The Mysteries of Elizabeth I: Selections from English Literary Renaissance

The essays in this volume shed new light on Elizabeth I, exposing many of the public and private fantasies that she and her subjects used to manage their relations. In his introduction, Kirby Farrell points out that especially now, when Elizabeth has become an icon as familiar as Einstein, we underestimate and often euphemize the tangle of interpretive strategies that shaped the queen's identity and behavior. The childless "mother of her countrey" was revered for her wisdom and reviled for he…