Queen Elizabeth in English Renaissance Literature
So, say you're British royalty. And one day, your dad and siblings drop a messy, bloody nation into your lap—one that's torn apart by in-fighting over religion, politics, and power. What do you do?
Well, if you're Queen Elizabeth, you'll rein in your countrymen and usher in an age named after you. And that age will be really, really great—it'll be a time of relative religious tolerance, when infighting is put on the back-burner, so education, innovation, and art can take center stage.
Oh yeah, and you'll refuse to marry so that you can keep control of England. Defeating the Spanish Armada and establishing your country as the heavyweight champion in Europe isn't too shabby neither.
Don't get us wrong, Queen Elizabeth had some critics. But, for the most part, she was so popular that Edmund Spenser even wrote a super-long, epic poem about her called "The Faerie Queen." Other writers seemed to like the idea of immortalizing her, too; some speculate that Shakespeare's Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream is a stand-in for his own good patroness, the Queen.
Chew on This
The epicenter of the whole Renaissance shebang was Italy, and, within Italy, Florence. In that highly political city, one Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince. This was his treatise on just what it takes to be a ruler. Do you think Queen Elizabeth followed some of his advice? What of The Prince did Queen Elizabeth seem to ignore?
What happens when the reigning Queen idolized in literature the world-round starts to get on in years? Shakespeare pens Julius Caesar, that's what. This play asks the audience to consider the state of the nation, as an exercise in contemporary political analysis. Hm. How similar was the political situation in Renaissance England to that of ancient Rome, do you think?