THE QUEEN’S QUEENDOM: NEGOTIATING THE RHETORIC OF THE ELIZABETH–ANJOU COURTSHIP (1572–1584)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/2412-8457/1567Keywords:
female body natural, gendered identities, male body politic, queendom, rhetorical practicesAbstract
This article juxtaposes the letters written by Elizabeth I to her last suitor, Francis, Duke of Anjou, with John Stubbs’ virulent tract The discoverie of a gaping gulf (1578) that opposed the match to propose that Elizabeth I challenged her belligerent male subjects in a game of semiotic control. I suggest that Elizabeth I fashioned her own ‘queendom’ – a discursive realm that complemented her political kingdom – where she attempted to formulate a code of masculinity that would celebrate gynaecocracy and facilitate a consummation of her sexuality. I show how, in her correspondence with Anjou, Elizabeth I sought to create a model husband for herself who would be sympathetic and subordinate to her political authority. I tease out the playful intercourse between the amorous and the political in Elizabeth I’s language to argue that she insisted on a unique union of her two bodies (the male body politic and the female body natural) which has largely gone unnoticed in current scholarship. Through a close engagement with Elizabethan rhetorical practices, this article aims to inspire a more nuanced reading of gendered identities in early modern England.
References
Cohen, S., 2000. (Post)modern Elizabeth. In: H. Grady, ed. Shakespeare and modernity: Early modern to millennium. London and New York: Routledge, 20–39.
Elizabeth I., 2002. Collected works. Eds. L.S. Marcus, J. Mueller and M.B. Rose. London and Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Hackett, H., 1995. Virgin mother, maiden queen: Elizabeth I and the cult of the Virgin Mary. Basingstoke: Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377523
Hammer, P., 1999. The polarisation of Elizabethan politics: The political career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, 1585–1597. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hughes, P.L. and Larkin, J.F., eds. 1968. Tudor Royal Proclamations Volume II: The Later Tudors, 1553–1587. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Montrose, L., 2006. The subject of Elizabeth: Authority, gender, and representation. London: University of Chicago Press.
Petrina, A. and Tosi, L., eds., 2011. Representations of Elizabeth I in early modern culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230307261
Rose, M., 2002. Gender and heroism in early modern English literature. London and Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Stubbs, J., 1968. The discoverie of the gaping gulf with letters and other related documents. Ed. L.E. Berry. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia.
Worden, B., 2007. ‘Delightful teaching’: Queen Elizabeth and Sidney’s Arcadia. In: P. Beal and G. Ioppolo, eds. Elizabeth I and the culture of writing. London: The British Library, 71–86.