This groundbreaking book combines literary interpretation, gender analysis, and cultural, political, and diplomatic history to examine how Elizabeth I used the discourse of love to establish her political power, assert her right to marry or not, and rule the country herself either way.
This book focuses on the ways in which Elizabeth represented herself in her own words, especially in speeches, reported conversations, and private poems from the first half of her reign when she was simultaneously establishing her political authority and negotiating marriage at home and abroad. Although Elizabeth's novel and unprecedented art of courtship garnered considerable resistance and disapproval, by the end of her reign it had sparked or merged with a wider, ongoing social controversy over conjugal freedom of choice and women's lawful liberty that helped make the Elizabethan era an extraordinarily fertile and creative period in English literature.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
From Princess to Prince: a Brief Life Story The Art of Poetry, the Art of Courtship: Elizabeth and the Elizabethans The Pre-coronation Procession: So Prince-like a Voice Early Days: Parliamentary Speech (1559) and the Woodstock Epigrams Diplomacy and Correspondency: Elizabeth's Reported Speech Parliamentary Speeches (1563, 1566) and the Psalter Posie Popular Debate and Courtly Dialogue: Always her Own Free Woman On Monsieur's Departure: I love, and yet am Forced to seem to Hate
