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Virtue and Virtuality: Gender in the Self-Representations of Queen Elizabeth I
From: University of Chicago
| By:
Janel Mueller |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
 England's Virgin Queen, Elizabeth Tudor (1533-1603), publicly grappled with issues of gender and authority throughout her reign. In her early speeches to Parliament, she confronted a tangle of personal and political questions: Could a queen wield authority as freely as a king? Did Parliament have the right to urge marriage and motherhood on her? Could only men possess true courage?
As Elizabeth overcame domestic plots and foreign invasion, she began to represent herself in a new light. The older queen boldly claimed to embody both masculine and feminine qualities. She had the "heart and stomach of a king" but remained the "handmaid" of God. In her study of the queen's own formulations, Janel Mueller, professor of English language and literature and dean of the Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago, traces Elizabeth's evolving representation of herself and her place in the world. |
 | Janel Mueller explores the evolution of Queen Elizabeth I's "virtual gender" during the monarch's 45-year reign. | |
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