AcknowledgmentsPrologue1."The observed of all observers": The Gendering of Heroism in Marlowe, Jonson, and Shakespeare2.Gender and the Construction of Royal Authority in the Speeches of Elizabeth I3.Gender, Genre, and History: Female Heroism in Seventeenth-Century Autobiography4."Vigorous most / When most unactive deem'd": Gender and the Heroics of Endurance in Milton's Samson Agonistes, Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, and Mary Astell's Some Reflections upon MarriageEpilogueNotesIndex