Of Chastity and Power
eBook - ePub

Of Chastity and Power

Elizabethan Literature and the Unmarried Queen

  1. 216 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Of Chastity and Power

Elizabethan Literature and the Unmarried Queen

About this book

Elizabeth I was one of the most powerful women rulers in European history. What can feminism reveal about the attitudes of her male subjects towards this enigmatic figure? Through readings of key Elizabethan texts by Lyly, Ralegh, Chapman, Shakespeare, and Spenser, Philippa Berry shows that while Elizabeth's combination of chastity with political and religious power was repeatedly idealized, it was also perceived as extremely disturbing. The figure of the unmarried queen implicitly challenged the masculine focus of Renaissance discourses of love, philosophy and absolutist political ideology. In her exploration of the potent combination of themes of sexuality and politics with classical myth and Neoplatonic mysticism, Berry offers a radical reassessment of the status of `woman' as a bearer of meaning within Renaissance literature and culture.

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Yes, you can access Of Chastity and Power by Philippa Berry in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Literary Criticism. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. List of plates
  5. Acknowledgements
  6. Introduction
  7. Chapter one: Mirrors of masculinity: Renaissance speculations through the feminine and their genealogy
  8. Chapter two: A curious conjunction: discourses of love and political power in the French Renaissance
  9. Chapter three: Three-personed queen: the courtly cult of Elizabeth I and its subjects
  10. Chapter four: Carnival at court: contests for authority in Elizabethan aristocratic pastimes
  11. Chapter five: Chastity and the power of interior spaces: Lyly’s alternative view of Elizabethan courtiership
  12. Chapter six: Rewriting chastity: representations of the unmarried queen by Chapman, Shakespeare, Ralegh, and Spenser
  13. Notes