This book traces some of the cross-currents in Elizabethan culture, investigating ambiguities within literature which apparently praises the Queen, and the diverse meanings of descriptions of Elizabeth as a saint or goddess. It also considers both the Virgin Queen and the Virgin Mary in terms of the history of representations of gender, sexuality and power.
This work marks the 400th anniversary of the death of one of England's greatest monarchs, a highly intelligent and successful ruler. The volume appeals to everyone interested in the charismatic character of Elizabeth I, her time and cultural afterlife. Contributors focus on important aspects of Elizabeth's subtle and resourceful political power and the longstanding struggle she faced at home and abroad as well as the threats posed to her realm. This edition presents a series of essays about fictional representations of Queen Elizabeth I in literature, music, and film. Articles illuminate the fascinating story of her numerous afterlives and their significance for the cultural history of England, its sense of identity and psyche. Essays investigate the ceremony, festivities, and dance practices at her court and bring to life the cultural significance of this colorful and extraordinary monarch. Christa Jansohn is professor of British culture at the University of Bamberg, Germany.
This study explores representations of the Madonna and Child in early modern culture. It considers the mother and son as a conceptual, religio-political unit and examines the ways in which that unit was embodied and performed. Of primary interest is the way mothers derived agency from bearing incipient rulers.
The religious and political spheres of the later medieval and early modern periods were tightly and indisputably interwoven, as illustrated by the papal schism, the Hundred Years War, the Reconquest of Spain, and the English Reformation. In these events as well as in the larger religiopolitical systems in which they unfolded, female saints, devout lay women, and monastic women played central roles. In Women of God and Arms, Nancy Bradley Warren explores the political dimensions of the religious practices of women ranging from St. Colette of Corbie to Isabel of Castile to English nuns exiled during the reign of Elizabeth I. Just as religious and political systems were bound up with one another, so too were the internal and external politics of England and several continental realms. Blood and marriage connected the English dynasties of Lancaster and York with those of France, Burgundy, Flanders, and Castile, creating tangled networks of alliances and animosities. In addition to being linked through ties of kinship, these realms were joined by frequent textual and cultural exchanges. Warren draws upon a wide variety of sources—hagiography, chronicles, monastic records, devotional treatises, military manuals, political propaganda, and texts traditionally designated as literary—as she examines the ways manifestations of female spirituality operated at the intersections of civic, international, and ecclesiastical politics. Her exploration breaches boundaries separating the medieval and the early modern, the religious and the secular, the material and the symbolic, the literary and the historical, as it sheds new light on well-known figures such as Joan of Arc, Isabel of Castile, and Elizabeth I.
In Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, Carole Levin and Robert Bucholz provide a forum for the underexamined, anomalous reigns of queens in history. These regimes, primarily regarded as interruptions to the ?normal? male monarchy, have been examined largely as isolated cases. This interdisciplinary study of queens throughout history examines their connections to one another, their constituents? perceptions of them, and the fallacies of their historical reputations. The contributors consider historical queens as well as fictional, mythic, and biblical queens and how they were represented in medieval and early modern England. They also give modern readers a glimpse into the early modern worldview, particularly regarding order, hierarchy, rulership, property, biology, and the relationship between the sexes. Considering topics as diverse as how Queen Elizabeth?s unmarried status affected the perception of her as a just and merciful queen to a reevaluation of ?good Queen Anne? as more than just an obese, conventional monarch, this volume encourages readers to reexamine previously held assumptions about the role of female monarchs in early modern history.
Spanning the period from Elizabeth I's reign to Charles II's restoration, this study argues the garden is a primary site evincing a progressive narrative of change, a narrative that looks to the Edenic as obtainable ideal in court politics, economic prosperity, and national identity in early modern England. In the first part of the study, Amy L. Tigner traces the conceptual forms that the paradise imaginary takes in works by Gascoigne, Spenser, and Shakespeare, all of whom depict the garden as a space in which to imagine the national body of England and the gendered body of the monarch. In the concluding chapters, she discusses the function of gardens in the literary works by Jonson, an anonymous masque playwright, and Milton, the herbals of John Gerard and John Parkinson, and the tract writing of Ralph Austen, Lawrence Beal, and Walter Blithe. In these texts, the paradise imaginary is less about the body politic of the monarch and more about colonial pursuits and pressing environmental issues. As Tigner identifies, during this period literary representations of gardens become potent discursive models that both inspire constructions of their aesthetic principles and reflect innovations in horticulture and garden technology. Further, the development of the botanical garden ushers in a new world of science and exploration. With the importation of a new world of plants, the garden emerges as a locus of scientific study: hybridization, medical investigation, and the proliferation of new ornamentals and aliments. In this way, the garden functions as a means to understand and possess the rapidly expanding globe.
Anne Boleyn may be best known for losing her head, but as Tudor expert Tracy Borman reveals in a book that recasts British history, her greatest legacy lies in the path-breaking reign of her daughter, Elizabeth Much of the fascination with Britain’s legendary Tudors centers around the dramas surrounding Henry VIII and his six wives and Elizabeth I’s rumored liaisons. Yet the most fascinating relationship in that historic era may well be that between the mother and daughter who, individually and collectively, changed the course of British history. The future Queen Elizabeth was not yet three when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded on May 19, 1536, on Henry’s order, incensed that she had not given him a son and tired of her contentious nature. Elizabeth had been raised away from court, rarely even seeing Anne; and after her death, Henry tried in every way to erase Anne’s presence and memory. At that moment in history, few could have predicted that mother and daughter would each leave enduring, and interlocked, legacies. Yet as Tracy Borman reveals in this first-ever joint portrait, both women broke the mold for British queens and for women in general at the time. Anne was instrumental in reforming and reshaping forever Britain’s religious traditions, and her years of wielding power over a male-dominated court provided an inspiring role model for Elizabeth’s glittering, groundbreaking 45-year reign. Indeed, Borman shows how much Elizabeth—most visibly by refusing to ever marry, but in many other more subtle ways that defined her court—was influenced by her mother’s legacy. In its originality, Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I sheds new light on two of history’s most famous women—the private desires, hopes, and fears that lay behind their dazzling public personas, and the surprising influence each had on the other during and after their lifetimes. In the process, Tracy Borman reframes our understanding of the entire Tudor era.
