Overview
When Elizabeth I gained the throne in 1558, women began to receive a voice in literature. England had not before had such a dynamic and intelligent female regent. Elizabeth was celebrated in poetry and was herself an accomplished poet. As a woman with a man's job, Elizabeth had to adopt various personas to appease her advisors and subjects. She invoked her father's strength when she needed to overcome her femininity. She played the role of eligible maiden in negotiations to marry when she desperately wanted to maintain her freedom. Elizabeth's ability to transform herself as necessary is what makes her a model for strong women who use disguise as a means to an end. She was also omnipresent in English Renaissance arts. Katharine Eggert, in Showing like a Queen, states that "sooner or later, in either overt or subtextual form, writers in all literary venues must get around to taking a position vis-à -vis the woman monarch"1.
Spenser, a devoted follower of the "cult of Elizabeth," blatantly models his Faerie Queen, Gloriana, after her as well as Britomart, his female knight. Britomart must hide her femininity as a means of survival. Disguise was necessary to protect her vulnerability. Shakespeare was less explicit, yet his plays are bursting with three dimensional women, both heroic and tyrannical. Eggert states that Shakespeare "either invents or transforms dramatic genres to accommodate and reshape topical issues uniquely associated with a feminine monarchy"2. Elizabeth's influence is obvious in the gender bending Rosalind and Viola in As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Both women initially dress as males for protection and then as a means to influence events around them. Katharina's eventual negotiation of male society through diplomacy and subtle manipulation in The Taming of the Shrew demonstrates Shakespeare's admiration of a woman who could hold her own when surrounded by egotistical men. She wears no physical disguise but maintains the image of a dutiful and subservient wife while negotiating power with her husband. Even Lady Macbeth is initially a strong queen. By becoming "unsexed" she assumes the role of acting regent in the Macbeth household. She is highly ambitious and manipulates her husband, cleaning up his messes when he begins to fall apart, before succumbing to her own guilt. While these selections are written by men, the inclusion of compelling female lead characters, both royal and common, shows Elizabeth's influence on her subjects. Elizabeth's own works, juxtaposed against these works of Shakespeare and Spenser, add depth to the characters and help to bridge the gap between Queen Elizabeth as an historical figure and Elizabeth the strong, yet human, woman.
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