Carole Levin

In an age when the English government lacked a professional bureaucracy or a standing army, the authority of a monarch rested on their legitimacy. As a woman occupying a position traditionally held by men, Elizabeth I faced a special set of challenges in this regard. Trapped between the contrasting expectations of sexuality and politics, she sought to represent herself in a way that allowed her to maintain her legitimacy – and thus her power – in a tumultuous age. In this book, Carol Levin analyzes Elizabeth’s efforts to project this image, as well as how she was perceived by her contemporaries as both a woman and in her role as a monarch.

In a series of overlapping essays, Levin focuses on her court’s manipulation of images of royalty and the public’s reaction to them. The essays are roughly chronological, as the early ones examine the problems of her succession and the early response to her rule, while the later ones consider the challenges she faced as her reign came to an end. Throughout the chapters, Levin charts the ways in which Elizabeth balanced the contrasting expectations she faced, in the end successfully assuming the masculine roles her position required while still exhibiting the femininity her people expected of her.

Levin’s book is an interesting, if fragmented examination of Elizabeth’s images and how they were received. Her study of these often overlooked elements of Elizabeth’s reign helps the reader understand how Elizabeth succeeded as a woman in one of the most masculine of jobs. While few of the arguments she makes are original, she presents her case effectively with a convincing analysis backed by considerable research. For anyone seeking to learn how Elizabeth balanced the demands of her position with those of her gender, this is a good book to read.… (mais)

For such a small book, this is not light reading. It is a scholarly work that explores the world of Shakespeare more than Shakespeare's world. They posit that, instead of Shakespeare presenting poor versions of history, that Shakespeare's plays are a good historical record - of his own time, not the times he writes about. They proceed to detail their hypothesis through the use of three plays, and I think they make a good case, though using the play Henry VI could leave behind a lot of people unfamiliar with the play (which is probably most except the most ardent Shakespeare buffs, and probably even most of them). It would have helped if they would have discussed the plot of the play before using the unfamiliar plot to explicate things happening in the reign of Elizabeth. The other two plays, Merchant of Venice and Taming of the Shrew, will be familiar to most who know anything about Shakespeare. The discussion traces the roots of misogyny and xenophobia seen within these works, and how that relates to the seismic changes that were happening in the world during the reign of Elizabeth I, which continued into the succeeding Stuart dynasty. Overall, a good, interesting work, but not for casual readers. If you are not interested in Elizabethan England, and Italy of the same time period, this is not going to be the work for you to learn about Shakespeare.… (mais)