Elizabeth I: A Leadership Model Left Wanting (original) (raw)
Related papers
2007
In a clever play on words, Louis Montrose’s important new book on Elizabeth I suggests a study with Elizabeth both as the focus and as a topic of her people’s discourse. The title also suggests the importance of Elizabeth in understanding early modern England; this book is not itself simply about Elizabeth but about how this queen was created, understood, and negotiated by her subjects, male and female. As Montrose points out, all of Elizabeth’s subjects produced and reproduced their queen in a variety of ways throughout their daily practices. And throughout her reign, the queen’s image was manipulated by her foreign enemies as well. ... This is a very rich book by an author who has spent much of his professional career studying Elizabeth and who has an encyclopedic knowledge of texts about her. It is full of very sophisticated close readings and well repays the attention it demands. The Subject of Elizabeth will be read and discussed for many years to come
ELIZABETH I: AUTHORITY AND ICONOGRAPHY [Gropu Essay] / SUBJECT: "WOMEN IN ANGLO-AMERICAN CULTURE" [4th Level of English Studies Degree], 2016
This essay is a short investigation about Elizabeth I in which we can see the image of this woman through analyzing some of her pictures and speeches. She was the last queen of the Tudor dynasty and one of the most important figures in England. The following lines will provide us the basic information to develop this work. Elizabeth I was Henry VIII’s only surviving heir, she lived in the 16th century, a period in which England and Spain were fighting for the supremacy in the Atlantic Ocean. This means that this was a situation of conflicts at sea, piracy and several attacks between nations. She defended the state in such a way that she was admired by the population and she is still one of the most famous women in the world. She said that she was married to England and she governed the country until her last days. One of the most important decisions she took in a moment of internal conflicts was to adopt Protestantism as the official religion. Elizabeth I is portrayed as a queen with many virtues and a lot of power. As we will see in this investigation, she was the ruler of an empire in a situation that it was not easy being a woman because she never got married. It is important to take into account that not being married in that period was a problem for women because the society was very patriarchal and they were submitted to men decisions. We could analyze her from many points of view, but we are going to take her speeches as a reference to analyze her reign as a woman. In order to make this research paper, we have analyzed the speech she gave at Tilbury when The Spanish Armada was traveling to attack England. We will provide to the reader our analysis; besides, we will adjunct a transcription of the speech at the end of the essay in order to let the reader approach it. Moreover, we will see some of her portraits painted during that period in order to analyze their symbology and understand how she was presented to the population.
“Slay, Queen, Slay”: Gender and Authority in Queen Elizabeth I’s Reign
“Slay, Queen, Slay”: Gender and Authority in Queen Elizabeth I’s Reign, 2017
Gender was a constant obstacle for Queen Elizabeth I throughout her reign, and Elizabeth’s success as the Queen depended on her ability to navigate the issue of gender tactfully. Through her written and spoken language, she conveyed representations of herself as being both an exceptional woman and figurative man.
Iconicizing Kingship in Elizabethan England: Strategic Acting by Queen Elizabeth I
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 47 (2-3): 147-160, 2012
Renaissance England is often discussed in the context of theatre and theatrical acting. The fact is that Renaissance monarchs, too, viewed kingship in terms of theatrical display and public performance. Such is the nature of royalty presented by King James I in Basilicon Doron. Queen Elizabeth I was playing all her life. Faced with the problem of her femininity in the world of men, as well as her ambivalent hereditary rights as a member of the Tudor dynasty, she focused on legitimizing her reign through playing different roles - she played the fearful king, the loving queen, she even played Virgin Mary. But Elizabeth emerges as the most stunning actress when she plays herself. On her summer visit to Wanstead in 1578 she took an active part in the pageant “The lady of May”, playing herself, “Good Queen Bess”, which Sir Philip Sidney depicted in his pastoral romance The lady of May. In this way, Elizabeth became her own icon. This paper provides instances of the Queen’s political role play in a historical and socio-cultural context of the time.