Dissing Elizabeth

by Walker, Julia M.; Cavanagh, Sheila (CON); Doran, Susan (CON); Highley, Christopher (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780822320746
• ISBN10: 0822320746
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-04-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

Dissing Elizabethfocuses on the criticism that cast a shadow on the otherwise celebrated reign of Elizabeth I. The essays in this politically and historically revealing book demonstrate the sheer pervasiveness and range of rhetoric against the queen, illuminating the provocative discourse of disrespect and dissent that existed over an eighty-year period, from her troubled days as a princess to the decades after her death in 1603. As editor Julia M. Walker suggests, the breadth of dissent considered in this collection points to a dark side of the Cult of Elizabeth. Reevaluating neglected texts that had not previously been perceived as critical of the queen or worthy of critical appraisal, contributors consider dissent in a variety of forms, including artwork representing (and mocking) the queen, erotic and pornographic metaphors for Elizabeth in the popular press, sermons subtly critiquing her actions, and even the hostility encoded in her epitaph and in the placement of her tomb. Other chapters discuss gossip about Elizabeth, effigies of the queen, polemics against her marriage to the Duke of Alenccedil;on, common verbal slander, violence against emblems of her authority, and the criticism embedded in the riddles, satires, and literature of the period.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Dark Side of the Cult of Elizabeth

History and Policy

The Bad Seed: Princess Elizabeth and the Seymour Incident

Why Did Elizabeth Not Marry?

The Royal Image in Elizabeth Ireland

"We shall never have a merry world while the Queene lyveth": Gender, Monarchy, and the Power of Seditious Words

Pamphlets and Sermons

"Soueraigne Lord of lordly Lady of this land": Elizabeth, Stubbs, and the Gaping Gvlf

Out of Egypt: Richard Fletcher's Sermon before Elizabeth I after the Execution of Mary Queen of Scots

The Power of the Poets

"The Image of this Queeneso quaynt": The Pornographic Blazon 1588-1608

Queen Elizabeth Compiled: Henry Stanford's Private Anthology and the Question of Accountability

"Not as women wonted be": Spenser's Amazon Queen

The Image of the Queen

Fair Is Fowle: Interpreting Anti-Elizabethan Composite Portariture

Bones of Contention: Posthumous Images of Elizabeth and Stuart Politics

Secondary Works Cited

Notes on Contributors

Index

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