (such as Lucy Hastings in Lachrymae Musarum, Or Tears of the Muses of 1649/50). Our focus in this essay, however, is upon direct evidence for women's reflections about Stoicism in their own writings.…”