Personal Diary as a Reality Presentation Method. Lady Margaret Hoby’s Self-Portrait

Abstract

The paper aims to discuss a Puritan female diary exploring English Puritan female experience at the turn of the seventeenth century. The daily account of the life of Lady Margaret Hoby, the first English woman-diarist, perfectly illustrates the Calvinist ideal of womanhood. Scattered evidence, placed together from brief entries, records the narrow life of a high-status Gentlewoman captured between her two essential callings: large household managerial duties, and elevated religiosity. Lady Hoby’s personalized narrative prominently emphasizes both her spirituality and the daily demands of managing the large manor affairs. Her writing can thus be approached through a wider cultural world in which devotional activities structured female domesticities, following the Calvinist doctrine that the church remain the place of worship, but its performance be extended to the home and family as a center of religious devotion. Lady Margaret Hoby’s self-portrait is here recognized as an almost exemplary image of a Puritan woman’s spirituality, strictly combined with religious zeal, feminine chastity, diligence, and industriousness.