Sex and Politics in
Elizabethan England
English 4153H
Volume 1
Issue 1
April 2012
2
This is a collection of the final projects of the students in ENGL 4153H: Advanced
Studies in Renaissance Literature.
The topic for Winter 2012 was “Sex and Politics in Elizabethan England,” and each
member of the class took on responsibility for a particular aspect of the cultural or
literary background to the core texts, becoming the class expert on one of the following
topics:

humanism

rhetoric

contemporary politics

religious controversy

classical mythology

gender roles (masculine)

gender roles (feminine)

theatre and staging

emblems and iconography

courtly and neoplatonic love

chivalry

material culture (clothing)

material culture (architecture)

critical approaches (feminism and gender)
This first issue of the ENGL 4153H academic journal is a special tribute to the research
community formed by the participants in this honours seminar.
Congratulations ENGL 4153H!
Sex and Politics in
Elizabethan England
English 4153H
Volume 1
Issue 1
wApril 2012
CONTENTS –
4
Amy Thompson
“To be Chaste or not to be Chaste?”: A Look at Philoclea and Eleanor’s Roles Within
the Chastity Spectrum
8
Ashleigh Vaughan-Evans
The Romance of Rhetoric in Shakespeare's Henry V and Antony and Cleopatra
14
Charles Likely
Natural Selection: A Play Symbolic of Shakespearean Evolution
27
Erin M. Huebner
Constructing an Image of Queen Elizabeth: The Iconography of Power
32
Heather Marshall
Humanism in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra
38
Jim Price
Portrayals of the Feminine and Female Prince in English Renaissance Literature
44
Jordann Pool
Body Language: Symbolism of Lust in Venus and Adonis
2
51
Juliana Johnston
Courtly Love and the Paradox of Power: Britomart and Radigund in Spenser’s
Faerie Queene Books III and V
56
Larissa Silver
Cross-Dressing in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene Book 5 and Sir Philip
Sidney’s The Old Arcadia
60
Lindsey Cuthill
William Shakespeare and the Transformation of a Masculine Leader
65
Natalie Sagriff
Elizabethan Landscape and Buildings: The Superficial and Artificial
69
Nicole Luymes
Building an English Identity: Protestant Propaganda in The Faerie Queene
74
Sarah Curd
The Ideal of Chivalry in Henry V and the Third Book of The Faerie Queene: A
Comparison of Henry V and Britomart
78
Vanessa Richarz
Elizabeth I of England, The Heart and Stomach of a King
84
Vashti Kuipery Culham
Metamorphosis: Poetic Transformations of Epic, Myth, and Perceptions of Love
3
Amy Thompson
“To be Chaste or not to be Chaste?”
A Look at Philoclea and Eleanor’s Roles Within the Chastity Spectrum
The English Renaissance was a time when literature flourished. While most authors
were men, and men were the main focus of much of the literature, the presentation of women
was almost solely focused on one thing: remaining chaste. Outside the literary world, as well as
within, virginity was deemed the utmost feminine virtue. Some women, however, rebelled
against the rigid confines of chastity. Two examples will be discussed here: the first is from
Philip Sidney’s The Old Arcadia and the second is from George Gascoigne’s The Adventures of
Master F.J. The former text portrays Philoclea, a beautiful young woman who has vowed to
remain chaste yet is tempted by a young man named Pyrocles. The latter text similarly portrays
a young woman, Eleanor, who is married and rebels against society’s insistence on chastity by
taking several lovers outside of her marriage. I argue that, within the context of Sidney and
Gascoigne’s texts, although chastity can be a form of empowerment for women, it is also an
ideal which is subject to persuasion. First, I will examine the hierarchal binary of chaste/
unchaste in an effort to better understand two extremes of what is actually a spectrum. Second,
I will explore the words and actions of Sidney’s character, Philoclea, to show how she
represents an ideal chastity. Third, I will look at Gascoigne’s character, Eleanor, to show how
she represents the alternative of being happily unchaste. Finally, I want to show how each
woman’s virtue and her personal decisions concerning chastity are subject to persuasion.
During the Renaissance period, a woman was expected to protect and guard her
virginity at all costs as it was the most valued virtue in a woman from that era. Were her
virginity lost (as a result of giving it to a lover), or stolen (taken without her consent), a
woman’s virtue was tainted. In her book Of Chastity and Power, Philippa Berry suggests that
“The Renaissance discourses of love certainly attempted to deny the materiality of the ‘chaste’
woman they idealized: to exclude the female body, and feminine sexuality, from their idea of a
chaste woman as exclusively spiritual” (3). This statement means that virginity, in the
Renaissance period at least, was a spiritual concept, not part of female sexuality. Yet I argue that
the material realm has a lot to do with chastity. Chastity is not quite as clear-cut as it appears.
As Professor Popham pointed out in a class discussion on the third book of Spenser’s The Faerie
Queene, chastity spans a wide spectrum to include many different types of chastity, as well as
unchaste behaviour. On one end of the spectrum, there is the absolutely chaste woman who has
vowed to never have sex. In between, there are women who want to save physical intimacy for
the right person or who choose to wait until marriage. On the other end of the spectrum, there
are the unchaste women who have no regard for their virtue whatsoever. Important to this
paper, however, are the two extremes: chaste and unchaste. Now I will move on and look at
Sidney’s female protagonist, Philoclea, and explore how and why she is chaste.
Within the context of The Old Arcadia, Philoclea is a portrayed as a young and virtuous
woman. The first book describes a painting that Pyrocles stumbles on upon his arrival in the
pastoral setting where Philoclea and her family reside. Depicted in the painting is the young
woman, along with her parents. The narrator describes Philoclea’s portion of the painting as
follows: “For therein, besides the show of her beauties, a man might judge even the nature of
her countenance, full of bashfulness, love, and reverence […] mixed with a sweet grief to find
4
her virtue suspected” (11). Philoclea’s portrait displays, not only her beauty, but also her virtue,
“all by the cast of her eye” (11). Having had one glimpse of this portrait, Pyrocles is now in love.
Because his heart is captured by her beauty, Pyrocles poses a threat to Philoclea’s virtue. Will he
tempt her? Will she give in and accept his advances? I will come back to this point when I
explore the young woman’s chastity at greater length. In the meantime, I want to look at
Pyrocles’s attempt to gain entry into Philoclea’s life. In an attempt to gain her favour, Pyrocles
dresses himself in women’s clothing, hoping Philoclea will not be deterred by his presence if he
is disguised as another woman (19-24). After donning women’s clothing “thus did Pyrocles
become Cleophila” (25). Ironically, Pyrocles has chosen to name himself using the two halves of
his lover’s name, only reversed from Philoclea to form Cleophila. This name change is
significant because it demonstrates how deeply affected Pyrocles is by Philoclea’s beauty.
Newly transformed into Amazon Cleophila, Pyrocles approaches the house of Basilius
and introduces himself to his wife Gynecia and his two daughters Pamela and Philoclea (33).
The narrator describes Philoclea as “the ornament of the earth” and “in her nymph-like apparel,
so near nakedness as one might well discern part of her perfections, and yet so appareled as did
show she kept the best store of her beauties to herself” (34). While she shows a little skin, the
important part of this passage is that Philoclea’s womanly parts are guarded by clothing. The
covering of these parts suggests that Philoclea is chaste because her clothes are modest though
seductive. One could argue that her clothing choices do not completely align with her virtuous
nature and should be less revealing. However, I argue that her words and actions hold more
weight than her clothing choices.
I want to further examine how Philoclea demonstrates chastity. Now that Philoclea and
Cleophila have become friends, the former is concerned for her virtue, perhaps suspecting the
real gender of her beloved friend Cleophila. Out for a stroll amidst the pastoral landscape where
she resides, Philoclea stumbles upon a white marble stone where she had written, before
Cleophila’s arrival, a vow to remain chaste: “This vow receive, this vow O gods maintain:/ My
virgin life no spotted thought shall stain” (96). However, the narrator questions the solidity of
the young woman’s pledge when he writes of her: “But now […] her memory served as an
accuser of her change, and that her own hand-writing was there to bear testimony to her fall”
(96). Philoclea, although unsure of the effect that Cleophila has had on her, is aware that she is
merely human and that her virginity may be subject to persuasion. She is very troubled and
upset that she may be tempted to violate her vow. She is further frustrated with herself because
she may give into desire (97). She agonizes over the fact that she may love a person of the same
gender, and “wish[es] to herself […] that Cleophila might become a young transformed Caenus”
(98). She wonders to herself, “if [Cleophila] were a man I might either obtain my desire, or have
cause to hate for refusal” (98). Up to this point, Philoclea is trying very hard to remain chaste in
her thoughts and actions but knows she is only human and that her virginity is subject to
negotiation.
Before I explore Philoclea’s temptation by Pyrocles, I want to switch gears and examine
Eleanor’s unchaste behaviour in Gascoigne’s The Adventures of Master F.J. The narrator
introduces Master F.J. as having “chanced once […] to fall in company of a very fair
gentlewoman whose name was Mistress Eleanor” (10). While we are not initially given the
information, we find out much later that Eleanor is married (27). However, Eleanor does not
disclose this information to F.J. This is just one example of Eleanor’s unchaste ways; were she
not promiscuous, she would make an effort to make potential suitors aware of her marriage. In
her book, Women and the English Renaissance, Linda Woodbridge informs us that, “Wives [in
Renaissance literature] have various deceitful shifts to gain freedom to commit adultery, from
feigned pilgrimages to midwife duties” (27). Eleanor, although she stays within the walls of her
5
residence, engages in secret acts, in the form of exchanged letters and secret meetings in order
to fulfill her sexual needs. Through a series of exchanges of letters, sonnets, and poems, Master
F.J. gains access to Eleanor’s heart. Ironically, one letter between the two sheds some light on
how inconstant and unchaste Eleanor is. The narrator tells his audience that, “by the style of
this letter of [Eleanor’s] bewrayeth that it was not penned by a woman’s capacity, so the sequel
of her doings may decipher that she had mo’ ready clerks than trusty servants in store” (12).
This statement, particularly the word “clerks,” suggests another lover is writing a response to
F.J., perhaps to give F.J. the hint that Eleanor already has other suitors and also that she is
unfaithful.
After several more literary exchanges, Eleanor and F.J. secretly meet in the Gallery.
Aware she may want to be courted by F.J., Eleanor says, “I perceive now […] how mishap doth
follow me, that having chosen this walk for a simple solace, I am here disquieted by the man
that meaneth my destruction” (13). Eleanor is acknowledging that she is not a chaste woman
and that F.J. may, in time, further contribute to her unchaste nature. Master F.J., realizing
Eleanor means to leave, “softly distrain[s] her slender arm and so stay[s] her departure” (14).
However, Eleanor rejects the advance. By protesting, she is demonstrating her virtue and ability
to resist, yet she leads him on and that is not virtuous. As time goes by, Master F.J. provides, on
one occasion, assistance to Eleanor when she suffers from a bleeding nose (16)., which was
commonly understood to be a symptom of uncontrollable passion. Eleanor later writes to thank
him for his service, stating “I assure you that I will be ready to do for you any pleasure that I
can” (17). While she previously rejected him, Eleanor has now provided F.J. with an opportunity
to advance their courtship. F.J. realizes that this letter is written by her, not like the other one
that was written by a “clerk,” a lover of Eleanor’s.
Now that I have examined the chaste and unchaste ways of both Philoclea and Eleanor, I
want to look at how they are subject to persuasion with regards to their virtuous or nonvirtuous natures. Pyrocles enters Philoclea’s chamber (she is now aware that he is a man and is
further frustrated by the temptation to give herself up to him and she is embarrassed to have
him see her so exposed, wearing little clothing. She is “ashamed that her beautiful body made so
naked a prospect” (204). Not only because he is in her room, but also because she is scantily
clad, one can deduce how this scene will progress. After brief conversation, Pyrocles and
Philoclea exchange many kisses and give in to their bodily urges (207). Up to now, Philoclea has
carefully guarded her virginity. Yet her love for Pyrocles justifies her decision to lose her
virginity to him, her one true love.
Similarly, Eleanor and Master F.J. engage in sexual acts that further negate any chaste
qualities the lady may have possessed. However, unlike Philoclea, who was a willing participant
in sexual acts with her lover, Eleanor first encourages and then resists F.J.’s advances. In secret
meeting, Master F.J. admits to Eleanor that he is upset because he doubts her honesty and
sincerity (53). When a fight ensues, F.J. takes advantage of Eleanor’s physical frailty and violates
her body and mind. The narrator writes of F.J.:
Having now forgotten all former courtesies, he drew upon his new professed
enemy and bare her up with such a violence against the bolster, that before she
could prepare the ward, he thrust her through both hands, […] whereby the
Dame, swooning for fear, was constrained (for a time) to abandon her body to
the enemy’s courtesy. (54)
6
It is clear that F.J. perhaps because he is frustrated with Eleanor’s inconstancy and unchaste
ways, feels it is all right to violate her body. While this thought-process is NO excuse for what he
does, Eleanor’s unchaste ways provided an opportunity for F.J. to violate her.
In conclusion, female chastity, specifically within the context of The Old Arcadia and The
Adventures of Master F.J., is subject to persuasion. While the virginal and unmarried Philoclea
took great pains to act in a chaste manner, the married and promiscuous Eleanor merely
resisted temptation initially to give her greater control over her lover.” However, as
Woodbridge suggests, “A man can gain the sexual favors of almost any woman, since women are
frail” (26). In Sidney’s text, Philoclea is frail in terms of letting her heart rule, giving in to her
physical desires, but only with her one true love, Pyrocles. Her chastity remains in tact because
she has saved herself for the one person with whom she wanted to lose her virginity. Eleanor,
on the other hand, is frail in the physical sense because F.J. overpowers her body and violates
her. But she is also frail morally because she is a promiscuous woman who defiles her marriage
bed with several lovers.
Works Consulted
Berry, Philippa. Of Chastity and Power: Elizabethan Literature and the Unmarried Queen. New
York: Routledge, 1989. Print.
Castiglione, Baldesar. The Book of the Courtier. Trans. George Bull. New York: Penguin, 2003.
Print.
Gascoigne, George. “The Adventures of Master F.J.”: Online Course pack. ENGL 4153H –2012WI
PTBO: Sex and Politics in Elizabethan England. Ed. Elizabeth Popham. Trent University
myLearning System, 2012.
<https://webct.trentu.ca/webct/urw/lc5895185716001.tp5895185739001//Relative
ResourceManager?contentID=5968596604001.> Jan. 30, 2012. Web.
Hull, Suzanne, W. Chaste, Silent and Obedient: English Books for Women, 1475-1640. San
Marino: Kingsport Press, 1982. Print.
Jokinen, Annina. “Queen Elizabeth I.” Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature. 1996.
<http://www.luminarium.org /renlit/eliza.htm.> Jan 9, 2012. Web.
Moulton, Ian Frederick. Before Pornography: Erotic Writing in Early Modern England. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.
Popham, Beth. “Book Three of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene.” ENGL-4153H. Trent University, 12
March 2012.
Shakespeare, William. Antony and Cleopatra. Ed., Emrys Jones. Bungay, Suffolk: Penguin, 1977.
Print.
—. Henry V. Ed. Gary Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.
—. “Venus and Adonis.” The Poems. Ed. John Roe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
85-146. Print.
Sidney, Sir Philip. “The Defence of Poetry”: Online Course pack. ENGL 4153H 2012WI PTBO Sex
Politics Elizabethan England. Ed. Elizabeth Popham. Trent University myLearning
System, 2012. <http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/defence.html.> Feb.
10, 2012. Web.
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—. The Old Arcadia. Ed., Maurice Evans. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.
Spenser, Edmund. “The Third Book: The Legende of Chastitie.” The Faerie Queene. 1590. Ed.,
Thomas P. Roche. London: Penguin, 1987. 383-562. Print.
—. “The Fifth Book: The Legende of Justice.” The Faerie Queene. 1590. Ed. Thomas P. Roche.
London: Penguin, 1987. 723-874. Print.
Sullivan, Margaret M. “Amazons and Aristocrats: The Function of Pyrocles’ Amazon Role in
Sidney’s Revised Arcadia.” Playing with Gender: A Renaissance Pursuit. Ed., Jean R. Brink,
Maryanne C. Horowitz, and Allison P. Coudert. Chicago: Illinois University Press, 1991.
62-81. Print.
The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage & Related Documents. Ed., Germaine Warkentin. Centre for
Reformation and Renaissance Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Print.
Woodbridge, Linda. Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of
Womankind, 1540-1620. Chicago: Illinois University Press, 1984. Print.
Ashleigh Vaughan-Evans
The Romance of Rhetoric
in Shakespeare's Henry V and Antony and Cleopatra
The Renaissance era was witness to a staggering increase in the value and
importanceplaced on rhetoric in society. The emphasis upon the careful negligence or
sprezzatura in a good courtier's life included the art of oration, especially as it allowed the
courtier to persuade others of his many talents and attributes. Renowned Renaissance scholar
Walter Ong states that “rhetoric conferred power, and admirably humane power, for its power
depended on producing conviction in others” (Ong. “Introduction” 1). Rhetorical skills were to
be put into practice in all aspects of life, from politics to preaching to medicine to literature. Ong
sums up this broad rhetorical ground stating that rhetoric was to be applied “in general through
all effective human relations” (“Introduction” 6). As literature mirrors the age in which it is
produced, renaissance literature reflects the integral and powerful role of rhetoric. Richard
Lanham in his book The Motives of Eloquence states that “you cannot read Renaissance
literature for long without noticing everywhere a delight in words, an infatuation with rhetoric,
a stylistic explosion” (33). However, Lanham also emphasizes that Renaissance rhetoric differs
greatly from the understanding of rhetoric in modern society.
Aristotle's definition of a rhetorician is “someone who is always able to see what is
persuasive,” and by extension, rhetoric is the ability to “see what is passably persuasive in every
given case” (Aristotle, Book I Part 2). However, as is still true of today's rhetoric, it can be used
to achieve any number of things from political gain to social or romantic favour, or simply to
best others at rhetorical games, as is seen in Castiglione's the Courtier where one such game —
8
the formulation of an ideal courtier – forms the structure of the narrative. These varied
applications of Renaissance rhetoric should be viewed as “an intellectual mosaic, rather than
bits and piece of arcane information” (Abbott 75). Rhetoric in the Renaissance is an integral
part of both life and culture, and as a direct result, literature.
Shakespeare's plays were written with intent of performance, and so there are multiple
levels of rhetoric occurring. Within Henry V alone, Henry employs political rhetoric, romantic
rhetoric, and in the famous St. Crispin's Day Speech, battlefield rhetoric. He moves with ease
between each, using different rhetorical forms as the plot requires. Lawrence Manley discusses
this adaptability of the rhetorician further, stating that even the ideal forms of rhetoric “are
subject to the practical demands of oratory”(40). That is to say, rhetoric involves the convincing
of an audience, therefore a rhetorician must “shape and adapt themselves completely to their
opinion and approval” (Manley 40). This multiplicity sheds light on the performative aspect of
rhetoric. Richard Lanham argues that “rhetorical man is an actor” whose language, “spoken or
written, was naturally premeditated” (3) and who possesses a “natural agility in changing
orientation” (4). As previously stated, the character of Henry reveals this tendency to change
the orientation of his rhetoric depending on the situation. Similarly, in Antony and Cleopatra,
rhetoric is used in numerous situations throughout the play, varying to suit what the scene
requires. Antony uses it to evade his responsibilities to the Romans, and Cleopatra plays a
cunning rhetorical game in which the other characters are pawns, including her romantic
interest, Antony. While battlefield rhetoric is common to both Henry V and Anthony and
Cleopatra, another point of comparison is the way in which Shakespeare uses rhetoric in
portraying romantic affairs.
Aristotle in his Rhetoric breaks down the means of persuasion into three parts: (1) by
working on the emotions of the judges, (2) by giving them the “right” impression of the
speakers' character, or (3) by proving the truth of the statements made (Aristotle, Rhetoric).
The aspects of “working on emotion” and giving the “right impression” to the audience are
certainly prominent in the rhetoric of romance in both Henry V and Anthony and Cleopatra,
though the aspect of “proving truth” holds less true with regard to Cleopatra whom Antony
describes as “cunning past man's thought” (I. ii. 150). The description seems apt as she is
cunning past his own thoughts and perceptions. The first act of this romance indicates that the
rhetorical games played by Cleopatra, and to a lesser extent Antony, are dangerous and bear the
risk of great consequences. Charmian tells Cleopatra not to toy with Antony so much, stating
“tempt him not so too far; I wish forbear:/In time we hate that which we often fear” (I. iii. 1112). George Puttenham in his Arte of English Poesie explains that this couplet, or underlay, bears
rhetorical significance because of the pairing of “forbear”/”fear,” comparing the effect of this
style of rhyming to that of the “cuckow” who “repeats his lay, which is but one manner of note,
and doth not insert any other tune betwixt” (Puttenham 168). Repetition of sounds and
rhyming are described by Puttenham as central to the art of rhetoric as “your figure that
worketh by iteration or repetition of one word or clause doth much alter and affect the eare and
also the mynde of the hearer, and therefore is counted a very brave figure both with the Poets
and rhetoriciens” (165). There is a certain irony to this statement, as Charmian uses rhetorical
flourish to warn Cleopatra of the consequences of rhetoric. This use of repetitive sounds or
rhymes is often utilized in Shakespeare.
Similarly, in Henry V, Shakespeare uses a variant of the “cuckow” effect described by
Puttenham called “the rebound,” which is phrase of comparison using similar sounds and
words. Henry begins wooing Katharine by telling her, “an angel is like you, Kate, and you are
like an angel” (V. ii. 111). Katharine's response, through her translator Alice, is “dat de tongues
of de mans is be full of deceits” (V. ii. 122). Here again, the repetition of the 'd' sound
9
emphasizes the rhetorical theme of the entire scene, and the parsed English of Alice contributes
to the linguistic interplay of this scene. It is worth noting that Shakespeare uses the language
barrier between the English speaking king and the French speaking princess to create a comic
effect where Henry uses rhetorical devices in his efforts to woo her, and Katharine chides his
fancy words. There is even rhetorical word play present in Henry's marriage proposal to
Katharine, wherein he states, “Come your answer in broken music; for thy voice is music and
thy English broken... break thy mind to me in broken English” (V. ii. 261-65). The repetition of
more than one form of a verb, here “break” and “broken,” is defined as “the tranlacer” by
Puttenham, which he explains as turning “a word into many sundry shapes as the Tailor doth
his garment, & after that sort do play with him in your dittie” (170). The “delight in words”
spoken of by Lanham is certainly present in these romantic scenes, though due to the comedic
effect created, they could be classified in more modern terms as romantic comedy.
As previously stated, the language barrier adds an interesting level to the rhetoric
occurring within the romantic dialogue, as Henry and Katharine are hearing each others' words
through the interpretations of translators. The political division between their countries draws
Katharine's concern about marrying Henry, to which he responds with great flourish:
... in loving me, you should love the friend of France, for I love
France so
well that I will not part with a village of it; I will have it all mine; and, Kate, when
France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine.
(V. ii. 180-86)
This blending of simple language with repetition of similar words throughout is referred to as
“prosonomasia“ by Puttenham, referring to the repeated use of like sounds demonstrated here
through repetitions of “love,” “will,” and “you/your” (169). Though Henry intends to be
romantic, his intricately constructed rhetoric confuses Katharine, thus creating another
comedic moment in their romance. The intricacies of the romantic dialogue occurring between
Henry and Katharine in this scene are rhetorical in nature, though there is an element of
comedy to the romance, perhaps as counterpoint to the heavy political overtones of the plot of
Henry V.
Where the romantic rhetoric in Henry V creates romance and comedy, in Antony and
Cleopatra Shakespeare shows Cleopatra employing rhetoric to both manipulate and persuade
Antony choose their relationship over his political responsibilities, while obscuring her
manipulations. Richard Lanham theorizes that rhetoric in the Renaissance is fuelled by a “selfserving theory of motive” (Lanham 4) without regard for consequence. This certainly applies to
Shakespeare's characterization of Cleopatra, and is especially apparent in the battlefield scenes
where she argues her way into planning and operations at the Battle of Actium, and then flees
causinga major rift in already poor relations between Antony and the Roman soldiers under his
command. From the first act, Cleopatra is already using manipulative rhetoric in her
relationship with Antony, sending a messenger to him with the following instructions: “If you
find him sad, say I'm dancing; if in mirth, report that I am sudden sick” (I. iii. 3-5). Henry's
romantic rhetoric functions to persuade Katharine into a great political marriage, whereas here
it is apparent that Cleopatra is using it to gain the upper hand in her affair with Antony.
Shakespeare's portrayal of Cleopatra leans toward the moralistic. The reader is aware that she
has already manipulated Antony, yet when she learns of his wife Fulvia, she rebukes him saying,
“... riotous madness, / to be entangled with those mouth-made vows, / which break themselves
in swearing!” (I. iii. 29-31). The irony in this statement is apparent to the reader already, in that
10
Cleopatra herself can hardly be described as reliable in her own words or “vows.” Truth is not a
necessary aspect of rhetoric, rather to Renaissance rhetoricians “the world is not clear, it is
made clear” (Lanham 22). In effect, Cleopatra shapes the entire plot of the play through her
manipulations.
Metaphor is another literary device whose primary function within the Renaissance
period was rhetorical. It is valuable to note the eventual disconnection after this period
between the meaning of metaphor and rhetoric, with the modern definition of metaphor falling
closer to a descriptive rather than rhetorical device. George Puttenham breaks metaphor down
into three categories: similitude, dissimilitude, and “resemblances by imagerie and portrait”
(205). Most often Shakespeare uses “resemblances” in the scenes of romance in Henry V and
Antony and Cleopatra, though dissimilitudes are also seen in Henry V 's romantic speeches,
including Henry's lengthy speeches to Katharine at the start of Act V and the description of the
first meeting of Antony and Cleopatra proffered by Enobarbus . Henry uses metaphor in his
elaborate linguistic attempts to convince Katharine to marry, rather than to praise as
Enobarbus does. Much as the text of Antony and Cleopatra acknowledges Cleopatra's persuasive
ways through Charmian's rebuke, in Henry V the poetic use of rhetoric is hinted at by Henry in
one of his speeches to Katharine. He states that “fellows of infinite tongue” can simply talk their
way into “ladies' favour,” and that a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad” (V. ii. 16468), yet Shakespeare has portrayed Henry with an infinite tongue for the appropriate form of
rhetoric to meet each situation he faces. This juxtaposition shows Henry acting self-deprecating
in order to appear more desirable to Katharine. He continues with a series of metaphors
designed to show that many things that appear desirable, like “fellows of infinite tongue,” are
vulnerable to the decays of aging, saying “A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black
beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither” (V. ii. 168-70). This
act of rhetoric can be described as “disimillitude” because in order to show his own stability,
Henry describes numerous objects whose instability implies the unchanging quality of Henry's
“good heart” (V. ii. 170-71).
In Antony and Cleopatra, the use of metaphor is abundant in dialogue between the two
lovers, as well as in speeches by other characters to describe Antony and Cleopatra. Most
striking perhaps is the speech by Enobarbus recounting of their first meeting to Agrippa. He
describes Cleopatra's barge as “like a burnished throne” with purple sails “so perfumed that /
the winds were love-sick with them” (II. ii. 196-99). Furthermore, the water is described as
“amorous of [her oar] strokes” and Cleopatra herself is seen “in her pavilion – cloth-of-gold of
tissue - / O'er-picturing that Venus where we see / That fancy outwork nature” (II. ii. 204-206).
Through Enobarbus' descriptions of Cleopatra, Shakespeare constructs her as being unnaturally
powerful, to the extent that she even “outworks” nature, appearing more beautiful than the
Cydnus river. Even the cloth of her tent is made of gold and tissue, emphasizing the artistry of
her self-presentation. Shakespeare uses Enobarbus' extravagant metaphors to persuade
Caesar's ally Agrippa of the powerful allure of Cleopatra to Antony.
While in Antony and Cleopatra there are moments of lighthearted rhetoric similar to the
romantic rhetoric of Henry V, Cleopatra remains recklessly manipulative in her romance with
Antony. Following the desertion of the Egyptian navy at the battle at Alexandria, Antony feels
betrayed and enraged, and says she is “like the greatest spot / Of all thy sex; most monster-like”
(IV. vxii. 35-36). Antony refers to his connection to Octavia while threatening Cleopatra, saying
“... let / Patient Octavia plough thy visage up / With her prepared nails” (IV. xii. 37-39). Antony
condemns Cleopatra with his pejorative rhetorical comparisons denying their love by affirming
his long-neglected marriage to Octavia. Returning to her own dangerous form of manipulative
rhetoric in the next scene, Cleopatra accepts Charmian's advice to lock herself within the
11
monument “and send him word [she is] dead” (IV. Vxiii. 3-4). In Peter Munz's The Rhetoric of
Rhetoric, the relationship between truth and rhetoric is examined closely. Cleopatra's language
causes her to be read as disingenuous or irredeemable. H owever, given the previous
understanding of rhetoricians as “actor(s)” completing a performance, which is subject to the
demands of varied situations, her actions can be better described as ruthless in their rhetorical
aims. Munz describes the societal niche that rhetoric fills, stating:
In such ages and societies in which there is no established manner of finding
truths and in which propositions are counted as true because they are current in
a given community or in a culture in which all positions are considered equally
valid, rhetoric obviously must take pride of place. (Munz 122)
This manner of interpreting the underlying function of rhetoric is applicable to the Renaissance
period, and speaks to the ultimate goal of Cleopatra's rhetorical pursuits. The false statements
she sends with messengers to Antony are intended to provoke a reaction in him which will
reveal the truth of his feelings toward her. Unfortunately, Cleopatra's play with language results
in the tragic death of Antony, and eventually her own suicide.
The blending of rhetoric and romance proves deadly in Antony and Cleopatra. Christof
Rapp discusses the relationship between emotional response and the rhetorician posited by
Aristotle, stating that “the orator has to arouse emotions exactly because emotions have the
power to modify our judgements” (5.0). In effect, this describes the methodology Shakespeare
assigns to Cleopatra's rhetoric, in that she is using both to expose Antony's true feelings, but
also to “modify” his perspective so that he will place Cleopatra above all else. Aristotle's treatise
on rhetoric argues that it isn't enough to simply be persuasive, rather the rhetorician must also
“reason logically,” “understand human character and goodness in various forms” and lastly,
“understand the emotions - that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and
the way in which they are excited” (Book 1, Part ii). It is this latter quality which Cleopatra
lacks, and which causes her to push Antony over an emotional barrier, ultimately causing both
of their deaths.
Henry's linguistic versatility in Henry V illustrates that he is an orator who is model of
Aristotle's rhetorician. Henry's rhetorical approach to winning over Katharine is based less on
passionate emotion than on argumentative skill, and the outcome is comedic interplay between
their language and a royal engagement. Rapp comments on the influence of style, stating that
“to speak in one way rather than another makes some difference in regard to clarity” (8.1).
Where Henry's flowery English rhetoric fails to be understood by the French Katharine, the
effect is comedic rather than tragic.
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, and it came into play in all occasions in Renaissance
life. Henry V and Antony and Cleopatra use rhetoric in numerous fashions, but most
interestingly in the portrayals of romance. As Peter Munz wrote in his work on rhetoric, “when
there is no truth or when such truth as there is cannot be show, other forms of persuasion are
needed. Rhetoric is important for persuasion even when the truth can be exhibited” (122). In
what area could truth be less concrete, undefinable than romance. Shakespeare uses Henry's
rhetorical versatility to pursue, or rather persuade, a woman who does not speak his language,
while creating a comedic effect of misunderstanding, while Cleopatra uses rhetoric to
manipulate and control her romance with Antony. The portrayal of romance in both cases
features a protagonist who uses the art of rhetoric to persuade the object of his or her affection
into a romantic relationship. While Henry's genuine attempts at persuading Katharine and
12
Cleopatra's backhanded manipulations of Antony have very different outcomes, ultimately
Shakespeare shows that Renaissance rhetoric was essential in all aspects of life, including
courtship and marriage.
Works Consulted
Abbott, Don Paul. “The Renaissance,” The Present State of Scholarship in Historical and
Contemporary Rhetoric. Ed. Winifred Bryan Horner. Columbia and London: University of
Missouri Press, 1983.
Aristotle.
Rhetoric.
The
Internet
Classics
Archive.
<http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.1.i.html >
February
16th,
2012.
Castiglione, Baldesar. The Book of the Courtier. Trans. George Bull. Toronto: Penguin, 1967.
Lanham, Richard A. The Motives of Eloquence: Literary Rhetoric in the Renaissance. Yale
University Press: New Haven and London. 1976.
Manley, Lawrence. Convention, 1500-1750. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press,
1980.
Munz, Peter. “The Rhetoric of Rhetoric.” Journal of the History of Ideas 51, No. 1 (Winter 1990).
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709750 >
Ong, Walter J. Interfaces of the Word. London, UK: Cornell University, 1977.
—. “Introduction.” The Present State of Scholarship in Historical and Contemporary Rhetoric. Ed.
Winifred Bryan Horner. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1983. *
Puttenham, George. “The Arte of English Poesie.” Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia
Library.
February
12,
2012.
<http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PutPoes.html>
Rapp, Christof. “Aristotle's Rhetoric,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N.
Nalta. <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/aristotle-rhetoric>
Sidney, Sir Philip. Defence of Poesie. Ed. Risa S. Bear. Oregon: University of Oregon, 1992.
Shakespeare, William. Henry V. Ed. Oscar James Campbell. New York: Macmillan, 1949.
―. Antony and Cleopatra. Ed. Oscar James Campbell. New York: Macmillan, 1949.
13
Charles Likely
Natural Selection: A Play Symbolic of Shakespearean Evolution
Introduction
Natural Selection is a one-act play about the “evolution” of staging of Shakespeare’s
plays. In it, the conventions of staging in the Elizabethan theatre are contrasted with those of
the modern theatre, with its praesidium stage, artificial lighting and clear separation from the
theatre audience. The play makes use of quotations from Shakespeare’s plays Henry V and
Antony and Cleopatra, along with comments by scholars on staging techniques. Integrated
passages used in this play from Henry V are from the Prologue, Act 3, scene i, Act 4, scene iii and
Act 5, scene ii. Passages Antony and Cleopatra are from Act 5, scene ii.
The characters themselves do not directly correspond to the historical Henry or
Cleopatra, or to Shakespeare’s versions. They are representations of views of the stage as
adaptable and unchanging respectively. They refer to opposing ideas of how the plays should be
staged.
The primary idea for this play came from a quotation from Charles Forker’s article,
“Symbolic Staging in Shakespeare and Its Importance to the Classroom.” It reads:
Because of their symmetrical placement the two doors of the Elizabethan
stage facilitated the dramatization of opposition and unity. Oberon and
Titania enter by different doors to emphasize their domestic quarrel, but the
French and English nobles at the end of Henry V also enter in this way to
ritualize the healing of national antagonisms and prepare the audience for
the unification of the two countries in the marriage of Henry and Katherine.
(Forker 9)
I thought it would be interesting to have two characters coming from opposing areas of the
stage which corresponded to opposing views in regards to Shakespeare’s staging. In my play,
Henry and Cleopatra enter/the play from different areas of the stage which are symbolic of
their differing staging ideas. Forker’s article was influential on many aspects of my play,
including the idea to have a portion of it set in a classroom. Forker, like many other critics, sees
the necessity of teaching the original staging techniques to students so that they will gain the
highest level of understanding of the theatrical aspect of Shakespeare’s plays. By
contextualizing the plays in their original theatrical setting, students may gain insight to the
many intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the Elizabethan stage.
The original staging featured symbolism that is not evident to modern readers in the
text of a play. However, I believe a student today cannot properly understand Shakespeare,
without applying his plays to modern culture and concerns. Modern adaptations which create
significance by allusion to modern culture allow constructive comparisons to be made between
Elizabethan and contemporary references. By staging them in a symbolic rather than realistic
style, one can see the true adaptability of Shakespeare. The relevance of his works is not
confined to the year they were written. Though they involve elements, like political satire, that
would require research to understand, they can be modified to comment on modern society.
14
Shakespeare’s commentary on Elizabethan political figures can be applied to figures such as
George Bush or Stephen Harper. In Henry V or Cleopatra, it can be argued that Shakespeare
utilized political figures of the past to create parallels to his own time (i.e. comparing Cleopatra
to Elizabeth I). Not only did Shakespeare adapt stories of the distant past to fit the political mold
of his time, he also makes them available to be adapted in other eras. The adaptability of his
plays is exemplified in the prologue to Henry V.
_______________________________
Natural Selection: A Play Symbolic of Shakespearean Evolution
Dramatis Personae
CHORUS
KING HENRY V. A pre-teen school boy dressed in common clothing.
CLEOPATRA. A prepubescent boy on the verge of puberty dressed convincingly as the
Egyptian Queen herself.
_______________________________
Enter Chorus
CHORUS (Shy and unsure)
What is a stage? What is a play? Is life not a stage and we the players? Shakespeare
thought so. As You Like What? Heh. Tell me what spectacle you want to see and we can
avoid this… right.
Reaches for cue cards in pocket, brings out crumpled papers…fumbles them…paper scatters across
the stage. Too disorganized to re-order.
Pause.
Each of you is performing a part, eh? You in the audience are players. You act as though
you are not acting…You have a tragic flaw…You cannot surmount the gravity of your
seats. Hamartia in your buttocks… Tragedy at the seat of your pants… Friends, Romans,
countrymen, lend me your legs! Anyone?... hehe… Anyone?!
Chorus leaves the stage and re-enters a minute later.
(With slightly heightened passion) This is not Shakespeare! This is Shakespeare. This is a
street corner, a classroom and a singed Globe.
15
(Bashfully whispers) Dramatic Pause…
So… Shakespeare. His staged productions were all about symbolism. Symbolism purged
the original audiences on a level greater than the text itself. A Shakespearean
production is more than verse.
(Looks offstage.) At last our players are set… maybe not quite yet… ummmm Please, (an
awkward smile) Lend me your ears for a bit longer.
Have you heard of the historical encounter between King Henry V of England and
Cleopatra? … Me neither… Yet, original Shakespearean productions did have a dozen or
so men representing entire armies and young boys who would have played sexually
active women. That stretches reality does it not?
Pause.
I idolize the Prologue opening Henry V. I have been quoted calling it “my mantra.” I
would argue that Derek Jacobi’s portrayal of the Chorus in Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film
Henry V is what truly allows the play to be transferred to the “Big Screen.” As he bursts
through the doors onto the set, the play jumps to the film reel.
But I am a half-wit chorus in comparison. I am nowhere near as gripping or…MA’AM
WAKE UP. You are not helping my confidence.
Pause.
Perhaps a rendition will put you in place?
A spotlight forms. Chorus takes a strong stance in the ‘hot spot’. With inspired boldness:
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
16
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide on man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.
The spotlight fades, and the stage is lit. Downstage is a modern classroom, with a Shakespearean
balcony (Cleopatra’s monument) further upstage.
(With the same passion)
Our characters now enter. Witness King Henry V at the successful siege of Harfleur
encounter the tragic Cleopatra. This is not history. This is not Elizabethan. This is not
Shakespeare. This is Shakespeare.
Exit Chorus.
Light fades to blackout. Enter Henry. Cleopatra is concealed on the balcony.
HENRY (standing on a desk at centre stage)
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger…
CLEOPATRA (still concealed, with great remorse.)
Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
Immortal longings in me: now no more…
17
HENRY
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean…
CLEOPATRA
The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip:
Yare, yare, good Iras; quick…
HENRY
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war…
CLEOPATRA
Methinks I hear Antony call; I see him rouse himself
To praise my noble act; I hear him mock
The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
To excuse their after wrath: husband, I come:
Now to that name my courage prove my title!
Henry, looking confused, notices the other voice for the first time, but continues. They speak
simultaneously. Henry becomes louder with every line.
HENRY/ CLEOPATRA
And you, good yeomen , / I am fire and air; my other elements
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here / I give to baser life. So; have you done?
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear /Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
/ Farewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell.
For there is none of you so mean and base, / Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. / If thou and nature can so gently part,
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, / The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: /Which hurts, and is desired. Dost thou lie still?
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge / If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' / It is not worth leave-taking.
18
HENRY
O! What are you on about?!
CLEOPATRA
This proves me base:
If she first meet the curled Antony,
He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss
Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou
Mortal wretch…
HENRY (Distracted, going off book)
Show your face! Are you a French spy? You sound French.
CLEOPATRA (To an asp, which she applies to her breast.)
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool
Be angry, and dispatch. O, couldst thou speak,
That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass
Unpolicied!
HENRY
Can you not see we are busy?! Show yourself you fiend!
CLEOPATRA
Peace, peace!
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse asleep?
HENRY
Are you insane?! Control yourself.
CLEOPATRA
As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle,-O Antony!--Nay, I will take thee too.
HENRY
Wait! Stop!
No response.
HENRY
Hello?!
No Answer.
HENRY
Answer me. I demand an answer. This is my stage. You interrupted my monologue. Have
the decency to acknowledge my existence.
Cleopatra emerges. The two characters observe each other.
19
CLEOPATRA
I do not deal with trespassing peasants.
Henry (Aside)
Trespassing peasant? ... Are you talking to me? ... Or them? (He points to audience.)
CLEOPATRA
You of course! They know their place.
HENRY
Their place?! Sure, yes of course they do. And I know my blocking. I am well-rehearsed. I
don’t remember you from the cast list though.
CLEOPATRA
Just who, might I ask, do you think you are?
HENRY
I am King Henry… the ‘V’.
CLEOPATRA
You are no king!
HENRY
Says who?!
CLEOPATRA
Common sense! How am I to believe you are a king if you are dressed nothing like one?
HENRY
I am a worthy heir to the stage! I am a king if I say that’s what I am! … Who are you to
tell me I am not a king?
CLEOPATRA
Really, your attempts are pathetic. You claiming royalty is an offense to my stage! And
all theatre professionals, such as I!
HENRY
… That is the first thing I want to address.
CLEOPATRA
What? ... My professionalism? I assure you that I am well versed —
HENRY
No, no. You. Who are you?
CLEOPATRA
I am Cleopatra! Queen of Egypt!
HENRY
20
… I find that hard to believe.
CLEOPATRA
In what way?
HENRY
Well, you have a convincing dress and everything. But you can’t be much older than me.
CLEOPATRA
Exactly! So why do you believe you have the right to be a king?
Pause.
HENRY
Are you a boy?
CLEOPATRA
I am the most successful of any in the guild.
HENRY
Well I am the tallest in my grade.
CLEOPATRA (sarcastically)
Naturally you would be a king.
HENRY
Naturally you would be a woman. Don’t girls like theatre more than guys do anyway?
Your teacher couldn’t find some naturally melodramatic girlie? Or are you just weird?
CLEOPATRA
I’ll have you know, “girlies,” let alone women, do not perform on the stage.
HENRY
That explains the dress…hold on! Yes they do. My mom studied theatre at Bishop’s.
CLEOPATRA
Heavens, you are a confusing tramp. Women are not fit for theatre life. I, personally, am
glad they are not or I would be out of work.
Henry quizzically studies Cleopatra.
HENRY
Where did you get the costume? I have never seen anyone wear it here before.
CLEOPATRA
Come closer if you must.
Henry moves from the desks of the lower stage up to the balcony with Cleopatra. Henry inspects
her/his robes.
21
CLEOPATRA
You see. Style of dress is entirely for the audience’s benefit. These robes signify that I am
the Queen. The rabble in the pit are far too simple-minded to understand my status
without the robes that symbolically portray me as an Egyptian queen.
HENRY
Can’t someone just tell them that you are playing… (looks to his counterpart)
CLEOPATRA
Cleopatra.
HENRY
Cleopatra.
CLEOPATRA
Yes. But the display of class distinction and status on the stage appeals to the already set
hierarchies within society.
Henry looks puzzled.
CLEOPATRA
Look. Your Englishmen, whom you are rallying for another attack. (Lowers voice, which
shocks Henry) Once more unto the breech, dear friends, once more! (Returns to normal
voice) They are not all “kings” like you or noble knights. The attire they don must
resemble or symbolize class distinction. Even the weapons they wield must show their
particular status. The lowly foot-soldier carries a battle axe over a long sword, while the
knight will never be seen grasping a hammer. If the warriors dressed and armed
identically, it would not convey the proper hierarchies to the audiences. This (she
gestures) is a feeble attempt to symbolize war.
HENRY
But on a stage, an entire army cannot be present.
CLEOPATRA
All the more reason to represent all social classes within the army using as many
available players as possible, giving each player a different weapon or distinct article of
clothing associated with their class. The number of foot-soldiers on the battlefield
greatly outweighs the number of nobility, so an adequate ratio should be present on the
stage.
HENRY
But what if I am doing a one-man show?
CLEOPATRA
A one-man show?
HENRY
Yes, as in one actor.
CLEOPATRA (voice slightly cracks)
22
I, I do not follow you.
HENRY
What if I, one single person, were to perform Henry V alone.
CLEOPATRA
That is not possible…
HENRY
It is. Come I will show you. (Brings Cleopatra down to the classroom.)
HENRY
Here, I am King Henry. I stand on the desks to display my status as King. I am higher
than anyone in the classroom. (Henry stands on desk). I am their leader, but I am not
removed from them. I am not the teacher. (Addresses and acknowledges audience) We
are all students.
CLEOPATRA
What of Henry’s subjects?
HENRY
I am them. (To audience) They are them.
HENRY
I will now perform the St. Crispin’s day speech.
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
23
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
We are all together. One England; one classroom; one stage. Past and present. The
symbolic theatre you refer to… Who sits in the audience?
CLEOPATRA (voice cracks)
… Everyone.
HENRY
Upper class and lower class together?
CLEOPATRA
Well… in a way. They do not sit together, nor are dressed the same. Clothing and
physical positioning in the audience is representational of their specific status.
HENRY
But the shows, the spectacles…they are accessible to the entire community?
Cleopatra
… Yes.
HENRY
… Yet you are a male dressed as a female?
CLEOPATRA (voice cracks)
…Yes. Like I said, women are not fit—
HENRY
Never mind! Do you not agree that theatre should be accessible to everyone?
CLEOPATRA
Of course!
Henry begins pulling unassembled manikins out of various desks. He puts them into various
positions around the room. Some sitting at desks, some under desks, and one on the balcony.
CLEOPATRA
What about your “one-man” show?
Henry ignores and continues placing them.
He finishes and approaches Cleopatra.
HENRY
Where’s Antony?
24
CLEOPATRA (voice cracks)
…Dead.
HENRY
…oh. (Pause.)
HENRY
These are the French soldiers. I will begin the dramatization of my Victory at Agincourt.
Henry begins to act as different warriors and soldiers.
You hold Elizabethan staging in higher esteem than it deserves. (As he says this he mimes
decapitating one of the manikins with a battle axe.) I remember learning about
traditional Shakespearean thespians. (He clubs another.) They led pretty awful lives. You
are a boy, (mimes shooting another with a sniper rifle) and nearly a man at the sound of
it. Yet, (mimes throwing a grenade) you constantly play leading female roles.
(Disassembles manikin and says to audience.) Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
(To Cleopatra) But you actually believe these parts are only meant to be played by
prepubescent boys!
He moves up onto the balcony with the final manikin. Cleopatra remains downstage.
CLEOPATRA (voice is as low as ever)
The symbolism Shakespeare intended is entirely necessary for the audience’s
understanding!
HENRY
Yes! But what about my interpretation?! I am the rightful heir to the stage! That
symbolism means much less to me! (He mimes retrieving a snake and brings it to the
chest of the manikin.) I agree that original staging is important to develop a greater
understanding of his plays, but it does not end there.
CLEOPATRA
You are mad.
HENRY
Am I? But it is my interpretation. When a boy loves a girl, does he not give her flowers,
to symbolize his love for her?
Cleopatra does not move.
HENRY
Right! Maybe her culture does not idolize plants. Maybe she desires a living symbol. A
pet snake?
CLEOPATRA (refers to invisible snake)
Where did you find that?!
25
HENRY
You never mentioned the symbolism attached to the different parts of the stage…Tell
me, what did the trapdoor traditionally symbolize?
CLEOPATRA (low pitched and quiet)
Hell.
Henry dramatizes the snake biting the manikin.
CLEOPATRA
ANTONY!
Cleopatra falls through the trapdoor.
HENRY
He goes from the balcony and positions himself at centre-stage above the trapdoor.
Do we all holy rites;
Let there be sung 'Non nobis' and 'Te Deum;'
The dead with charity enclosed in clay:
And then to Calais; and to England then:
Where ne'er from France arrived more happy men.
Now, Mr. Forker, I would like to present my condensed one-man staging of
Shakespeare’s Henry V to the class.
Blackout.
Spotlight shines on Chorus.
CHORUS
Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
Our bending author hath pursued the story,
In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England: Fortune made his sword;
By which the world's best garden be achieved,
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King
Of France and England, did this king succeed;
Whose state so many had the managing,
That they lost France and made his England bleed:
Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.
What is the future of Shakespeare and theatre? Are we the rightful heirs to his stage?
Can we properly handle confronting the contemporary with the symbolic intricacies of
his day? What will become of it? What is Shakespeare? It is the past and present. It is
symbolic. It is Shakespeare.
Exeunt.
26
Works Consulted
Bowsher, Julian. "Twenty years on: The archaeology
playhouses." Shakespeare. 7.4 (2011): 452-466.
of
Shakespeare's
London
Forker, Charles. "Symbolic Staging in Shakespeare and Its Importance to the Classroom." Rocky
Mountain Review of Language and Literature. 38.1 (1984): 3-11.
Gurr, Andrew, and Mariko Ichikawa. Staging in Shakespeare's Theatres. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000.
—. The Shakespeare Company 1594-1624. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 41-78.
Holmes, Martin. Shakespeare's Public: The Touchstone of His Genius. London: John Murray, 1964.
xiii-xiv.
Joseph, Bertram. Acting Shakespeare. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1981.
Shakespeare, William. Antony and Cleopatra, Ed. Michael Neill. Oxford: Oxford World Classics,
2000.
Shakespeare, William. Henry V, Ed. Gary Taylor. Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 1998.
Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Silverstone, Catherine. "Shakespeare live: reproducing Shakespeare at the ‘new’ Globe
Theatre." Textual Practice. 19.1 (2005): 31-50.
Erin M. Huebner
Constructing an Image of Queen Elizabeth
The Iconography of Female Power
Emblems and iconography were used in English renaissance literature and art to
construct positive propaganda and manipulate perceptions of Queen Elizabeth I, while
presenting her as the virtuous “Virgin Queen.” Authors like Edmund Spenser created characters
such as Britomart, to act as symbolic representations of the Queen’s virtue and power. Various
artists’ depictions, such as The Coronation Portrait c. 1600, display Queen Elizabeth I as a
virginal female monarch, balancing female virtues with masculine power. During Queen
Elizabeth’s inauguration, her subjects held pageants in order to show their respect for the
monarchy as well as Queen, and to display their expectations for her. The emblems and
iconography used in the pageants are visual and artistic metaphors for the expectations of the
citizens of England, and demonstrate the relationship between the Queen and her subjects.
27
The Queen’s Coronation Entry in London, England was an event that introduced Queen
Elizabeth as she would be seen in the years to come. The Queen’s procession through the
streets of London saw her welcomed as the new monarch by many of her subjects. The citizens
commissioned pageants to depict their expectations of her as a queen, wishing her to be a fair
and just Queen who symbolized their hope for a peaceful and prosperous future. As Queen
Elizabeth was a young woman they expected her to choose an appropriate suitor to become the
King of England, and to produce an heir to the throne. The citizens accepted Elizabeth as the
monarch, but they did so with some hesitation. Thus they used the emblem of Deborah to
illustrate the power of a virtuous female ruler, but also the modesty of a female ruler. Deborah
was a Judge and “restorer of the house of Israel” (Warkentin, p.91). In the pageant she was
shown “richly apparelled in parliament robes, with a sceptre in her hand, as a Queen, crowned
with an open crown” (Warkentin, p.91). The parliamentary robes are a symbol of power and
royalty. With Deborah wearing robes made of rich cloth, the people are acknowledging Queen
Elizabeth’s power as a female monarch. The sceptre is also a sign of power. The orb on top of
the sceptre represents the world; that it is being grasped in the hand of the Queen is a symbol of
her power over the world. However, Deborah is wearing an open crown, with the top of her
head exposed. This is interpreted to mean that there is a greater power reigning over the Queen
– the power of God. Furthermore, Deborah is consulting with six men on the stage. Of these six
men there were “two representing the nobility, two of the clergy, and two the commonalty”
(Warkentin, p.91). The iconography of Deborah holding counsel with men of all classes models
the Queen showing respect for the estates that make up her country, as well as knowledge to
seek male counsel. The depiction of Deborah displays that she was a wise and worthy judge.
However, when her example is applied to Elizabeth, the metaphor suggests that she should also
be wise enough to seek male counsel. This signifies that Elizabeth had respect as queen, but
also some concern about a young female monarch with no male control.
Many contemporary portraits of Queen Elizabeth I depict her virtues as a virgin, as well
as her power as a ruler of England. The image of Queen Elizabeth in The Coronation Portrait ca.
1600 contains many emblems representing both virginity and power. The first emblem is the
pale face which Queen Elizabeth will carry with her for the rest of her life. The image of the pale
face is used to represent youth, beauty and virginity. This was how Elizabeth wished to be
depicted in propaganda and how she wished to be viewed by her subjects. During her reign she
forbade artists to show her aging. She wished to forever be known as a young virginal queen,
not an old abstinent unwed woman. Reinforcing the artist’s depiction of Elizabeth as a virgin,
she is shown with long, flowing, golden hair down around her shoulders, which is also an
emblem of virginity. In The Coronation Portrait her dress is made of a golden cloth, a fabric that
only royals are permitted to wear. She proudly displays her royal heritage and presents herself
to the public as a deserving royal. Her golden gown is trimmed with the fur of the stoat, an
animal that in the winter months becomes white with black spots and is therefore incredibly
rare. When made into a garment, it is known as the “ermine.” This is also a type of clothing that
only kings, queens and judges are permitted to wear. The Queen combines the colour of gold
with the trim of the ermine, critically boasting her right to be seen as a powerful monarch,
despite her gender and previously being declared illegitimate. This portrait also shows
Elizabeth holding the orb representing worldly power. The artist is acknowledging her power
despite her youth, virginity and marital status. These images depict how she is to be perceived
by her subjects: as a balance of man and woman; feminine virtue and raw masculine power.
She wears a crown which appears to be open like the crown on Deborah in the Coronation
Entry, however, it is actually closed upon closer inspection. The significance of a closed crown
is to show that there is no power above her, despite what her subjects had implicitly requested
of her in the Entry preceeding her Coronation . She is an all-powerful ruler despite her gender
28
and marital status. The propaganda of visual presentations of the Queen influenced the
perception of the Queen, emphasizing her positive qualities and further perpetuating the image
of the powerful Virgin Queen.
Characters in plays, books and poetry shared Elizabeth’s virtuous qualities as a form of
positive propaganda in the Queen’s favour. Edmund Spenser particularly favoured the Queen
and praised her in many of his works. One notable character who embodies features of Queen
Elizabeth I is Britomart or “Chastitie” in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene Book 3. Britomart holds
great significance as her name, broken down, is “Brito” meaning Britain’s, and “Mart”, alluding
to “Mars” the god of war (Black, 233). Britomart is a strong feminine character; however, she
must also physically fight for her love. Britomart is a chaste character, protecting her female
virtue, representing a good balance of virtue and power. Many other characters in Spenser’s
The Faerie Queene also are emblems of chastity. However, Britomart balances the protection of
her virginity with love. Florimell is also a chaste character, but she is a feeble woman, running
from everyone, even the good men who would protect her. Britomart protects herself from
unworthy men and is saving herself for her predestined lover whom she is actively pursuing
throughout Book 3.” This balance is crucial as she represents all of the virtues of the Queen.
Like Britomart, Elizabeth is defined by her virginity. She is virtuous now because she is a virgin;
however, if she found a suitable king, the citizens would be supportive of her decision to wed.
Britomart is an icon representing aspects of the Queen, most importantly the balance of
feminine virtue and masculine power and rule. Britomart has the soft feminine virtue of
chastity as well masculine power as she dresses in knight’s armour and sets off on a quest to
find her predestined mate. She uses strong, masculine physical force to defend her chastity
rather than simply running away like Florimell.
However, although Spenser provided positive propaganda for Queen Elizabeth I, he did
struggle with the idea of a female monarch and the “natural order” of power. His inward
struggle with the Queen as the sole monarch is present in The Faerie Queene, Book 5. In this
book, Britomart has finally met her love Artegall, and has accomplished what she set out to
achieve; but she must save Artegall from her evil doppelganger Radigund. There is a power
struggle as, ironically, it is Britomart saving Artegall when traditionally the men must save the
female “damsel in distress.” Spenser uses this role reversal to model the restoration of the
natural order when, after saving Artegall, Britomart gives him power to rule, and denies herself
the right to replace the powerful female ruler she defeated. Spenser does believe that women
can be capable of ruling, but only if by divine intervention they have been given the power from
God. He wishes to provide the proper positive propaganda he believes his Queen deservers;
however, he is still struggling with the patriarchal concept of the natural order of power.
Chastity comes to Justice when Britomart saves Artegall. There cannot be true Justice
unless there is chaste compassion to accompany it. Spenser is arguing that Queen Elizabeth is
not hindered by her chaste lifestyle and single marital status. She will not be “so conceiued in
her iealous thought” (Spenser, Book 5 Canto 6 Stanza 3), as she has no love to be jealous of. Her
chastity will not blind her to true Justice. Artegall was unable to exercise true Justice as he was
overtaken by Radigund’s beauty. Britomart, the only hero capable of clear thought at the time,
is able to kill Radigund for the greater good in large part because she is not a man, and is
therefore immune to Radigund’s beauty. She enters into the realm of chivalry but she refuses
Radigund’s terms and conditions to the battle. When Artegall approached Radigund, she
established terms for their one-on-one combat, the winner having the power to command the
loser in whatever type of servitude he or she might choose, and – out of misplaced chivalry –
Artegall agreed. As he is the Knight of Justice, he should have had the chivalric and masculine
power to set his own terms and conditions for the battle. His lack of authority before the battle
29
foreshadows his defeat after witnessing Radigund’s beauty. His punishment is to be dressed as
a woman and forced to perform womanly duties. By contrast, Britomart refuses Radigund’s
conditions and fights for her predestined love, not to win the services of Radigund. Britomart’s
chastity allows her to perform “true justice” and she kills Radigund after defeating her in battle,
unlike her clouded partner Artegall. Spenser uses this canto to display the strength of chastity.
The Queen, like Britomart, is capable of defeating her enemies and protecting her love, which
emblematically is England. Spenser does, however, acknowledge an inward struggle to endorse
Queen Elizabeth as an all-powerful female monarch. Although he respects her and admires the
plethora of virtues she possesses, she is still a Queen with no king, a woman with no male
control, female emotions and passions with no reason to reign over them. In Book 5, he
acknowledges the power of chastity when Britomart is capable of defeating Radigund; however,
he is also acknowledging that the power of chastity should give way to the ruling knowledge of
man. Britomart defeats Radigund only to turn over the new kingdom to her love Artegall who
was not capable of defeating the sexual captivity of Radigund. Although he respects her power,
strength and virtue, he struggles with the “natural order” of things.
Spenser also acknowledges female power over male sexuality and passion when
Britomart enters the temple of Isis. Spenser acknowledges the power of the “feminine” when he
describes Isis as having:
One foote was set vppon the Crocodile,
And on the ground the other fast did stand,
So meaning to suppresse both forged guile,
And open force: and in her other hand
She stretched forth a long white sclender wand.
(FQ 5. 6. 3)
The Crocodile is an emblem for masculine aggressive passions. By depicting the female
goddess, Isis, over-powering masculine passions, Spenser is advocating that Queen Elizabeth
possesses the power to overcome and control a male dominated world.
The Queen considered her image to be of utmost importance. Elizabeth was aware that
her virginity was one of her most important virtues; and, throughout her reign, she wished to be
portrayed only as the “Virgin Queen.” She was aware of the optics of her reign, refusing to be
depicted as aging. Nicolas Hilliard, a court artist, was not permitted to paint shadows in
portraits of her. Hilliard recalls a time wherein Queen Elizabeth informed him that “seeing that
best to show one’s self needeth no shadow of place, but rather the open light” (Montrose, 224).
By this the Queen was instructing him not to draw shadows on her image. As she aged, the
Queen was increasingly self-conscious about her appearance and would only allow positive
propaganda and attractive images of herself to be displayed, demonstrating that physical
representations were just as vital to her campaign to maintain power as her actions.
Queen Elizabeth’s image as the Virgin Queen remained with her throughout her life and
remains with us today. After Elizabeth’s death, James I came to power. James I was from
Scotland and did not express a great desire to rule England, leaving the citizens unsure of their
political future. Given the uncertainty, a wave of nostalgia overtook the English public as they
remembered the time of the fair virgin ruler. Posthumous images of Elizabeth began circulating
throughout England. A notable painting is Truth Presents the Queen with a Scepter. In this
painting, Queen Elizabeth’s career is shown. The left side illustrates Truth handing Elizabeth a
sceptre or lance, which was also an emblem used in her Coronation Entry. When the Queen first
approached this iconographic representation as she proceeded through London on the day
30
before her coronation, she was approached by old man identified as Father Time outside of the
church of St. Michealle Querne (Warkentin, 61). Time led his daughter Veritas or “Truth” out of
a dark cave. Thus, time reveals truth. In this performance, daughter Truth hands Queen
Elizabeth the Book of Truth, being the English Bible. That Elizabeth was handed the Bible
signified that a divine power granted her authority to rule England. She would uphold Christian
virtues as a female monarch. In the portrait Truth Presents the Queen with a Lance, the Queen is
depicted as a powerful monarch and natural-born leader. This image is also similar to that of
Britomart portrayed in knight’s armour, both being virginal, powerful leaders. Truth Presents
the Queen with a Scepter embodies every aspect of the Queen’s reign. It began with the Queen
encountering Time and Truth. Now, at the end of her reign, the Queen is presented with a
scepter instead of a Bible. She is now portrayed in armour on a horse. Riding is an emblem for
controlling the passions. She is riding side-saddle to depict her as retaining her feminine
virtues while embodying the masculine warrior leader. She has defeated the seven-headed
beast from the Book of Revelations, which she is tromping over with her horse. This creature is
an emblem for the Spanish Armada, and the ships of the Armada being depicted in the
background. The image was used before in The Armada Portrait by George Gower which
commemorates the defeat of the Spanish Armada. There, as here, Queen Elizabeth is centered in
the frame with the fallen Spanish army behind her left shoulder. Gower’s portrait was painted
as a response to one of the greatest successes in Elizabeth’s reign, and Thomas Cecil brought
back the event when creating Truth Presents the Queen with a Scepter, encompassing all of the
emblematic touchstones of Elizabeth’s reign. He depicts her virginity in her long, flowing,
golden hair, and her ruling strength with the image of her clad in armour atop a war horse. He
alludes to her Coronation Entry when depicting father Time and daughter Truth and refers to
her powerful leadership skills when he displays the defeat of the Spanish Armada. This one
portrait embodies the iconographic life of Queen Elizabeth.
The life of Queen Elizabeth can be summed up by her use of propaganda. She would
come to be known as the Virgin Queen. Although the perception of the Queen altered at
intervals in her career, she was most commonly known as the popular and virtuous Christian
Queen of England. Emblems and iconographic symbols can be found throughout works by
authors such as Edmund Spenser who created characters with similar virtues to Queen
Elizabeth as a way of creating positive propaganda and causing the public to perceive her in a
positive light. Artists’ images of the Queen use emblems of royalty as well as chastity to
emphasize the Queen’s royal power and feminine virtue. Towards the end of her career, she
had fallen from the favour of her citizens. She refused to allow artists to show her aging because
she was a strong dominant leader and did not want to be portrayed as weak. She wished to be
remembered as the powerful, virtuous Virgin Queen, and after her death and the succession of
James I, the nostalgia reinstated this positive propaganda and made the memory of the Virgin
Queen forever possible.
Works Consulted
Black, Joseph et al . The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Renaissance and the Early
Seventeenth Century. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2006. Print.
Bowman, Mary. “She there as Princess rained: Spenser’s Figure of Elizabeth, ” Renaissance
Quarterly 43 (1990): 509-528. Web. 21 Mar. 2012.
31
Green, Janet. “’I My Self’: Queen Elizabeth I’s Oration at Tillbury Camp,” The Sixteenth Century
Journal 28: (1997) 421-445. Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
King, John. “Queen Elizabeth I: Representations of the Virgin Queen, Renaissance Quarterly 43:
(1990) 30-74. Web. 21 Mar. 2012.
—. “The Godly Woman in Elizabethan Iconography,” Renaissance Quarterly 38: (1985) 41-84.
Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
Montrose, Louis. The Subject of Elizabeth: Authority, Gender and Representations. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 2006. Print.
Royal Family History. “Queen Elizabeth I.” Web. Mar 7 2012.
http://www.britroyals.com/kings.asp?id=elizabeth1
Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene: Book Three. England: Penguin Books, 1987. Print.
―. The Faerie Queene: Book Five. England: Penguin Books, 1987. Print.
Walker, Julie. Dissing Elizabeth: Negative Representations of Gloriana. London: Duke University
Press, 1998. Print.
Warkentin, Germaine. The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage & Related Documents. Toronto: CRRS
Publications, 2004. Print.
Heather Marshall
Humanism in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra
The central issues of civic humanism can be identified within Shakespeare’s play Antony
and Cleopatra. The description of Antony’s past achievements by Roman characters shows how
a ruler could embody a version of civic humanism which is Roman in nature. However, it can be
argued that Antony experiences a fall from grace throughout the play, whereas Cleopatra,
described by the Romans as a wild and exotic creature, and not a ruler, is able to maintain her
own humanistic ideals throughout the entirety of the play. Further still, it can be argued that
Cleopatra’s grasp of her own version of civic humanism serves to make the death of the two
lovers into an event that can be memorialized, for she is unwilling to die only to be paraded
through the streets by Caesar. Thus, it can be argued that Cleopatra is the more interesting of
the two lovers because she is not the cold-hearted lover that she may seem to be, but is rather
the constant Queen of Egypt.
In order to ascertain how both Cleopatra and Antony were able to embody ideals of civic
humanism, it is necessary to first look at the roots and rules of Renaissance humanism, from
which the concept of civic humanism is derived. Renaissance humanism was developed in Italy
from the mid- fourteenth to the late fifteenth century (Gray 129). This movement aimed to
inspire a new evaluation of man, of his place in nature and in history (Gray 129). Renaissance
humanism placed an emphasis on education in conduct, poetry, eloquence, history, philosophy,
32
ethic, politics, and other such disciplines (Gray 129). As well, this method of thinking inspired
the first attempt to construct a body of knowledge that met the demands of daily life, both
private and public, and which could serve as a plan for the future (Gray 135). In short, the
movement attempted to break with recent past and open up the possibility of a different way of
life, which could be followed by all types of men and not just philosophers.
These ideas then inspired what can be called civic humanism. Civic humanism, while
similar to Renaissance humanism, applies more directly to the political spheres and is more
appropriate when discussing rulers, such as Antony and Cleopatra. Civic humanism calls for an
active, participatory and patriotic citizenship, and is reflected in the discussion of virtu found in
Sir Phillip Sidney’s work The Defense of Poesie (21). Sidney says that virtu should implore the
“onely good” and speaks of a choice between the “contemplative or the active life” (21). This call
for action argues for the necessity of man’s active participation in public affairs and rational
contemplation rather than divine contemplation. Virtu is central to the idea of civic humanism
because it calls for a man with active intellectual power, reasoned, and controlled thoughts,
intentions, or actions and aims to promote a mastery of the self (Sidney 16, “ The Dignity of
Man” 137). Sidney builds on these ideas when he pairs the “knowledge of a mans selfe” with the
“Ethike and Politique consideration” which he feels is linked to the trait of virtu (16). As well,
Sidney states that virtu can only be taught by exemplifying it, by “delivering forth his very
being” and by finding his vices and destroying them, thus mastering them (16).
It can be argued that this is where Antony falls short. While Antony shows the
properties of virtu, stressing “high civic or military achievement to be attained through [the]
emulation of Roman heroes…with the pursuit of glory or fame”, he is unable to suppress his
vices, which many argue lie with his love for Cleopatra (“The Dignity of Man” 137).
Nevertheless, many of the Romans still maintain an image of a “godlike” Antony for much of the
play, until it becomes clear that Antony’s destruction is imminent. This image is found in the
descriptions of Antony by the Roman characters in the play.
Antony is described throughout the play as having similarities to Roman gods. This
image is not unlike the ideal of virtu in which there is an emphasis on becoming god-like (“The
Dignity of Man” 137). At the beginning of the play Antony is described as having once “glowed
like plated Mars,” the god of war (1. 1. 4). It is also said that “His captain’s heart, which in the
scuffles of great fights hath burst the buckles on his breast, reneges all temper and is become
the bellows and the fan to cool a gypsy’s lust” (1. 1. 6-9). In the opening lines of the play, we see
at once both the image of a god-like Antony and a man whose heart has been captured by
Cleopatra. Antony is also described elsewhere in the play as Hercules, the foremost hero of
Greek and Roman mythology. When Antony tells Cleopatra that he must leave her and go to
Caesar, she chides him and says, “Look, prithee, Charmian, how this Herculean Roman does
become the carriage of his chafe” (1. 3. 82-4). Here she chides him for being a descendant of
Hercules yet acting out his rage at her disgracefully. Similarly, Enobarbus says, “let Antony look
over Caesar’s head and speak as loud as Mars” (2. 2. 5-6). Cleopatra also compares Antony to
Mars when she learns of Antony’s marriage to Octavia. She says that he has been painted as
both a monstrous woman, a Gorgon, and Mars, the God of war (2. 5. 116-7). When Antony says
that he will fight on the sea at Actium, despite numerous objections, he is again placed alongside
Hercules. However, he is not compared to Hercules in this passage, as it has become clear to his
soldiers and men that Cleopatra has bewitched him. The solider says, “By Hercules, I think I am
I’th’right” and Canidius replies, “Solider, thou art; but his whole action grows not in the power
on’t: so our leader’s lead, and we are women’s men” (3. 7. 66-9). Canidius correctly deduces
that they are now under the orders of Cleopatra and not Antony, as she has spellbound him.
33
This is significant, because while Cleopatra is being discussed as powerful because of her
powers of seduction, her power, nevertheless, is still recognized by the Romans.
Cleopatra’s ability to affect the war and Antony’s soldiers also shows her political
powers. Cleopatra’s power as a ruler is indirectly referenced as it is Cleopatra’s ships and
seamen that will be used in battle (3. 7. 49). Cleopatra fights for her role in the battle against
Octavius at Actium and says, “Why should not we be there in person?” (3. 7. 5). She asserts her
political role by using the pronoun “we” which marks her royal position. Furthermore, she
states, “…as the president of my kingdom will appear there for a man. Speak not against it, I will
not stay behind” (3. 7. 16-18). She asserts her right, as a political leader, to take part in battle
even though she is a woman. Her assertion of her political power shows her ability to take on
qualities of civic humanism, which call for a leader to have an active role in political and civic
life. She is fulfilling her duty as the Queen of Egypt to fight for her country, in the way that she
sees fit. Thus, Cleopatra is able to ascribe to characteristics of civic humanism, and portrays
them in Shakespeare’s text, though they are more subtlety displayed.
Though Antony, as has been previously discussed, has at one time been comparable to
both Hercules and Mars, god of war, his greatness is in the past, whereas Cleopatra’s likeness to
Venus is undeniable in the present time of the play. Cleopatra is, several times, described to be
as lovely as the goddess Venus. Most significant of these descriptions is by Enobarbus, one of
Antony’s most trusted men, and a Roman. He describes Cleopatra’s mythical sense of beauty
and sensuousness claiming that, “When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart,
upon the river of Cydnus” (2. 2. 192-3). He describes her entrance as follows:
I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water r: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed
That the winds were lovesick with them
… For her own person,
It beggared all description: she did lie
Iin her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,
O’erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: one each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
and what they undid did…
The city cast
her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthroned i’th’marketplace, did sit alone,
Whistling to th’air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.
(2. 2. 194-223)
In this passage, Cleopatra is described in the splendor of a Queen, and it seems that her
beauty has overtaken even Enobarbus. He describes her as “O’erpicturing that Venus where we
see / The fancy outwork nature,” by which he means that she surpasses the beauty of the
paintings of Venus (note to 2. 2. 204-5). The whole city, is described as enchanted by her and
she is given a goddess-like stature from the description of how her servant boys’ fans seem to
34
both cool and produce the glow in her cheeks. As well, she is again described as having a
goddess’s power over nature when Enobarbus says that she has ‘made a gap in nature’ because
she has left the marketplace empty, drawing Antony’s people to her. While some may say this
description is merely evidence of her ability to seduce, it can be argued that it also shows her
ability to use her femininity to seduce in order to gain power, thus making her acts of seduction
acts of power. For as Enobarbus states, Antony will never leave her, because she cannot be
aged, and while other women can satisfy she makes men hunger for her, and finally, “vilest
things become themselves in her, that holy priests bless her when she is riggish” (2. 2. 240-6).
She is in this way, a very unique and powerful woman. Her power not only lies in her ‘beauty’ or
powers of seduction but her ability to use these attributes to gain power, and manipulate those
around her in order to ensure her kingdom remains secure.
Cleopatra uses her femininity to secure power for herself and for her kingdom. Her use
of language in order to procure political results and to establish her political power shows her
abilities for civic humanism. She uses her speech to manipulate Antony’s love for her, and to
gain power over both Antony and her kingdom. Early in the play she says to Charmian, “See
where he is, who’s with him, what he does: I did not send you. If you find him sad, say I am
dancing; if in mirth, report that I am sudden sick” (1. 3. 2-5). Her ability to foresee Antony’s
reactions to her words shows her knowledge of Antony and other powerful men alike. She
realizes that her love affair with Antony does resemble, in many ways, a game. Charmian warns
her to not cross Antony in anything, and Cleopatra replies, “Thou teachest like a fool: the way to
lose him!” (1. 3. 9). After Antony’s army deserts him in the final battle at Alexandria to align
with Caesar, Cleopatra, anticipating Antony’s rage, asks Charmian to tell Antony she is dead and
that “…the last I spoke was “Antony” and word it, prithee, piteously…and bring me how he takes
my death.” (4. 13. 7-10). She knows that news of her death will cool Antony’s temper. However,
it is not entirely clear if she believes such news will cause his death.
It has been argued that Cleopatra never loved Antony but was rather a lover of powerful
men. She admits to having had many powerful men in her youth, saying that she was “a morsel
for a monarch” when she loved both Pompey and Caesar (1. 5. 28-31). However, she does say
that this was in “My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood, to say as I said
then” (1. 5. 74-5). By this she admits that she said she loved such men when she was younger,
but now being older, knows the true meaning of love, which she believes she truly feels for
Antony, or at least she announces this to be so. Thus, while some see her as a woman who used
her techniques of seduction to surround herself with powerful men in order to save her
country, others see her as a lovesick Queen. Either way, she still keeps the fate of her kingdom
at the forefront of her mind throughout the entire play. This is emphasized in her death scene.
She wants to make sure that her kingdom will be known and that her legacy will be passed on to
her children. It can be argued that she dies not for love of Antony, but for the fear of being
shamed by Caesar, and thus shaming her kingdom. However, both can be argued as one leads to
the other. By this, I mean that by turning to suicide as a way to end her life more honorably, she
also is given the ability to rejoin her lover. The way in which she stages her death is most
interesting, as she does not necessarily need to include Antony in her death. Thus, it can be
argued that she uses Antony in order to secure for them both a mythical legend that, in death,
will allow them to triumph over Caesar. Their love will remain in myth forever immortalized
and at the same time, Caesar can use this to his advantage, showing how he has conquered the
great lovers.
Cleopatra is able to immortalize Antony and herself, through her death, and her
immortalization and god-like status are both aspects of civic humanism. She shows herself, in
death, as the Queen of her people and restores to Antony the image of his virtuous past, even
35
though he has abandoned his Roman duties to be with her. Thus while Antony goes from a man
of duty, responsibility, military and political prowess, to a man that could be seen as truant,
sensual, and wild, Cleopatra does not make such a transition. While Cleopatra, as discussed, is
often described for her sensuality, like Venus, and her looks, and while her manipulative ways
are often regarded as flippant by the Romans who are shocked by her decision to engage in
battle alongside Antony, she maintains her civic duties to her country. She is able to maintain a
sense of duty to her country, by attempting military leadership, and engaging in politics through
Antony. Thus, while the Romans in the play emphasize her sensuous and wild ways, she does
have political significance that is subtly portrayed throughout the play and is dramatically
displayed in her death scene. While some see her death as another ‘performance’ of sorts, how
she displays herself can be seen as one last act of political action. She prepares for her death as
follows:
Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have
Immortal longing in me. Now no more
The juice of Egypt’s grape shall moist this lip:
Yare, yare, good Iras; quick, methinks I hear
Antony call: I see him rouse himself
To praise my noble act…
Husband I come:
Now to that name my courage prove my title!
I am fire, and air; my other elements
I give to baser life…
(5. 2. 280-90)
Cleopatra dies knowing that she will be immortalized by her death, which is the death of a
Queen, and yet the death of a lover. She goes to Antony as a wife, that which she could not be in
real life. When she dies Charmian says, “Downy windows, close; and golden Phoebus never be
beheld of eyes again so royal! Your crown’s awry; I’ll mend it…” (5. 2. 314-19). In Cleopatra’s
death, Charmian compares her to the sun god Phoebus and says that such “royal” eyes will
never be seen again. She makes sure, before she herself dies, that her Queen is displayed
properly in all her glory. Even Caesar himself remarks upon the scene saying, “…but she looks
like sleep, as she would catch another Antony in her strong toil of grace” (5. 2. 345-7). This
reaction is significant as this is what Cleopatra strove for. She wanted to make a death scene so
magnificent that even Caesar would have to recognize the two lovers and bury them together.
Before her death she says to Iras, “The quick comedians extemporally will stage us, and present
our Alexandrian revels: Antony shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see some squeaking
Cleopatra boy my greatness I’th’ posture of a whore” (5. 2. 216-21). She knows that the Romans
will stage her as the whore, and avoids this by creating a picture of her magnificence as the
Egyptian Queen and lover of Antony in her death. This action elevates both their deaths so that
they can be immortalized.
Lastly, while the Romans described Cleopatra as flippant, emotional, and wild, this sort
of behavior can be seen by Antony in his fall from grace. Antony loses the battle at Actium
because he follows Cleopatra’s ship, taking the whole fleet with him. Cleopatra asks Enobarbus
his opinion on who is responsible for their defeat and he says,
Antony only, that would make his will
Lord of his reason. What though you fled
From that great face of war, whose several ranges
Frighted each other? why should he follow?
36
The itch of his affection should not then
Have nick'd his captainship; at such a point,
When half to half the world opposed, he being
The meered question: 'twas a shame no less
Than was his loss, to course your flying flags,
And leave his navy gazing.
(3. 13. 2-12)
Enobarbus establishes here Antony’s loss of reason, and states that Antony’s will has triumphed
over his duty to ‘half the world’, which is to stay in battle. These qualities of duty and reason are
both aspects of civic humanism, which Antony seems to have lost. Enobarbus recognizes this
and says, “When valor preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with. I will seek some way to
leave him” (3. 13. 198-201). This is significant because one of his most loyal followers seeks to
leave Antony because he fears he has lost all of his reason to Cleopatra. The way in which
Antony fails to see how fleeing after Cleopatra in battle will affect his ability to lead shows how
he has fallen from his former glory. He seems just as flippant as Cleopatra has been previously
described. However, at Alexandria, when he hears that Cleopatra is dead he instantly forgives
her for “betraying him”, while only a moment before he planed on killing her. Hearing the news
he instead asks Eros to kill him. Then when he hears she is alive he, again, forgives her instantly
and merely wishes to see her and die in her arms. Antony’s behavior at his death seems to be
more flippant than Cleopatra’s is, thus showing how he has become the truant while Cleopatra
remains the picture of civic humanism.
Cleopatra is able to show qualities of civic humanism throughout the play, albeit more
subtly than Anton. Still these traits can be recognized. Where Antony falls from grace, Cleopatra
remains constant, forever holding first her duties to her kingdom, which Antony dismisses for
Cleopatra. While some many find Antony’s fall from grace more significant than an examination
of Cleopatra, it is important to recognize that, while she is defamed by the Romans in this play,
and though her rule is never explicitly mentioned, she always remains a Queen first, and a lover
second. While many attribute these characteristics to an actress, or manipulative cold-hearted
Queen, I attribute them to a calculating Queen, who merely seeks to protect her country in any
way that she can, and remain strong for her people, even in death. While it can be argued that
she may or may not be in love with Antony, she does not let this love get in the way of her
ruling. Unlike Antony, she does not abandon her duties as Queen, as he does for her. Only in
death does she align herself with Antony in a way that does not undermine her people, but
rather seeks to elevate them by creating an immortal tale of two lovers, one of which shall
forever be known as the Egyptian Queen.
Works Consulted
Abbagnano, Nicola. “Renaissance Humanism.” Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of
Selected Pivotal Ideas. Ed. Philip P. Weiner. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974.
Bradley, A.C. “ Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’,” Antony and Cleopatra. Ed. Sylvan Barnet.
New York: Signet Classic, 1988. 218-43.
Castiglione, Baldessar. The Book of the Courtier. Ed. Friench Simpson. Trans. Friench Simpson.
New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing., 1959.
Jurdjevic, Mark. “Civic Humanism and the Rise of the Medici,” Renaissance Quarterly, 52.4
(Winter, 1999): 994-1020.
37
Gaggero, Christopher. “Civic Humanism and Gender Politics in Jonson’s ‘Catiline’,” Studies in
English Literature, 1500 – 1900, 45.2 (Spring, 2005): 401-24.
Gray, Hanna H. “Renaissance Humanism: The Pursuit of Eloquence,” Journal of the History of
Ideas, 24.4 (Oct – Dec 1963): 497-514.
Monfasani, John. “Toward the Genesis of the Kristeller Thesis of Renaissance Humanism: Four
Bibliographical Notes,” Renaissance Quarterly. 53, 4 (Winter, 2000): 1156-73.
Plutarch. “From “Life of Marcus Antonius,” in The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans,”
Antony and Cleopatra. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: Signet Classic, 1988. 193-216.
Shakespeare, William. Antony and Cleopatra. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: Signet Classic, 1988.
Sidney, Sir Philip. Defence of Poesie. Ed. Risa S. Bear. Oregon: University of Oregon, 1992.
Trinkaus, Charles. “Renaissance Idea of the Dignity of Man,” Dictionary of the History of Ideas:
Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas. Ed. Philip P. Weiner. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1974.
Jim Price
Portrayals of the Feminine and Female Prince
in English Renaissance Literature
The portrayal of the feminine ideal in Renaissance literature provides an insight the role
that women were expected to fulfill in Elizabethan society. Writing, a field dominated by men,
helped to establish and maintain societal codes of conduct and decorum. Influential authors,
such as Castiglione, codified behaviour, setting forth the bounds of propriety for both men and
women of noble rank. The didactic nature of the literature of the period served to reinforce the
patriarchal hierarchy and the subservient position of women within society. However, at odds
with this patriarchal regime was the fact that it was ruled over by a female monarch. Queen
Elizabeth was forced to balance societal expectations of the feminine against her role as female
prince.
Sir Philip Sidney uses gender dynamics in the Old Arcadia to examine the duties, rights
and expectations set out for women under the patriarchy. The entire story is underpinned by
masculine fear of losing authority over the feminine. An oracle foretells the future for Basilius
which he interprets as meaning that his daughters will break the fealty owed him as patriarch
and that his wife shall commit adultery (although with him). In attempting to preserve his
domestic dominance Basilius retreats from his duties as Duke and enters self-imposed exile
with his family. In her article Relational Antifeminism in Sidney’s Arcadia, Bi-Qi Beatrice Lei
argues:
The parallel between family and state legitimizes patriarchal power in the
family. Family is a metaphor for the state; the authority of the head of a
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family derives from that of the king, and ultimately from God the Father who
demands absolute obedience.
(Lei 30)
Thus the patriarchy is able to present itself as a form of natural law, innate in society as
established by the will of God. The women of the Old Arcadia are viewed by Basilius as a direct
threat to his masculine power in the domestic sphere and as they are heirs to his throne, in the
political sphere as well. Basilius, under accepted social conventions of the time, has the right to
dispose of his daughters Pamela and Philoclea, as he sees fit. They are property over which he is
expected to exercise full control. Feminist critic Luce Irigaray theorizes that women’s place in
society is as object of exchange between men. The consumption and exchange of women serves
to strengthen and support homo-social ties. Women have value only as currency exchange and
their use as objects to secure the relationships between men (Iragaray 801-802). This need to
control female sexuality can be seen as an attempt by the patriarchy to assert masculine
dominance in compensation for the vulnerability of men to women (Ferguson, Quillagan, and
Vickers 77).
When his rights over his daughters are endangered, Basilius sequesters them to regain
his control. However, Basilius’ chief counsellor Philanax argues against this course of action
stating:
their education by your fatherly care hath been hitherto such as hath been
most fit to restrain all evil, giving their minds virtuous delights, and not
grieving them for want of well ruled liberty…
(Act 1, p. 7)
Despite the fact that Pamela and Philoclea have given no cause for mistrust or suspicion,
Basilius is unable to relinquish even the smallest amount of his authority over them. Women
are depicted as incapable of or deficient in the qualities prized by society as masculine virtues –
rationality, fealty, and strength of character. Thus their frailty and vulnerability falls to the
protection of men, whether father, husband or brother. Their perceived weakness is deemed an
inherent flaw of the sex, which has the potential to infect the masculine like a disease. Thus,
when Pyrocles decides to adopt female dress in order to gain access to Philoclea in the royal
compound, his cousin Musidorus states:
see how extremely every way you endanger your mind; for to take this
woman’s habit, without you frame your behaviour accordingly, is wholly
vain; your behaviour can never come kindly from you but as the mind is
proportioned unto it. So that you must resolve, if you will play your part to
any purpose, whatsoever peevish imperfections are in that sex, to soften
your heart to receive them- the very first down step to all wickedness.
(Act 1, p. 18)
Musidorus attempts to warn Pyrocles against taking on the role of a woman as it will enfeeble
his mind and lessen him by degrees. This fear of becoming womanish highlights the level of
scorn and contempt that Musidorus, and Elizabethan society, holds for women.
In Book 5 of Old Arcadia, Pyrocles’ father Euarchus sitting in judgement of Musidorus
and Pyrocles summarizes the patriarchal position on female sexuality: “…that which, being
holily used, is the root of humanity, the beginning and the maintaining of living creatures,
whereof the confusion must needs be a general ruin” (Sidney 351; last act). Women are a
39
necessity for the continuation of the species, but can act as a distraction from of men’s higher
virtues. Their value in society is for procreation purposes only and they need to be closely
monitored to ensure adherence to patriarchal codes of conduct. Thus he condemns his own
nephew to death for abducting Pamela, the heir to throne of Arcadia: “… although he ravished
her not from herself, yet he ravished her from him that owed her, which was her father”(Act 5,
p. 351). Euarchus’ statement serves to reinforce the fact that Basilius’ daughters’ lives are not
their own. Under English Common Law, during much of the sixteenth century, women were
considered the property of their fathers, then their husbands without recourse or right to hold
property. Once married, the woman was legally subsumed into the identity of her husband, and
they became for all intents and purpose one person under dominion of the husband
(Sommerville 97). Pamela’s consent signifies nothing. Until such time as Basilius decrees a
marital arrangement, Pamela and Philoclea are his property. They will pass from the
sovereignty of their father to that of their future husbands who must be chosen for them by
their father. The story ends with the appropriate restoration of patriarchal values. Pamela and
Philoclea wed Musidorus and Pyrocles. Ironically, Evarchus’ original intention in coming to
Arcadia had been to negotiate these marrigaes for his nephew and son with Basiluis’ daughters
in order to wed their kingdoms. Basilius gains a male heir to continue his line, the daughters
surrender themselves to their new husbands’ authority, and Gynecia, whose passion for prince
Pyrocles in female disguise had lead to the fullfillment of the prophecy that Basilius would
commit adultery with his own wife, is returned to sanctified wedded chastity.
In Henry V, Shakespeare relates the tale of King Henry V of England leading up to and
including his successful invasion of France and eventual victory at Agincourt. Despite the
absence of strong female characters, the play opens a window onto contemporary gender roles
and the place of women in Elizabethan society. Challenges to the denial of female inheritance by
Salic Law are the original justification for Henry’s war on France.
There left behind and settled certain French
Who, holding in disdain the German women
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Established there this law: to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salic land …
(1.2.47-51)
Salic law in France serves to marginalize women based on the belief that they are
untrustworthy and will erode the royal lineage of France with bastard offspring. On the advice
of the Bishops of Ely and Canterbury,”Henry rejects the application of Salic law to the French
Crown as not being enforced in the past and France not being Salic land. But he traces his right
of succession back to Edward III who conquered France, negating the idea of inheritance
through the female line and focusing only on patrilineal succession. This is despite the fact that
Edward III’s claim to France had been through his mother Isabella of France (Eggert 526-527).
A similar tension is evident in debates about the legitimacy of female rule in Elizabethan
England. Both supporters and detractors of Elizabeth’s monarchy argued divine and natural law
to support their views concerning the rights of a female monarch. John Knox used scripture and
historical precedent to demonstrate the unnatural and destructive nature of female rule in his
treatise First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women written in 1558.
John Aylmer’s Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subjectes published in 1559 takes the opposite
viewpoint, that scripture does not forbid female governance and that many examples of past
female rulers can be found. While accepting it as unusual, he argues that the monarchy of Queen
Elizabeth breaks no natural laws and that inheritance should follow the royal line even in the
40
absence of a male heir (Jordan 128-129). In the play, Henry recognizes that a claim through the
paternal side carries the weight of tradition and societal acceptance and all further reference to
the English claim being through the female line is dropped. By ignoring the validity of the
maternal line, Henry reasserts the masculine nature of the English monarchy.
Shakespeare’s use of language also serves to project masculine virtues onto England. At
the siege of Harfleur, King Henry threatens that, if the city does not surrender, the English
invaders will rape and pillage the feminized France as they pursue their conquest.
And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh fair virgins…
(3.3.91-94)
The phallic imagery Henry employs in describing the coming sack of Harfleur leaves no doubt
as to the masculine dominance of England over the French. The only choice left to Harfleur is to
yield and submit to the metaphorical rape. The French nobles are also portrayed as effeminate
and lacking the martial prowess of the English. They are fops who are more concerned with
personal fashion than the fighting of a war. Bourbon is mockingly portrayed composing sonnets
to his horse and riding a palfrey, traditionally the horse of women.
The feminization of France is completed in the personage of Princess Catherine. King
Charles states that the French cities are turned into a maid, acknowledging the role his daughter
is to play in the negotiation of the peace treaty. Catherine represents the trophy which Henry
has been chasing. Throughout the play she has been learning English from her lady-in-waiting
because she knows that it is her fate to marry the English King. Catherine’s duty to king, country
and family, demands that she is the price of peace, necessary to cement the bonds between
England and France. She is presented to Henry to seal the treaty:
Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up
Issue to me, that the contending kingdoms
Of France and England, whose very shores look pale
With envy of each other’s happiness
May cease their hatred, and this dear conjunction
Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord…
(5.2.333-8)
By giving her to Henry, King Charles stabilizes the relations between the two royal families,
interconnecting them with blood. Catherine is merely another point of treaty negotiation, an
object traded between the two monarchs to strengthen homo-social ties, and secure mutual
good will (Iragaray 801-802). In wooing Catherine, Henry enacts the submission of France to
English will. With Catherine as his wife, King Henry assures the legitimacy of his claim to French
lands. His sovereignty over his new-won wife translates to sovereignty over the lands she
represents.
In Book V of the Faerie Queene, Spenser examines the pivotal relationship that between
Artegall, his lady love Britomart and the Amazon Queen Radigund. Through their interactions
Spenser establishes the proper role of women in society and the circumstances under which a
female monarchy is acceptable. The position of women in the Faerie Queene is frequently that of
Damsel in distress, such as that of the Lady Irenae, who must look to Artegall for justice in Book
41
V. But Radigund and Britomart are two strong female characters who defy traditional roles
within the patriarchy. The Amazon Queen Radigund has usurped the rule of man and inverted
accepted social norms. Britomart pursues quests and engages in chivalric battles with no regard
for feminine propriety. These behaviours are the antithesis of expected female norms. In
Elizabethan England, public and domestic power was the sole purview of men, with one notable
exception, Queen Elizabeth. By emasculating the knights whom she conquers by skill or guile
Radigund has broken English society’s accepted version of natural law. In an episode which
takes him from his assigned mission of saving Irenae, Artegall meets Radigund in combat and is
ensnared by her weakness and beauty. He had defeated Radigund, but was subdued by her
treacherous female wiles.
Such is the cruelty of womenkynde,
When they have shaken off the shamefast band,
With which wise Nature did them strongly bynd,
T’obay the heasts of mans well ruling hand,
That then all rule and reason they withstand,
To purchase a licentious libertie.
But virtuous women wisely understand,
That they were born to base humilitie,
Unlesse the heavens them lift to lawful soveraintie.
(V. v. 25)
Spenser states that women fall under the good governance of men, as Nature intended. The
gynocracy established by Radigund is an abomination under both natural and divine law.
Women are expected to submit willingly to the dominion of men without complaint. The only
exception, echoing the argument of Aylmer, is when God has uplifted a woman for HIS own
mysterious reasons (Jordan 130). This acknowledgement of Elizabeth’s right to govern sets her
apart as unique among womankind, the exception to the rule, but still maintains a phallocentric
domain under God.
While Britomart’s search for Artegall is authorized by their joint destiny, Radigund is a
representation of the untameable feminine in Britomart that threatens Artegall (Montrose 78).
Forced to dress as women and perform the menial tasks associated with housewifery, some of
the knights that she defeats prefer to be executed rather than lower themselves to the position
of a woman. It is up to Britomart to rescue Artegall from his humiliating life of effeminate
thraldom. Britomart the chaste, virtuous, martial maiden is presented as the analogue of Queen
Elizabeth. She seizes the male role, riding to her beloved’s rescue, but only after displaying the
appropriate female weaknesses of jealousy and fear. Elizabeth denies these weaknesses as
monarch by separating her physical feminine self from the office she holds. The speech at
Tilbury, in which she addressed the land forces amassed to meet the Spainish Amada in 1588,
illustrates this division. Although Elizabeth presents herself as a woman with all of the frailties
that entails, still she performs the masculine for her subjects (Butler 904). Armour and proud
rhetoric, including referring to herself as a “prince” with “the stomach” of an English king,
serves to redefine her as the holder of the masculine office of monarch, rather than as a woman
(Tilbury Speech). Elizabeth represents herself as an androgynous, martial maiden like
Britomart, eschewing the more problematic and threatening image of the Amazon (Montrose
79-80).
Only Britomart is able to defeat the female tyranny of Radigund and restore the natural
order to society. Although she rules briefly, Britomart divests herself of power and reinstates a
patriarchal form of governance.
42
… she there as Princes rained,
And changing all that forme of common weale,
The liberty of women did repeale,
Which they had long usurpt; and them restoring
To mens subjection, did true Justice deale:
That all they as a Goddesse her adoring,
Her wisdome did admire, and hearkened to her loring.
(V. vii. 42)
Britomart is worshipped for her wisdom in returning women to a subservient position in
society. She justifies her authority through the subjugation of other women under the
patriarchal system. This denotes the belief that Queen Elizabeth, while having the divine right to
rule, was expected to confer with and seek advice from the exclusively male counsel and
parliament. Once Artegall has regained his masculinity, he again sets forth to pursue the
chivalric code. Britomart, reduced to a position of subservience, is left behind to await the
return of her love – such is the fate of women of this era.
It was necessary for Elizabeth to balance her precarious role of female monarch against
the values and beliefs of a patriarchal society. A female monarchy was an incongruity for a
society such as England, but could be tolerated as long as it appeared to be controlled and
guided by the andocentric mechanisms of government. In a society where women held few
rights and lesser status than men, the successful continuance of a female monarchy was not
guaranteed. By adopting the persona of the chaste, martial maiden, Elizabeth was able to
subsume her more feminine traits and perform the office of female prince.
Works Cited
Primary Sources:
Castiglione, Baldesar. The Book of the Courtier. Trans. George Bull. Toronto: Pengui, 2003. Print.
Gascoigne, George. The Adventures of Master F.J.. A Hundred Sundry Flowres bounde up in one
small Poesie. 1572. PDF.
Shakespeare, William. Henry V. Ed. Gary Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.
Sidney, Sir Philip. The Old Arcadia. Ed. Katherine Duncan-Jones. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2008. Print.
Speech to the Troops at Tilbury. Delivered by Elizabeth I, Queen of England. 1588. PDF.
Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Ed. Thomas P. Roche. Toronto: Penguin, 1987. Print.
Secondary Sources:
Butler, Judith. Performative Acts and Gender Constitution. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Eds.
Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 900-911. Print.
Eggert, Katherine. Nostalgia and the Not Yet Late Queen: Refusing Female Rule in Henry V. ELH,
1994. 61:3, 25-48. Web.
43
Irigaray, Luce. Women on the Market. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Eds. Julie Rivkin and
Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 799-811. Print.
Jordan, Constance. Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1990. Print.
King, Margaret L. Women of the Renaissance. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Print.
Lei, Bi-Qi Beatrice. Relational Antifeminism in Sidney’s Arcadia. Studies in English Literature,
2001. 41:1, 25-48. Web.
Montrose, Louis A. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Shaping Fantasies of Elizabethan
Culture,” Gender, Power, Form. Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourse of Sexual
Difference in Early Modern Europe. Eds. Margaret Ferguson,
Maureen Quilligan and Nancy J. Vickers. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986. 65-87. Print.
Rubin, Gayle. The Traffic in Women. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Eds. Julie Rivkin and
Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 770-794. Print.
Sommerville, Margaret R. Sex and Subjugation: Attitudes to Women in Early-Modern Society.
New York: St. Martin’s Press Inc., 1995. Print.
Jordann Pool
Body Language
Symbolism of Lust in Venus and Adonis
“She’s love, she loves, and yet she is not loved”
– William Shakespeare (Venus and Adonis 610)
Irony is one of William Shakespeare’s most frequent tropes. He slips many clever
literary devices into his plays to subtly tease the characters and titillate the audience. In his
plays – especially the histories and tragedies, influences of irony and humour are nuanced, but
some of his poems are intended to be entirely playful. William Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis
is an impish poem that relates to the audience by highlighting the base erotic yearnings of
humanity. Shakespeare playfully humanizes the Goddess Venus by endowing her with lusty
tendencies and infantalizes the beautiful Adonis so that his innocent allure becomes a curse to
his admirer. The gender reversals and appeals to bodily desire are effective on their own, but
Shakespeare juxtaposes them with a well-known version of the Classic Greek myth. Ovid’s
rendition of “Venus and Adonis” in his Metamorphoses involves the same characters but with a
consensual attraction, and is focused more on the protection of affection rather than lustful
44
pursuit. Shakespeare reinvents the myth by lengthening the plot line and addressing
complications that might arise given the situation, while exaggerating characteristics of the
mythic figures for a laugh. He explores the ironic idea: What would happen if the Goddess of
Love were a lusty dominatrix pursuing a resistant pre-pubescent boy?
By comparing Ovid’s myth with Shakespeare’s poem this contrast in theme is most
evident in physical descriptions. The authors’ intentions to represent love or lust are clear
through symbolism assigned to body parts. Ovid’s myth reflects an intellectual and moral ideal
of love. Idyllic examples of beauty, intimacy, affection and death are presented to create a very
clean and uncomplicated definition of love for the reader. Shakespeare chooses to turn this
concept on its head by recognizing the messy, complicated, and grounded aspects of real
passion. He acknowledges changes in the body that unwillingly reveal our inner thoughts and
feelings, and their susceptibility to being misinterpreted. Lust is presented as physical,
involving visible shows of emotion. Using descriptions of animals as analogies to the
interactions between the protagonists and incorporating sexual innuendo, Shakespeare turns a
transcendent myth of love into a lusty adventure grounded in the body. In Shakespeare’s poem
the reader can almost feel the physical draw of lust that seeps from the goddess’s every pore,
triggering an awkward and ungraceful desperation to release the sexual pressure.
Examples of love from Ovid’s myth “Venus and Adonis” are woven throughout with very
little focus on descriptive detail. Diction used to describe physique is minimal, only occurring
with words like “youth” and “beauty” (Ovid 242). In fact, physical detail is only used in
reference to animals: “Lions or bristly boars or eyes or minds/ Of savage beasts. In his curved
tusks a boar/ Wields lightning: tawny lions launch their charge/ In giant anger” (Ovid 242). The
physical description of beasts associates physicality with savage or primitive creatures, while
descriptions of the mind or soul belong to the more elevated human species. This dichotomy
could account for Shakespeare’s willingness to draw attention to the foundation of biological
desire in humanity. The way Venus and Adonis interact in Ovid is depicted as consensual, clean,
and affectionate rather than sexual. The speaker says that, “(She rested) on the ground, and on
the grass/ And him she lay, her head upon his breast,/ And mingling kisses with her words
began” (Ovid 242). The relationship has a sanitized idealism. There is a leisurely intimacy in the
image but there is no sign of passion in their interaction. The myth has sexual inferences,
especially when Venus’ breast is pierced by Cupid’s arrow while she kisses him, creating a deep
wound she hardly detects (Ovid 241). The lips and breasts, conventionally erogenous zones, are
central to this scene but are not sexualized. It is significant that Venus does not notice the
wound because she is “enraptured” (Ovid 242) by her first sight of Adonis, identifying her love
as wholly of the soul or spirit instead of the body. She is only alert to her controlling organs –
the brain and the heart – which operate according to a rigid set of expectations and morals, but
she is numb to the spontaneous and inconsistent sensations of her physical self which are
responsible for pleasure and pain. The only other reference to the body comes in the
description of Adonis’s death, as both Adonis and the boar are described in a primal chase. The
boar’s “curved snout […] dislodged the bloody point,/ And chased Adonis as he ran in fear” then
“sank its tusks deep in his groin/ And stretched him dying” (Ovid 247-248). This scene has the
most vivid physical description and is used to mark an indulgence of bodily desire as a negative
action. Adonis follows a physical impulse and is killed by a beast described by its aggressive
features and ruthless attack. The myth elevates feelings of the spirit such as Venus’ love or the
idyllic beauty of the characters and punishes Adonis for his instinctual will for the hunt. Ovid’s
rendition simultaneously relates desire derived from a physical source with negativity and
savageness and elevates idyllic love that is not consummated but rather held in the heart of
each lover.
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The myth of Venus and Adonis has been told and retold in many different ways with
equally vastly different interpretations. Numerous paintings feature the tragic pair and support
the separate themes of love and lust. These images are useful to refer to as visual
representations of how changes in body language result in new meanings. Corporeality in
Ovid’s myth is secondary to the pull of one’s spirit, attached to the intangible feeling of love.
Christiaen Van Couwenbergh’s interpretation of Venus and Adonis (1645) shares Ovid’s focus
on consensual affection (Appendix 1). The positioning of the figures as entwined and leisurely
embracing emphasizes love rather than lust. Bodies are almost entirely covered and are
modestly posed with controlled poise. This easy placement of characters in conjunction with
Adonis’ position of power in both depicted age and stance make him an equal to the Goddess.
Animals which function according to base biological drive are his prey and are defeated and
piled at the lower right corner, exalting the human figures as superior because they act upon
intellect and spirit. Both van Couwenbergh’s and Ovid’s versions of the myth place little
emphasis on the body unless it is to highlight its association with beasts and concentrate on
ideals of beauty and youth that are reflected in essence rather than physicality. Shakespeare
reverses these qualities by focusing entirely on the corporeal and the complications natural
motivations provoke, emphasizing differences between Venus and Adonis for a comic element.
The Venus and Adonis depicted in Shakespeare’s poem are exaggerated versions of
Ovid’s characters that act according to their biological drives; and this accentuated, and this
divergence is reflected in a focus on the body. Many critics have noted this contrast between the
two texts and have commented on the shift in rhetoric, for the recurrent focus on the human
form is just one factor that accounts for this difference. References to corporality vary within
the poem as Venus domineeringly carries Adonis around or fakes her own death, both in an
attempt to control him by using her body in a performance of desire. One small example that
reveals the pairing of Venus’ manipulation with the idea that the body acts as a stage where
emotions are played out physically is her equation of a lack of sexuality with lifelessness. Her
description of Adonis as cold stone because he resists sexuality enforces the notion that one
must succumb to the whims of the body to be considered alive: “Fie, liveless picture, cold and
senseless stone,/ Well-painted idol, image cold and dead […] Thou art no man, though of a
man’s complexion/ For men will kiss even by their own direction” (211-12, 215-16). A life
dictated by the constraints of the mind or spirit lacks pleasure, pain, fear, etc. Thus it is not full.
Venus is advocating for indulging the body because it signifies activity and sentience. This
situation addresses a problem with human sexuality, as Adonis is not yet affected by biological
cravings for pleasure and Venus wishes to initiate him. In exchanges like this one, Shakespeare
probes Ovid’s version by reminding the reader that sexuality is a significant part of life and texts
about love that ignore its presence are unrealistic. Venus explains that sexuality is an inherent
part of life and without it a being is not truly alive.
The connection between the body and nature depicted as a negative move towards
primitivism in Ovid is explored as a pastoral union in Shakespeare’s poem. The outrageous
allegory of Venus’ figure as a park that Adonis – in the form of a deer – is encouraged to graze
upon works in several ways as a testament for the central importance of the body. The use of
animals, a pastoral landscape, various natural features as symbolic of the female shape, the
metaphor of male sexuality in the deer’s actions, and the implication that the body is a
foundationally biological entity propel the ironic treatment of secuality in the poem. In her
article “Defining Early Modern Pornography,” Chantelle Thauvette quotes Sarah Toulan’s theory
that Elizabethan literature finds an “alternative language of the obscene,” and argues that
Shakespeare employs this concept in his erotic description of the park (Thauvette 34). Venus
attempts to seduce Adonis by cooing:
46
I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer:
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale;
Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.
Within this limit is relief enough,
Sweet bottom-grass and high delightful plain,
Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,
To shelter thee from tempest and from rain:
Then be my deer, since I am such a park,
No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.
(231-40)
The quotation is a self-described blazon of Venus’ body through metaphor. She moves from her
lips, past her breasts and the curves of her body to her genitalia, enticing Adonis by promising
protection through unity. This erotic illustration of Venus projects the theme of lust and
connects it again with nature as a base instinct. In contrast to Ovid’s myth, Shakespeare
promotes the bond between humanity and the earth by depicting the body as mirroring
features of landscape. He moves the reader out of the intellectual space of the mind and returns
to the natural environment, accepting the presence of biological desires for pleasure. Venus’
speech is a coy seduction but also evens the hierarchical division between body and
environment, serving the poet’s intentions to both entertain and challenge convention.
William Shakespeare also creates images to show how the movements of Venus and
Adonis reflect their attitudes. In the scene where Venus learns Adonis intends to hunt the boar,
the gender reversal which has characterized the interaction between Venus and Adonis until
this point is slackened as she reverts to the feminine ploy of pleading with her man to avoid
battle, a stark difference from her domineering start. The poem states, “She trembles at his
tale,/ And on his neck her yoking arms she throws;/ She sinketh down, still hanging by his
neck;/ He on her belly falls, she on her back” (Shakespeare 591-594) and continues, “Her
champion mounted for the hot encounter […] /He will not manage her, although he mount her”
(Shakespeare 596, 598). This ungraceful collapse of anticipation that leads to no climax
discloses their emotions. Venus is eager to engage with Adonis sexually, but her forceful
movements are awkward against his hesitant reflexes. Pieter Pauwel Rubens’ painting of Venus
and Adonis (Appendix 2) illustrates a similar dynamic with the pair struggling against each
other. Venus is lurching towards Adonis, encircling her arms around his neck and pushing her
body against his in desperation. Adonis is simultaneously stepping away from her and
loosening her hold while grasping his spear as leverage. Rubens painted Adonis with the
youthful facial features highlighted also by Shakespeare, quite different from Couwenbergh and
Ovid’s version of the mythic figure. Shakespeare manages to address many themes in this scene
as he complicates the myth through realistic portrayals of bodily desires and lucid gender roles.
Lynn Enterline notes in her article that the blurring of gender roles is erotic literary
play, adding an additional sensual element to Venus and Adonis (465). The poem is written from
Venus’ point of view, which accounts for the lens of sexuality clouding each stanza. Exemplars of
this distorting lens are evident in minor descriptions and even individual lines from the poem.
When Venus is searching for the wounded Adonis, the landscape she runs through gropes at her
because she perceives the environment through her sexual mindset. The woods “catch her by
the neck, some kiss her face,/ Some twine about her thigh to make her stay” (872-3), identical
actions to those she used with Adonis. This is yet another example of equating the land with
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lust, leveling humanity with the natural world it belongs to. Venus layers sexuality onto reality
again when she discovers Adonis’ wounded body and kneels to comfort him. She is described as
having “stained her face with his congealed blood” (1122), implying that she kissed the wound
located at his groin. This show of affection doubles as an erotic gesture, for the positioning of
the wound and passing of bodily fluids is reminiscent of intercourse. This image also occurs
earlier in the poem when the boar attacks Adonis and causes the puncture and the similarity in
the descriptions initiates a connection between Venus and the beast. This bond is later
solidified in her own thought that if she had had tusks her aggressive kissing would have killed
him first. The personification of nature and sexual innuendo of Venus’ attention to the wound is
addressed by Chantelle Thauvette as a use of double meaning, which creates a compelling
narrative that entertains with bawdy humour (34). In this risqué poem, multiple symbols of
nature and lust are represented in the functions and positioning of bodies.
The plot culminates in Adonis’ transformation into a flower, and not by the hand of
Venus as narrated in Ovid’s version. As Adonis is transformed transpires and blossoms as a
flower, Venus seizes the opportunity to finally possess her lover and plucks him from his stem
as it drops green juices from the tear. The entire scene is filled with alternating language of
human and plant anatomy such as, “Blood that on the ground lay spilled,/ A purple flower
sprang up, check’red with white,/ Resembling well his pale cheeks” (1166-9), and “She bows
her head the new-sprung flower to smell,/ Comparing it to her Adonis’ breath […] /She crops
the stalk, and in the breach appears/ Green-dropping sap, which she compares to tears” (11712, 1175-6). Adonis is fused with the natural world, finally connecting him with the basic
instincts that he has denied in the poem by resisting Venus’ sexual temptations. As Venus plucks
him from his stem, the reader understands this is analogous to a castration as ultimately the
Goddess of Love takes his manhood. The poem states that she will hold the flower within her
breast forever, which can also be read sexually as symbolizing her long-awaited unity with
Adonis. A recurring use of natural elements to reflect untamed sexuality, along with a
prominent erotic lens that colours each scene, persist to the conclusion of the poem.
These sexualized analogies are interspersed with images of bodily functions. Venus
constantly misreads Adonis’ sweating palm as signifying lust rather than fear, or finds
bashfulness in his cheeks that actually show anxiety. At one point in the poem, she plucks
Adonis from his horse and carries him under her arm referring to him as a tender boy,
reversing assumptions about male and female corporeal norms and power dynamics. These
comical demonstrations of the body as an unreliable source of information implicitly accentuate
the poem’s main themes. A vignette about Adonis’ horse paints its mannerisms as highly
sexualized as it depicts the procreative pursuit of animals – another reference to add to the
countless small details used to comically advocate for the normality of lust. Once all of its
sexualized descriptions are decoded, the poem is clearly a tale of, as Malgorzata Gzegorzewska
argues, Venus’ oppressive love and Adonis’ resistance to unruly lust unfurl through descriptions
of the body’s reaction to base instincts (307). Shakespeare explores the form of love that is
rooted in the body and driven by physical desire instead of indulging in praise for idyllic
affection. To enforce this thematic shift from the intangible mind or heart to the reactionary
body, he uses symbolism of animals and nature. Shakespeare relies on Classical mythology in
this poem as a backboard to bounce alternative ideas off of, rather than to seamlessly emulate
his sources. He engages the reader’s knowledge of the myth and creates a parallel tale that
complicates the original. To ground the myth in a realistic representation of the body’s role in
love, Shakespeare emphasizes the natural presence of lust in all living things. This tragicomedy
does not discount the awkward, sweaty, bawdy aspects of life that bond us with the natural
world, but which become increasingly distant as humanity moves into the idyllic landscape of
the mind. He playfully manipulates details found within a popular myth. Some allusions are
48
encoded, others are explicit, but in each it is evident that, through his tweaking of aspects of this
timeless myth, a new reading of these tragic lovers emerges.
Works Consulted
Bush, Douglas. Mythology in the Renaissance Tradition in English Poetry. New York: W.W. Norton
& Company Inc., 1963. Print.
Enterline, Lynn. “Psychoanalytic Criticism Reading: Venus and Adonis.” Shakespeare: An Oxford
Guide. Ed. Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin. New York: Oxford UP, 2003. 463-471.
Print.
Grzegorzewska, Malgorzata. “Metamorphoses of Men and Goddesses: The Story of Venus and
Adonis and the History of Desire.” European Journal of English Studies. 2.3 (1998): 306323. Online.
Holmes, Charles. “Titian’s Venus and Adonis in the National Gallery.” The Burlington Magazine
for Connoisseurs. 44.250 (1924): 16-21. Online.
Marillier, H.C. “The Venus and Adonis Tapestries After Albani.” The Burlington Magazine of
Connoisseurs. 54.314 (1929): 314-324. Online.
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. A.D. Melville. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. Print.
Roe, John. “Introduction: Venus and Adonis.” The Poems. Ed. John Roe. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1998. 3-21. Print.
Root, Robert Kilburn. Classical Mythology in Shakespeare. Ed. Albert S. Cook. New York: Georgian
P Inc., 1965. Print.
Seznec, Jean. “Myth in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.” Dictionary of the History of Ideas:
Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas. Ed. Philip P. Weiner. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1974. Online.
Seznec, Jean. The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in
Renaissance Humanism and Art. Trans. Barbara F. Sessions. New York: Bollingen
Foundation Inc., 1953. Print.
Shakespeare, William. “Venus and Adonis.” The Poems. Ed. John Roe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1998. 79-138. Print.
Thauvette, Chantelle. “Defining Early Modern Pornography: The Case of Venus and Adonis.” The
Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies. 12.1 (2012): 26-48. Online.
Wind, Edgar. “Virtue Reconciled with Pleasure.” Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance. Oxford:
Oxford UP, 1980. 81-96. Print.
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Appendix 1
Couwenbergh, Christiaen van. Venus and Adonis. 1645. Galerie d’Arenberg, Brussels.
Web Gallery of Art. 8 Apr. 2012.
Appendix 2
Rubens, Pieter Pauwel. Venus and Adonis. 1614. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Web Gallery of
Art. Web. 8 Apr. 2012.
50
Juliana Johnston
Courtly Love and the Paradox of Power
Britomart and Radigund in Spenser’s Faerie Queene Books III and V
According to C. S. Lewis, the virtues that are paramount in courtly love are “Humility,
Courtesy, Adultery and the Religion of Love” (2). The “Religion of Love” alludes to the hierarchy
of power that occurs in a courtly love scenario, and how it can be related to the position of
authority God has as Master over mankind—as “forms of adoration that were reserved for God
were now applied to the lady” (Moreno 3). In a similar way, there is a hierarchical framework of
power that is an overturning of the societal norm of the day, in which women are treated like
“mere chattle” (Moreno 2) or objects and property of men. This hierarchy is not the only
parallel to religion, however — ideal courtly love is a spiritual and perfecting love, and it is
“very much a relationship of love based on the model of Christ’s love for mankind” (Cherchi 9).
Upon close reading of Books III and V of The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, it is
obvious that Britomart, who embodies the virtue of chastity, usually behaves in a way that
aligns with the patterns of ideal courtly love. Her counterpart and nemesis, the Amazonian
Queen Radigund, also embodies some of the virtues associated with courtly love in its ideal
form, but lacks the key virtue of humility. Courtly love creates a paradox of power that inverts
gender roles, and as strong and assertive women, both Britomart and Radigund challenge the
gendered “rules” of society and the very idea of courtly love itself.
Britomart and Radigund are astonishingly similar in appearance. In battle against them
on separate occasions, Artegall is struck by their beauty when their helmets come off, revealing
their female gender. Upon first seeing Britomart, Artegall’s shocked reaction is similar to when
he first sees Radigund in Book V: “But when as he discovered had her face,/ He saw his senses
straunge astonishment,/ A miracle of natures goodly grace” (5. 5. 12). Artegall pauses in his
fight against Radigund once he sees her beauty, and instead of submitting to Artegall, as
Britomart had done after defeating him in the marriage tournament in Book IV, Radigund seizes
this opportunity to conquer him: “Soone as the knight she there by her did spy,/ Standing with
emptie hands all weaponlesse,/ With fresh assault upon him she did fly” (5. 5. 14). Radigund
does not play by the rules either of courtly love or of a patriarchal society, thus she does not
relinquish her power when Artegall discovers she is a woman but instead uses this moment to
her advantage. The inversion of power between males and females that occurs in courtly love is
demonstrated in the interaction between Radigund and Artegall. However, the virtue of
humility, which restored balance to the patriarchal society of the time in Artegall’s earlier
encounter with Britomart, is lacking in Radigund. This lack of humility is the radical difference
between her and Britomart, and when Radigund is subsequently defeated by Britomart,
Spenser subtly voices his opinion that women should submit to men—or face dreadful
consequences.
In courtly love, the roles are reversed, and the woman is referred to as “Midons”, which
translates to “My Lord” (Lewis, 2), and the man vows to serve the Lady as his Lord and Master.
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With this inversion of power, the woman is seated in the influential position of authority, and it
is in this position that Radigund and Britomart show their true differences. When faced with
evidence of this power in the form of Artegall’s submission to her, Britomart demonstrates her
humility by relinquishing it to Artegall. Not only does this act of humility align with the ideal
patterns of courtly love but also conforms to the societal norms of the time—that men are
superior to women. When Radigund dresses Artegall in women’s clothing, Britomart’s reaction
is quite different from Radigund’s joy. In Canto VII, upon seeing Artegall dressed as a woman,
“She turnd her head aside, as nothing glad,/ to haue beheld a spectacle so bad” (5. 7. 38). Seeing
Artegall stripped of his pride causes Britomart to feel ashamed and uneasy at the role reversal,
whereas Radigund delights in this display of an authority figure fallen from grace.
The following passage illustrates Radigund’s lack of understanding about what love
really is.
Therefore I cast, how I may him vnbind,
And by his freedome get his free good will;
Yet so, as bound to me he may continue still.
(5. 5. 32)
She believes that she can use her power to force Artegall into loving her as she has forced him
into servitude. However, true love is a consensual relationship that leaves little room for
manipulation. Radigund confuses love with compulsion in an attempt to force the transition of
Artegall’s servitude from literal enslavement to figurative service of the courtly lover to his lady.
The display of servitude which she forces on the knights she has defeated parallels the paradox
of power and service given to the Lady in courtly love in a time of patriarchy. Artegall’s literal
imprisonment mimics the code of courtly love in that he is trapped and divested of his
masculinity but differs in that he has not entered into it of his own free will .
In courtly love, falling in love is often associated with Cupid’s arrows and states of
lovesickness. Upon seeing Artegall in a magic looking-glass in Book III, Britomart describes her
love as a gaping wound:
But mine is not (quoth she) like others wound;
For which no reason can find remedy…
It is, o Nurse, which on my life doth feed,
And suckes the bloud, which from my hart doth bleed…
My feeble brest of late, and launched this wound wyde”
(3. 2. 36-7)
Radigund echoes Britomart’s description of a wound when Artgall is in her service. She is
lovesick, described as “Being fast fixed in her wounded spright,/But it tormented her both day
and night” (5. 5. 27). Both women experience the physical ailments ascribed to lovesickness,
which is a key component of courtly love. The main difference between their feelings for
Artegall is the nature of their love. When Radigund begins to admire Artegall, “[Her] wandring
fancie after lust did raunge,/ Gan cast a secret liking to this captiue straunge” (5. 5. 26). Because
Radigund’s “love” for Artegall is nothing deeper than lust, she is not willing to make sacrifices
for him. Spenser says of her,
Yet would she not thereto yeeld free accord,
To serue the lowly vassal of her might,
And of her seruant make her souerayne Lord:
So great her pride, that she such basenesse much abhord.
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(5. 5. 27)
Radigund lacks humility, and without it, her pride denies her the depth of true love. Britomart,
on the other hand, is willing to pursue Artegall with perseverance and sacrifice anything for
their love. Regarding love, Spenser states, “For loue does always bring forth bounteous deeds,/
And in each gentle hart desire of honour breeds” (3. 1. 49). Britomart desires nothing more than
to see Artegall’s honour restored after he has been shamed by Radigund so much that she is
willing to sacrifice the power she has acquired by defeating her in tourney, both by reinstating
him as an honoured knight and by ceding her authority over Radigund’s city.
That adultery is seemingly permissible in courtly love despite its emphasis ion chastity,
blurs the binary opposition of Radigund’s “evil” characteristics against Britomart’s “good”
characteristics. The two women are pitted against each other as if they were opposites. H
owever, once again, they are quite similar. In Book III – the “legend of chastity” –Britomart’s
character is described in terms of examples of great women from the past like Deborah and the
Amazon Penthesilee:
Yet these, and all that els had puissaunce,
Cannot with noble Britomart compare,
Aswell for glorie of great valiaunce,
As for pure chastity and virtue rare,
That all her goodly deedes do well compare.
(3. 4. 3)
Britomart is revered and valued for her chastity, for as Merlin tells her, she is to be the
progenitor of a virgin queen. In this way, Britomart is associated with Queen Elizabeth, whom
Spenser is speaking about allegorically. However, Radigund is named after Saint Radegund, who
remained a virgin despite her marriage to Clotaire (Walker, 218). So both Radigund and
Britomart are associated with legendary virgins, and one may be able to see them as two sides
of the same coin—perhaps embodying the positive and negative qualities of Queen Elizabeth
herself.
In an ideal courtly love scenario, many paradoxes arise. Not only the paradox of power
and servitude, as previously discussed, but also the paradox of sexual desire and spiritual
ecstasy. Frances X. Newman states that courtly love is “a love at once illicit and morally
elevating, passionate and disciplined, humiliating and exalting, human and transcendent”
(Newman, 19). With regards to these paradoxes, Paolo Cherchi hypothesizes that the erotic love
(Eros) and “moral perfection” (Cherchi, 8) are not necessarily contradictory but can live in
harmony in the ideal lover. Therefore, Radigund can be seen as the part of Britomart, and thus,
of Queen Elizabeth, that challenges patriarchal norms. Radigund questions gender as a social
construct, fiercely rules as a virgin Amazonian Queen, and gleefully turns gender roles on their
heads.
Regardless of their femininity, Radigund and Britomart are no damsels in distress. In
fact, not only do they both fight Artegall, they both match his strength and wit in battle.
Britomart rescues Artegall numerous times in the Faerie Queene — turning stereotypical tales
of male heroism upside down. When Britomart and Radigund are fighting each other, they are
described as running together “with greedy rage” (5. 7. 29). In addition, they are said to battle
as fiercely “As when a Tygre and a Lionesse/Are met at spoyling of some hungry pray” (5. 7.
30). This description likens them to animals that are at the top of the food chain in the animal
kingdom. Lions and tigers both symbolize the ultimate prowess in strength and power. Notably,
a lion is a signifier of nobility and this lion is an echo of the lion Britomart dreamed of in Isis’
temple in Canto 7, where the crocodile impregnates her and she gives birth to a lion. Because
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Radigund defies the standard gender roles and rules of patriarchy, Artegall cannot defeat her.
Because Radigund is so far outside these norms, it is essential for Britomart – another woman –
to conquer and kill her, as this act symbolizes the final destruction of her disruption to the
“system.”
In direct contrast to the stereotypically weak female, Radigund breaks Artegall’s sword,
defeating him and claiming him as her captive:
Amongst the which she causd his warlike arms
Be hang’d on high, that mote his shame bewray,
And broke his sword, for feare of further harmes,
With which he wont to stirre up battailous alarmes.
(5. 5. 21)
Besides leaving him defenceless by literally smashing his sword, she also emasculates him by
destroying a phallic symbol of his patriarchal power over her. Yet Radigund does not stop at
shaming him—conquering him in battle, breaking his weapon: she gives him a taste of his own
medicine, as he is a man who has previously treated women as if they are subservient objects .
Artegall has promised “Her vassal to become, if she him wonne in fight” (5. 5. 23). The word
“vassall” was used to describe women at the time, and Artegall is treated as a prize to be won,
like women who are traded and used as pawns in marriages to gain alliances or land. As seen
here, Radigund does not stop at asserting gender equality, but takes her resistence to patriarchy
to the extreme, challenging and destroying gender roles in the process.
While it is evident that Britomart and Radigund have and wield power that most women
(even the ones in allegorical tales) do not, neither is fully removed from being “under a man’s
thumb.” Kate Millet in her feminist reading of courtly love in Sexual Politics explains that “One
must acknowledge that the chivalrous stance is a game the master group plays in elevating its
subject to pedestal level… both the courtly and the romantic versions of love are ‘grants’ which
the male concedes out of his total power” (Millet 37). That being said, Spenser speaks of Queen
Elizabeth when he declares, “But virtuous women wisely understand,/ That they were borne to
base humilitie,/ Unless the heavens them lift to lawful soveraintie” (5. 5. 25). While courtly love
can be seen as merely another way men exert power over women, there are ways in which
courtly love transforms the gender inequality of the time, mainly through the inversion of
power relations between the man and his Lady.
At first glance, Britomart and Radigund seem to be polar opposites despite their
physical resemblance as armed women, but upon closer inspection of the books III and V of
Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, it is evident that these two strong female characters have a lot in
common. In the end, it is Britomart’s humility and adherence to the rules of patriarchy and
courtly love that win out, and she defeats Radigund and returns her position of power and
authority to Artegall, who is seen to be the ‘rightful’ owner of such masculine qualities. Taking
into account the masculine and feminine gender roles as played out through the characters of
Britomart, Radigund, Artegall and Talus, his enforcer, it is clear that the masculine virtue of
justice must be balanced with the feminine virtues of mercy and compassion. Britomart
embodies these virtues, but Radigund – with her aggressive emasculation of her victims – does
not. Both women can also be seen as representations of the characteristics of Queen Elizabeth
that are often praised as embodied in Britomart, and critiqued as embodied in Radegund. By
understanding courtly love broadly as the “ethics of love” (Smith & Snow, 8) rather than a
specific code of conduct outlining gendered binaries, the focus shifts from defining ideal courtly
behaviour to understanding where there is overlap between ideal virtues and imperfect actions
and relationships.
54
Courtly love is not a thing of the past. Though it started in the 12th century courts of
Eleanor D’Acquitane, this defining point of history continues to shape the understanding of
romantic love in media today. As Corbitt Nesta says, “Without the idea of ‘courtly love’, Julia
Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Nora Roberts, not to mention Chaucer, Shakespeare and Jane Austen,
and countless other artists portraying love and the pursuit of same would not exist as literary
and media phenomena” (Nesta, Suite 101). As Jennifer G. Wollock, author of Rethinking Chivalry
And Courtly Love, has observed, while the virtues and “ethics”of lovers have changed from era to
era, courtly love has been the propelling force behind the common love story “that overcomes
obstacles and survives in spite of, or even because of, the impediments that keep lovers apart”
(Interview, Farrell). Love affairs, fits of passion and rage, love-sick teenagers, star-crossed
lovers who defy the odds – all of these persistent tropes in present-day society and in the ways
in which media weave together romance and tragedy – and it all started with courtly love.
“Despite the fact that we’ve spent decades working towards gender equality in politics, family,
education, and the workplace, that dynamic of chivalry and courtly love seems to have left a
lasting mark on our cultural psyche – you can see its influence in works of literature ranging
from Romeo and Juliet to the Twilight series” (Interview, Farrell). Perhaps this can be seen as
beneficial to women, as long as the defining virtues and vices of Britomart and Radigund are
explained thoroughly. Because courtly love inverts the power relationship between men and
women, women have the opportunity to rise above men in status while challenging and
combating the assumptions that define gender roles and tropes, like the weak “damsel in
distress.” Britomart and Radigund were trailblazers with regards to feminism, and hopefully in
the future, society will see more characters with the same depiction of feminine nature as twofold – empathetic, compassionate and vulnerable, but also strong, determined and independent.
Works Consulted
Cherchi, Paolo. Andreas and the Ambiguity of Courtly Love. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1994.
Print.
Farell, Scott. "Interview: Jennifer G. Wollock, Author of Rethinking Chivalry And Courtly Love."
Www.chivalrytoday.com. Web. <http://chivalrytoday.com/podcast-53-courtly-loverethought/>.
Guy-Bray, Stephen. "Chaucer and Spenser and Other Male Couples." Loving in Verse: Poetic
Influence as Erotic. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. 28-60. Print.
Lewis, C. S. “Courtly Love.” The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition. London: New
York, 1958. Print.
Lewis, C. S., and Walter Hooper. Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1966. Print.
Millet, Kate. Sexual Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Print.
Moreno, David. “Courtly Love.” Barony of Vatavia. 2012. Web.
<http://www.baronyofvatavia.org/articles/marfam/courtlv2041984as18.php>.
Nesta, Corbitt. "Torrechiara, Parma, Italy- Pier Maria Rossi and Courtly Love." Medieval History
at Suite 101. 12 Apr. 2010. Web. <http://corbittnesta.suite101.com/torrechiara-parmaitaly--pier-maria-rossi-and-courtly-love-a273149>.
Newman, Francis X. The Meaning of Courtly Love. Albany: State University of New York, 1969.
Print.
55
Sadlek, Gregory M. Idleness Working: The Discourse of Love's Labor from Ovid through Chaucer
and Gower. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2004. Print.
Spenser, Edmund. Book III and V of The Faerie Queene. Ed. Thomas Roche Jr. London: Penguin
Group, 1987. 723-874. Print.
Smith, Nathaniel B., and Joseph Thomas Snow. The Expansion and Transformations of Courtly
Literature. Athens: University of Georgia Press 1980. Print.
Walker, Julia M. Dissing Elizabeth: Negative Representations of Gloriana. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1998. Print.
Wiener, Philip P. "Love." Dictionary of the History of Ideas; Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas. Vol.
III. New York: Scribner, 1973. 94-108. University of Virginia Library. Web.
Larissa Silver
Cross-dressing heroes in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene Book 5 and Sir Philip
Sidney’s The Old Arcadia
Cross-dressing is key to the plot in some texts in English Renaissance literature. Its most
obvious purpose was to provide the plot with humor and to change characters through disguise (Cope
1), displaying subtle strengths and flaws that the audience would not otherwise have known about .
Cross-dressing is a means to create anxiety among the audience before bringing about relief (Cope 2),
which is certainly the case in both Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene Book 5 and Sir Philip
Sidney’s The Old Arcadia. The use of cross-dressing as a plot element on its own reflects a “potential
destabilization of the dominant hierarchy” (Cope 2). In Spenser’s The Faerie Queene Book 5,
Artegall is forced to dress as a female, which degraded his masculinity. However, in the Old
Arcadia, Pyrocles dresses as a female voluntarily, which elevates his status and heroic demeanor by
proving his confidence that will still be able to portray masculine qualities while dressing as a
woman. When weating female clothing, both male protagonists exhibit characteristics of both genders
simultaneously, but also demonstrate that many overlap. The shedding of amour and male crossdressing emphasizes the blurring that occurs between gender roles in the literary representations of
masculinity in renaissance literature (Vaught 135).
In The Faerie Queene Book 5, Artegall is forced to dress in female clothing as punishment
for losing a fight against Radigund, an Amazon queen. In a time of chivalry and heroic masculinity,
losing to a female was humiliation enough, but the penalty for losing to Radigund was to be clothed
in female dress and forced to perform menial womanly tasks. Although the episode is humorous in
nature, Radigund is openly defiant of dressing regulations and proscribed “masculine” behavior in the
Renaissance era, and assumes that her punishment will eventually break the will of Artegall as it has
her many other conquests. Unlike instances of cross-dressing in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night or The
Old Arcadia, the cross-dressing of Artegall is not voluntary or for the sake of romance. Radigund,
with Spenser leaving no possible chance of redemption or success for Artegall, decides upon the
terms and conditions of the battle. Artegall is forced to cross-dress as a symbol of humiliation and
56
defeat, which differs greatly from the situation of Pyrocles who in The Old Arcadia dresses in female
garb of his own free will.
In the beginning, companions who are close to Artegall and Pyrocles express concern for
their well being when they adopt female clothing and behaviour. However, they are impervious to
the concern expressed. Before falling in love with Pamela and succumbing to a similar strategy of
disguise, Musidorus expresses his concern about Pyrocles and his cross-dressing, and he argues that
dressing like a woman will “endanger your mind”, and “soften your heart” (18) which he views as the
very first step in emasculation. This expression of concern is only brought up in the Old Arcadia, as it
is focused on romance, whereas the New Arcadia is focused more on heroic pursuits. Because of this,
in the New Arcadia Pyrocles’ disguise is detailed ”with precious stones that in it she might seem
armed” (130), hinting that he is still armed, or armored, and still maintaining his masculinity. In the
Old Arcadia, only when his romantic purpose is fulfilled with the help from another – sleeping with
Philoclea – does Pyrocles reassert his masculinity. Artegall, on the other hand, has many companions
to aid him in his time of despair. When he is defeated by Radigund,Talus runs to find Britomart in
order to help save Artegall and his masculine reputation. He tells Britomart what has happened to
Artegall, and she becomes enraged at the conditions of the battle, and how effeminate her true love
has been forced to become. However, because a female character is saving the male hero, Spenser
suggested that this rescuedoes not fully reinstate his masculinity, like it did with Pyrocles. It is only in
the next canto when he resumes his heroic quest that he begins to redeem his noble status and
masculinity.
At the beginning of the battle, Artegall is described as dressing in “as best was seeming for a
knight” (V. v. 8), whereas Radigund in contrast, presents herself at first in clothing which conforms in
some respects to female standards, wearing silk which is ornate in detail. The descriptions of clothing
allow the reader to assume that masculinity and heroics will triumph over the more delicate ways of
Radigund, but Spenser flips this stereotype right around on two separate levels. At a first look,
Radigund’s change in attire for battle as described by Spenser demonstrates a cross over between
gender roles. Specifically, because of the distinctly masculine symbols and clothing that Radigund
wears for battle compared to what she wore when she is first introduced in The Faerie Queene, she
can be seen not only as the strong Amazon queen of her people, but also as dressed “half like a man”
(V. v. 2-3). She wears a ‘camis’ which is a dual-purpose gown that can either be a military kilt or an
evening gown (Dunseath 130), a garment that signifies masculinity. She further asserts her masculine
authority over Artegall by taking his shield at the end of the battle, depriving him of his knighthood
and further humiliating him. Finally, showing no mercy, she strips Artegall of any honor and attempts
to fully emasculate him by ordering to have him dressed in “woman’s weeds” (V. v. 23-4). The
deprivation of masculinity for Artegall comes with consequences, for Britomart must now come to his
aid, and having a female come to rescue a male was looked down upon. However, as illustrated in the
poem, Artegall takes the cross-dressing with dignity; he recognizes that he put himself in this
situation by agreeing to Radegund’s conditions for their combat and falling victim to her beauty
during the fight, and therefore will face the consequences bravely (V. v. 23-4). Because of this,
Artegall has managed to hold on to some of his inner masculinity, and in this sense can still be
redeemed. Although his cross-dressing does in fact tarnish his reputation, the virtue of justice that he
stands for holds strong, when he follows through with the conditions of his defeat, and does not
attempt to overthrow Radigund or escape.
On second look, because Spenser places Britomart as the counterpart to Artegall in a position
to be the saviour, she can be compared to Herakles at his peak when defeating the Amazons, while
Artegall is compared to Herakles at his lowest point; a slave also forced to dress and perform the
duties of a woman (Evans 204). Essentially, Spenser implies that by “allowing himself to becoming
enslaved by Radigund, Artegall commits an act of injustice and an offence against natural hierarchy
of the sexes” (Evans 203-4), and that only once Radigund is gone can the natural order of hierarchy
57
be restored. Britomart’s aid in vanquishing Radigund only intensifies Artegall’s loss of male
dominance, as her reaction intensifies his shame. She expresses shock that he has lost his “manly
hew,” and because of this, has lost not only his force and therefore his power, but his dignity as well
(V. vii. 355-60). However, immediately after rescuing Artegall, she finds a noble knight’s amour for
him that the Amazon queen had taken from a previous victim, and once “she had seen him anew,” she
was “reviv’d, and joyd much in his semblance glad” (V. vii. 365-70). Although Artegall’s willing
acceptance of slavery can be interpreted as a sign of weakness, it can also be seen as a sign that he is
accepting of his state, and his just ways display intellectual humility and bravery beyond knighthood
(Dunseath 136). Although being forced to dress in female clothing, Artegall demonstrates his courage
as well as his determination to presevere through hardship, ultimately improving his reputation and
masculinity.
Similarly, Pyrocles demonstrates that his inner masculinity preseveres while being outwardly
emasculated. He is caught between presenting himself as delicate with womanly features and
behaviour, and staying true to his heroic nature and protecting the women from harm. When he
decides to dress as a female in order to trick King Basilus and get close to Philoclea, Pyrocles defends
his position on switching gender roles to Musidorus who does not agree with his plan. Musidorus
explains that Pyrocles is a man, and should involve himself in only manly affairs, and that to partake
in anything ‘womanly’ is disgraceful (18). Because he is using a woman’s disguise, he runs the risks
of adopting female characteristics as well. This was deemed especially unacceptable in society, as
male contemporaries of Pyrocles in The Old Arcadia and Artegall in The Faerie Queene look upon
woman’s roles with distaste. Therefore, to imitate the woman in either role or clothing was shameful
in the highest regard. Although Artegall’s defense for cross-dressing was that he had no choice in the
matter, Pyrocles’ cross-dressing was entirely voluntary. Because of this, Musidorus deems that he is
allowing himself to be overtaken with womanly qualities, and will not accomplish his task. He also
argues that love causes “jealousies ungrounded rages, causeless yieldings” (18), and love is already
having a derogatory effect on Pyrocles, causing him to dress in women’s clothing. Most importantly,
however, he explains that if this “effeminate love of a woman doth womanize a man” (18), then it
will turn him into a dismissive woman like Herakles. Pyrocles defends his position by stating that if
woman can go through strife and hardship, particularly that of child bearing, then the position itself is
much more noble than any man could have undertaken, and therefore to dress as a woman is in fact
more masculine than dressing as a man (19). He continues to make arguments in support of love, and
says that to acquire this love he must take on the feminine form. The arguments made are valid, but
Pyrocles’ arguments seem to be thought through extremely carefully, demonstrating that, although he
does disguise himself as a woman and therefore blur the boundaries of gender roles, the reasoning
behind it proves Pyrocles to be more masculine than ever before. Pyrocles is able to maintain his
masculinity through cross-dressing, while Artegall loses his masculinity in the same way.
Artegall’s clothing marginalizes his status, for he is now forced to perform woman’s labors.
Spenser attempts to portray his character as very similar to that of Herakles, for captivity and crossdressing are themes that are apparent in both the myth of Herakles and in The Faerie Queene Book 5.
The various deeds that Artegall has to perform such as “spin[ning] both flax and tow” (V. v. 23-4)
illustrate the terms that Artegall was foolish to have agreed upon. It also reveals the palpable allusion
to Herakles. Artegall’s cross-dressing symbolizes his surrender not only to a higher power, but also a
female higher power that humiliates and emasculates him, just as Omphale, also a strong female
queen, emasculates and enslaves Herakles.
This strong connection to Herakles is prominent in both The Faerie Queene and The Old
Arcadia. Although Herakles in literature is viewed as the epitome of the heroic strong male, his lapse
in judgment leading to his punishment of being effeminately enslaved demonstrates that even the
strong heroic male lead can have his masculinity weakened. The strong characteristics of Herakles are
established in Artegall and Pyrocles, as they are both depicted as erotic male leads that have their
58
masculinity threatened by cross-dressing, either by force or by duty. Although the element of crossdressing is usually evoked in renaissance literature to display a sense of humiliation, Sidney spins this
allusion around, as he depicts Pyrocles in woman’s clothing demonstrating an enhancement of
masculinity. Although much more subtlely, Spenser does the same thing. He makes the threa to his
reputation display Artegall’s inner strength instead of emphasizing his weaknesses (Dunseath 135).
However, because Artegall is forced to cross-dress as a condition of his loss rather than of his own
free will like Pyrocles, his cross-dressing does not demonstrate his high self-esteem and courage of
his manhood. By cross-dressing, Pyrocles is defending his masculinity, because although he is
dressing as a female, he is doing so in a manly way and for the manly purpose of courting
Philoclea. Pyrocles presents himself as an Amazon, which allows him to retain some of his
masculine trades. When Pyrocles – then dressed up as Cleophila – performs the male duties of
protecting Philoclea by killing the lion in Book One (47), the other characters1 do not immediately
become suspicious of his true male form because Amazon women were known to have performed
male duties.
Essentially, by the end of canto vii, Spenser portrays Artegall as both an outward success as
the Knight of Justice, but also as an inward failure for accepting Radigund’s terms for the battle
(Dunseath 87). Radigund can be viewed as Artegall’s greatest enemy, not only because she is
described to be in great detail by Spenser, but because Artegall agrees to Radigund’s terms rather than
establishing equal fair ground. This can also be compared to Herakles, for he enters into a fight he
will not win, therefore being forced the humiliation of dressing as a female. It is no coincidence that
the shield that originally began the loss of masculinity represents is not only the emblem of justice,
but also the banner of Herakles (Dunseath 133). Comparably, in The Old Arcadia, Pyrocles dresses
up in female clothing, but for purely romantic purposes. Pyrocles’ ideals and desires do not match
Artegall’s, and therefore their reasons to cross-dress greatly differ. Artegall agrees to fight Radigund,
attempting to protect not only his honor, but also the honor of other knights that have fallen victim to
Radigund. He attempts to defeat the queen, who is the perceived “evil.” Pyrocles dresses up to get
closer to Philoclea without King Basilus noticing, and therefore becomes the ‘evil’ that the king is
trying to avoid by living in the country. Both pieces of literature depict “villains” that with the use of
cross-dressing, are defeated.
Although cross-dressing plays an essential element in emasculating the male leads in the plot
lines of both The Old Arcadia and The Faerie Queene, both heroes are eventually reinstated to their
heroic manhood. Artegall eventually redeems his status after being saved by Britomart and returning
to noble masculine armor. Pyrocles’ masculinity is also redeemed when he accomplishes his original
goal of sleeping with Philoclea. However, although both characters’ masculinity and reputations are
greatly diminished before they become fully integrated back into society. Cross-dressing was seen as
demeaning and degrading to both reputation and mental well being, and both Artegall and Pyrocles
are reinstated into society by female characters, which could further demonstrate their lack of
masculinity. Pyrocles sleeps with Philoclea, while Britomart becomes the masculine warrior,
balancing Artegall’s feminine role with her equally unfitting masculine one (Evans 204). Yet,
although Artegall has every opportunity to escape, he does not attempt to flee and this demonstrates
his true heroic nature. The narrator of Spenser’s allegory assures the reader that Artegall will be saved
by his true love, and this true love will be his “deliberately balanced thematic opposite” (Dunseath
141), demonstrating the necessity for Artegall to be clothed in woman’s garb and become more
feminine than Britomart.
Give or take a few exceptions such as Gycenia and Musidorus who already knew of Pyrocles’
cross-dressing.
1
59
Aretegll’s cross-dressing in The Faerie Queene as Radigund’s slave is then necessary in
order for Britomart to be able to save him, since Britomart is depicted as a strong, independent,
woman with knightly and masculine characteristics. Cross-dressing in the Old Arcadia is also
necessary, for the entire story is based on the schematics of crossovers between genders. The Old
Arcadia would not have had the same elements, nor would it have had the same romantic and
humorous basis had the story not been focused on Pyrocles cross-dressing. This is altered in the New
Arcadia; instead of focusing on romance, it focuses on heroic exploits and adventure, which do not
translate through cross-dressing. Throughout both stories, elements of cross-dressing are important,
for they give purpose and meaning to the plot line. Although both heroes do indeed dress in female
clothing and therefore offend the natural boundaries of the sexes, (Evans 204), both Artegall and
Pyrocles, although losing their outer masculinity, still maintain their inner masculinity, demonstrating
that they are the true heroes of their story, no matter the blurring of gender boundaries.
Works Consulted
Dunseath, T.K. Spener’s Allegory of Justice in Book Five of The Faerie Queene. Princeton, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1968.
Evans, Maurice. Spenser’s Anatomy of Heroisim: A Commentary on The Faerie Queene. London:
Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Mentz, Steve. “The Thing and the Sword: Gender, Genre and Sexy Dressing in Sidney’s New
Arcadia.” Prose Fiction and Early Modern Sexualities in England, 1570-1640. Eds. Constance
Caroline Relihan, and Goran V. Stanivukovic. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.
Sidney, Philip. The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (The Old Arcadia). Ed. Katherine Duncan Jones.
Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford UP, 1985. Print.
Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene: Book 5. Ed. Thomas P. Roche and C. Patrick. O'Donnell.
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978. Print.
Vaught, Jennifer C. Masculinity and Emotion in Early Modern English Literature. Surrey, United
Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. Print.
Lindsey Cuthill
William Shakespeare and the Transformation of a Masculine Leader
In Henry V and Antony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare demonstrates the different
roles and skills leaders must embody to exert influence over their followers. In both plays, there
is a fascination with the success and failures of leadership. Each play has a central character
whose rise and fall forms the core of the play’s story line (Corrigan 2). However, by comparing
these leaders, we see a contradiction in how they evolve into their leadership roles. Henry V
rises from his wild youth to become the heroic leader, whereas Antony is conflicted about his
Roman identity and values when he is influenced by love of Cleopatra and begins to lose sight of
the important leadership roles that he was once praised for. In these portraits, Shakespeare
teaches the audience lessons on how leaders should organize their rise and how their failures
can precipitate their fall (Corrigan, 2). Shakespeare writes about power through the individuals
that strive for it. In Shakespeare on Management: Leadership Lessons for Today’s Managers, Paul
Corrigan argues that in the Elizabethan age, power was personified; few people had it and those
who did maintained it in part through their personalities (Corrigan 2). Therefore, by looking at
60
both Henry V and Antony’s Shakespeare examines power and the qualities of an ideal leader by
looking at the political responsibilities of Henry V and Mark Antony, their personal indulgences
and reactions to the pressures of pleasing their subjects and their military successes.
Shakespeare argued strongly against the view that leaders were born to rule and lived
in separate worlds from the people that they expected to follow them (Corrigan, 10). In the first
act of Henry V, Shakespeare centers our attention on the young, recently crowned king of
England. and presents a figure of a heroic yet ruthless protagonist. Henry V’s predominant
concern is the nature of leadership and its relationship to morality. The play proposes that the
qualities that define a good ruler are not necessarily the same qualities that define a good
person and this is the issue about” which Henry is conflicted throughout the play. However,
Shakespeare also presents Henry’s charismatic ability to connect with his subjects and motivate
them to embrace and achieve his goals, proving that Henry is able to overcome his internal guilt
and become a good leader. Corrigan argues that Henry V succeeds because he is not just a “one
dimensional hero” (Corrigan 5), and that he learns how to become a great leader and king
through interactions with his subjects (Corrigan, 5). In the play, the audience is presented with
a wide range of common citizens in scenes such as Act IV, scene i, when Henry moves among his
soldiers in disguise the night before the decisive battle at Agincourt. The play also presents a
number of mirror scenes, in which the actions of commoners either parallel or parody the
actions of Henry and the nobles. An example of this is when the commoners’ participation at
Harfleur in Act III, scene ii echoes Henry’s battle speech in Act III, scene i. Therefore, by
connecting with his subjects through his motivational speeches or by fighting alongside with his
troops, Henry V is making meaning for his troops through first hand communication.
As Henry himself comments, the massive responsibilities laid on the shoulders of a king
makes him distinct from all other people:
And but for ceremony such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep
Had the forehand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country’s peace,
Enjoys it, but in gross brain little wots
What watch the King keeps to maintain the peace.
(IV. i. 242–66)
Therefore, even when leadership comes with success, we must understand the conflict and
failure that heroic leaders face internally when they make their decisions.
A leader is responsible for the well-being and stability of his entire nation. He must
subordinate his personal feelings, desires, dislikes, and even conscience wholly to this
responsibility. Corrigan argues that Shakespeare’s Antony “believed that his power did not
derive from Rome as the state that governed him but was enshrined in him as a person and
could be used however he wanted” (Corrigan 3). While Henry has a strong relationship with his
followers, Antony’s followers gossip about him in the opening of the play, calling him “The triple
pillar of the world transformed/ Into a strumpet's fool” (I .i. 13-4). In these opening lines to
Demetrius, Philo complains that Antony has abandoned the military endeavors on which his
reputation is based for Cleopatra’s sake. His criticism of Antony’s “dotage” (I. i. 1) or stupidity
introduces a tension between reason and emotion that runs throughout the play. In ‘Man of
Steel Done Got the Blues,’ Cynthia Marshall argues that whatever act he performs, “Antony
deviates from the expected scripts, the established behaviors for a military leader, a triumvir, a
Roman husband, a lover of Cleopatra; and his deviance eventually troubles even Antony
himself” (Marshall, 390). We can see this internal struggle when Antony calls himself “a man of
61
steel”: “I’ll leave thee/ Now, like a man of steel – you that will fight” (IV. iv. 33-4). However,
Antony feels the pressures of love and masculinity (Marshall 385). The loss of the “man of steel
image enables the reader to rethink the way the character is defined in the play” (Marshall 385).
Because Antony’s failures coincide with moments of uncertainty about his internalized roles, he
is always someone else’s version of Antony and never himself (Marshall 387). This lack of
confidence and uneasiness causes Antony to become passive when he should be exercising his
role as a leader resulting in decisions being controlled by more aggressive figures in the play.
In Shakespeare’s Henry V, Henry matures from his wild nights as a teenager to a
respected leader. Corrigan states that before Henry became King, he spent wild days in bars
communicating with young men (Corrigan 12), and that this wild period gave Henry the
communication skills and insight to recognize the power of communication (Corrigan 12). It is
through this power of communication that Henry V is able to woo Princess Katharine in order
to seal a peace treaty and not let it interfere with his warrior strategy. By making himself
vulnerable and by stating that he is a great king and soldier but not very successful with women
he is able to find common ground with Katherine while allowing her to ultimately make the
decision whether she will accept him as her husband:
What! a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will fall; a
straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow
bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is
the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it shines bright
and never changes, but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one,
take me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king. And what sayest
thou then to my love? Speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee ....
(V. ii. 59-72)
In addition, in this speech, he has converted himself from “an enemy of France” into a friend of
France by saying he loved the country so much that he must have it all. He has a sense of humor;
he is respectful, and at several points, he even tries to speak Katharine's native language despite
an almost comical inability to do so.
Like Henry V, Antony is not what he used to be, or what others think he should be.
Antony’s understanding of himself, however, cannot bear the stress of such tension. He often
recalls the golden days of his own heroism, but now that he is entangled in an affair with the
Egyptian queen, his memories do little more than demonstrate how far he has strayed from his
ideal self. Throughout the play, Antony grapples with the conflict between his love for Cleopatra
and his duties to the Roman Empire. In Act I, scene i, he engages Cleopatra in a conversation
about the nature and depth of their love, dismissing the duties he has neglected for her sake:
“Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall” (I. i. 35-6). In the very
next scene, however, Antony ehoes his men when he worries that he is about to “lose himself in
dotage” (I. ii. 106) and fears that the death of his wife is only one of the ills that his “idleness
doth hatch” (I. ii. 119). Thus, Antony finds himself torn between reason and emotion, his sense
of duty and his desire, his obligations to the state and his private needs. Antony’s internal
dissonance is evident in his conflicted loyalties to Rome and Egypt. Marshall argues that we can
hear this when Antony is informed of Fulvia’s death ( 91): “The present pressure,/ By
revolution lowering, does become/ The opposite of itself: she is good, being gone” (I. ii. 132-4).
After Cleopatra’s ships abandon Antony in battle for the second time, Antony faces defeat in his
military career. Antony is accustomed only to victory, and his understanding of self leaves little
room for defeat, either on the battlefield or in terms of love:
Sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish,
62
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
A towered citadel, a pendent rock,
A forked mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon’t that nod unto the world
And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs;
They are black vesper’s pageants.
...
Here I am Antony,
Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.
I made these wars for Egypt, and the Queen—
Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine,
Which whilst it was mine had annexed unto’t
A million more, now lost—she, Eros, has
Packed cards with Caesar, and false-played my glory
Unto an enemy’s triumph.
Nay, weep not, gentle Eros. There is left us
Ourselves to end ourselves.
(IV.xv.3–22)
Here, he complains to his trusted attendant, Eros, about the shifting of his identity. He feels
himself helplessly changing, morphing from one man to another. He tries desperately to cling to
himself, “Here I am Antony”, but laments he “cannot hold this visible shape.” Left without
military success or Cleopatra, Antony loses his sense of who he is and is overcome by his own
personal struggle to continue to act as a successful leader.
As a military leader, Henry V possesses an extraordinary skill in his use of motivational
language. Henry’s rhetorical skill is a forceful weapon, the strength of which nearly equals that
of his army’s swords. With words, Henry can inspire and rouse his followers, intimidate his
enemies, and persuade nearly anyone who hears him. Rallying his men to charge once more
into the fray at the Battle of Harfleur, Henry employs two separate strategies for psychological
motivation, each of which uses its own language and rhetoric.
Then imitate the action of the tiger.
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage.
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect,
...
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof,
Fathers that like so many Alexanders
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
… And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture. . . .
(III. i. 6–27)
First, Henry attempts to tap into a primal instinct toward violence within his men, hoping to
rouse them into a killing frenzy. He then compares the expressions he desires his men to wear
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to the features of an angry tiger. He describes in great detail the savage features of tigers, urging
his men toward a mindless fury represented by snarling teeth and flared nostrils. The vivid
imagery of Henry’s speech indicates his own experience with the savage passion of battle. At the
same time, however, Henry employs a second strategy whereby he inspires his men with a
nationalistic patriotism, urging them to do honor to their country and prove that they are
worthy of being called English. The use of speeches in Shakespeare’s Henry V not only
demonstrates his expertise but also “imbues courage with powerful meaning” (Corrigan 11).
Henry can be cold and menacing, as we can see when he speaks to the Dauphin’s
messenger; he can be passionate and uplifting, as in his St. Crispin’s Day speech; and he can be
gruesomely terrifying, as in his diatribe against the Governor of Harfleur. In each case, Henry’s
words suggest that he is merely speaking his mind at the moment, but these speeches work
powerfully on the minds of his listeners. Henry has a very special leadership quality: the ability
to present himself honestly while still manipulating his audience. Henry clearly takes the
mantle of kingship very seriously, and he is dedicated to fulfilling the obligations of his
commoners. It also seems clear from Henry’s undeniably uplifting speeches that Shakespeare
intends for us to see Henry as a leader.
However, when we examine Antony’s military leadership and successes, it is apparent
that Antony’s love for Cleopatra is a weakness and even a fault. His passion makes him forget
his duty and his honour as a soldier. He is an unfaithful husband to Fulvia and Octavia. At
Actium, on Cleopatra's advice he decides to fight at sea although his chances would be much
better on land, and he leaves the battle to follow Cleopatra, and suffers ignominious defeat. On
the other hand, his passion is not voluntary. Antony’s flight during the sea battle at Actium
could be taken simply to suggest Antony’s lack of confidence, his failure to recognize his
advantage provoking a failure to act courageously (Marshall 387). When Antony fails as a
military leader by following Cleopatra, who flees the sea battle, he confesses to her that he could
not have acted differently. Cleopatra's power on him is so strong it was impossible for him to
resist it:
Egypt, thou knew'st too well
My heart was to thy rudder tied by th'strings,
And thou shouldst tow me after. O'er my spirit
Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
Command me.
(III, xi. 50-6)
He tries to resist it by marrying Octavia, giving politics a higher priority than love, but fails. As a
result, the reader cannot but feel compassion for him. Unlike Henry V, who is held to extremely
high standards, Anthony has lost the abilities which had previously raised him above the
common people into a position of leadership. The leaders of Antony and Cleopatra have high
rank and ability because they are above the level of common people not because of their selfless
act to promote an ideal state.
In conclusion, in both Henry V and The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare
provides the audience with insights into leadership through showing us the protagonists’
failure and success. Both Henry V and Antony were forced to become great leaders in a world
that was in constant state of development and change (Corrigan 18). This process of change
creates the pressures of leadership. Antony was faced with conflicts that he could not rise above
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while Henry V became a successful leader, but Shakespeare’s failed characters demonstrate that
power is not easy. In the end, even with success, the possibility of failure exists.
Works Consulted
Primary Sources:
Shakespeare, William. Henry V, Ed. Gary Taylor. Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 1998. Print.
――. The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra. Ed. Michael Neill. New York: Oxford World Classics,
1994. Print.
Secondary Sources:
Corrigan, Paul. Shakespeare on Management: Leadership Lessons for Today’s Managers. London:
Kogan Page, 1999. Print.
Deats Muson, Sara. Antony and Cleopatra: New Critical Essays. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.
Headlam Wells, Robin. Shakespeare on Masculinity. England: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Print.
Marshall, Cynthia. “Man of Steel Done Got the Blues: Melancholic Subversion of Presence in
Antony and Cleopatra.” Shakespeare Quarterly, 44.4 (1993): 385-408. Online.
Vaught, Jennifer. Masculinity and Emotion in Early Modern English Literature. Burlington:
Ashgate Publishing,, 2008. Print.
Natalie Sagriff
Elizabethan Landscape and Buildings
The Superficial and Artificial
The landscape, buildings and architecture depicted in literature are very important in
understanding the values and ideals of the characters and what they find important and
necessary. The Elizabethan era is a very vibrant and splendid time period, in which both
literature and architecture flourished. Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and Sir Philip
Sidney’s The Old Arcadia each include landscape and buildings which reflect the moral values of
the Elizabethan era and of the characters within the narratives. Everything is constructed to
look “natural” when in fact it is not. The superficiality and emphasis on beauty is in fact a
reflection of the time period these works are written.
Elizabethan architecture is a very different type of architecture than the early Tudor
architecture which preceeded it, due to the entrance and influence of the French and Italian
Renaissance. The changes from the reigns of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I are very apparent in the
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buildings constructed during her reign as “all over England the old wood and plaster manors
were being replaced or supplemented by new houses of brick and cut stone” (Girouard 18).
Elizabeth I encouraged the transformation and creation of such buildings, and particularly of
aristocratic estates because “during the summer months she liked to live at her subjects’
expense. With an enormous retinue she moved from house to house; and these were altered or
rebuilt to receive her” (Girouard 18). The shift in religion during this period, from Catholic to
Protestant, induced a shift economically amongst Elizabeth I’s followers. New families became
very rich and wealthy, while the old ones tried to hold on to the wealth they had left, therefore
“the great Elizabethan houses were built, not because their owners had a passion for
architecture, but because they wished to demonstrate their wealth and their position”
(Girouard 19). As Mark Girouard observes in his study of the major Elizabethan architect,
Robert Smythson, “they wanted above all to impress: private houses have always been to some
extent status symbols, but never so blatantly and nakedly as under Elizabeth and James I”
(Girouard 32). The buildings and estates built during the reign of Elizabeth I are very
extravagant and splendid, for as Girouard maintains, “the Elizabethans built profusely and on a
palatial scale, their attitude to their houses was much the same as their clothes. They thought a
great deal about dress... [And] they spent extravagant sums on it.” (Girouard 32) There were no
limits for the price of beauty or extravagance, the Elizabethan age was full of splendid
lavishness and luxuries.
Many features of Elizabethan architecture illustrate the emphasis placed on beauty,
splendor and style. Because the Elizabethans built their buildings for pleasure and to illustrate
their wealth, they “seldom employed buttresses” (Girouard 34) unlike the buildings of the
previous age which were built more sturdily and solidly. The Elizabethan buildings are
designed with patterns, symmetry and lots of windows, and throughout the Elizabethan
buildings, there is a “linear quality... in the complex patterns of window-leading; in the lozenges
and squares of paneling; in the diapers and network of plasterwork” (Girouard 34). The
intricate patterns and symmetry mean that houses of this era are “a work of art, noble, delicate
and intelligent.” (Girouard 52).
In Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, the ideals and customs of the time period are
very important and apparent within in the buildings and landscapes in this narrative. The first
important building is the House of Pride in Book I: “It was a goodly heape for to behould,/And
spake the praises of the workmans wit” (I. iv. 5). It is a grand and splendid palace illustrating a
lot of wealth and extravagance. The material value within the palace is also hard to ignore:
High above all a cloth of State was spred,
And a rich throne, as bright as sunny day,
On which there sate most brave embellished
With royal robes and gorgeous array,
A mayden Queene, that shone as Titans ray,
In glistering gold, and peerelesse pretious stone:
Yet her bright blazing beautie did assay
To dim the brightnesse of her glorious throne,
As envying her selfe, that too exceeding shone.
(I. iv. 8)
The Queen has a lot of wealthy and rich items around her: the “royal robes,” “glistering gold,”
“pretious stone,” etc. (I. iv. 8). All of these and more establish the Queen and her court as
extremely prosperous. The Elizabethans enjoyed the lavish materials and buildings to illustrate
their wealth and status. There is a possible connection between this court and Elizabeth I’s
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court in the material value and need for beautiful and splendid things. All the adjectives used to
describe the House of Pride and its Queen are very complimentary and admiring: “rich,”
“bright,”“gorgeous,”“shone,” “glistering” and “blazing,” etc. (I. iv. 8). Spenser is writing for his
audience, and it would be natural to compare this court with the one of Queen Elizabeth I. The
Queen of the House of Pride is described as being surrounded by the utmost finery: “So forth
she comes, and to her coche does clyme, / Adorned all with gold, and girlonds gay, / That seemd
as fresh as Flora in her prime, / And strove to match, in royal rich array...” (I. iv. 17). It is not
farfetched to think that Spenser’s intent was to comment on Queen Elizabeth I and her court.
After all Spenser was a civl servant and such figures had a political agenda. As Girouard
comments, “those members of the upper classes with intellectual interests, the circle of Sidney,
Greville, Raleigh and Spenser, were all deeply involved in the Protestant crusade” (Girouard
19). Spenser could be flattering Queen Elizabeth I’s court, however that is a small aspect of the
House of Pride, it is not the only element – as comparison to the prideful court of Lucifera would
not be complimentary. There are many features to the House of Pride that are extremely
interesting and fascinating.
One very interesting aspect of the House of Pride is that it is built very poorly; the
structure is not very strong.
A stately Pallace built of squared bricke,
Which cunningly was without morter laid,
Whose wals were high, but nothing strong, nor thick,
And golden foile all over them displaid,
That purest skye with brightnesse they dismaid:
High lifted up were many loftie towres,
And goodly galleries farre over laid,
Full of faire windowes, and delightfull bowres;
And on the top a Diall told the timely howres.
(I. iv.4)
It is interesting that such a lavish and extravagant house does not have a sturdy foundation,
suggesting that the morals of the household are not very stable. The house is not built to sustain
wear or natural aging, suggesting that the frivolous materialism and obsession with beauty
within the House of Pride will not contribute to social stability. The House of Pride not only has
an unreliable foundation and a poor construction, but also has victims in its dungeon, trapping
all those overcome by pride in the foundation of the palace. These victims
... in the Dongeon lay
Fell from high Princes courts, or Ladies bowres,
Where they in idle pompe, or wanton play,
Consumed had their goods, and thriftlesse howres,
And lastly throwne themselves into these heavy stowres.
(I. v. 51)
In the end these figures cannot overcome their pride and are thus trapped within its walls,
turning the House of Pride into a prison instead of the beautiful haven it had first appeared to
be. The episode of he House of Pride suggests that the Elizabethan court, which it superficially
resembles has some clear instability within its very structure and construction, and the fact that
those consumed by pride are forced to become a part of the house. Spenser seem to suggest that
this obsession with beauty is false and unreliable and, beautiful or not, things are not always
what they appear to be.
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In Sir Phillip Sidney’s The Old Arcadia, the relevance of the ideals and customs of the
time period are very apparent within in the buildings. Basilius, King of Arcadia, in an attempt to
protect his daughters builds a house in which the royal family can seclude themselves, the goal
being to avoid disaster:
he was resolved for this fatal year to retire himself with his wife and daughters into a
solitary place where, being two lodges built of purpose, he would in one of them
recommend his daughter Pamela to his principal herdman... In the other lodge he and
his wife would keep their younger jewel, Philoclea...” (7)
As the narrative begins with this construction of these houses for Basilius and his family, they
are obviously very important to the narrative. As The Old Arcadia develops, the beauty of this
estate is illustrated. Pyrocles says this about the estate:,
Doth not the pleasantness of this place carry in itself sufficient reward for any time lost
in it, or for any such danger that might ensue? Do you not see how everything conspires
together to make this place a heavenly dwelling? Do you not see the grass, how in colour
they excel the emeralds... And see you not the rest of all these beautiful flowers, each of
which would require a man’s wit to know, and his life to express? Do not these stately
trees seem to maintain their flourishing old age with the only happiness of their seat,
being clothed with a continual spring because no beauty here should ever fade? Doth
not the air breathe health, which the birds, delightful both to the ear and eye, do daily
solemnize with the sweet concent of their voices? ...And these fresh and delightful
brooks, how slowly they slide away, as loath to leave the company of so many things
united in perfection!” (14)
This passage clearly paints a beautiful scene, the poetic descriptions create a splendid image of
the landscape in which Basilius and his family now live. Nature has been established within this
property in the form of exotic and extravagant trees and flowers, so beautiful that it seems that
their beauty will not fade. Once again the appearance of things is what has been achieved and
complimented on. The beauty and exoticism of the landscape is the ideal clearly valued by the
characters of Sidney’s The Old Arcadia and the Elizabethans themselves. Yet it also cannot be
ignored that this nature has been constructed to look natural when in fact it is not. The
meadows and gardens have been built and groomed to look a specific way, to look exotic and
beautiful and to establish Basilius’ wealth. Because there is such an emphasis on beauty, the
descriptions of the landscape of this estate are very poetic and graceful and there is a
connection between the beautiful words and the beautiful landscape. As in the meadow
description, the construction of beauty is evident within the lyrical description:
It was, indeed a place of great delight, for through the midst of it there ran a sweet
brook which did both hold the eye open with her beautiful streams and close the eye
with the sweet purling noise it made upon the pebble-stones it ran over; the meadow
itself yielding so liberally all sorts of flowers that it seemed to nourish a contention
betwixt the colour and the smell whether in his kind were the more delightful. Round
about the meadow, as if it had been to enclose a theatre, grew all sorts of trees as either
excellency of fruit, stateliness of growth, continual greenness, or poetical fancies have
made at any time famous. In most part of which trees there had been framed by art
such pleasant arbours that it became a gallery aloft, from one tree to the other, almost
round about, which below yielded and perfect shadow, in those hot countries counted a
great pleasure. (42)
These descriptions create an atmosphere of beauty and art, illustrating the ‘pleasure” taken by
Elizabethans in artifically constructed landscapes
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Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and Sir Philip Sidney’s The Old Arcadia do justice
to Elizabethan buildings and landscape. The landscape and buildings reflect the morals and
values of the Elizabethan era and of the characters within the narratives. The superficiality and
emphasis on beauty are a reflection of the time period that these works are written, illustrating
one’s wealth and demonstrating good taste. is apparent within both texts.
Works Cited
Girouard, Mark. "Elizabethan Architecture and the Gothic Tradition," Architectural History
(1963): 23-39.
Girouard, Mark. Robert Symthson and the Architecture of the Elizabethan Era. London: Country
Life Limited, 1966.
Girouard, Mark. Robert Symthson and the Elizabethan Country House. London: Yale University
Press, 1983.
Hard, Fredrick. "Princelie Pallaces: Spenser and Elizabethan Architecture," The Swanee Review
(1934): 293-310.
Heath, Frank H. "The Elizabethan Age," The Modern Language Quarterly (1901): 1-5.
Parsons, Fredrick. "A Modern Drawing Room in the Elizabethan Style," The Decorator and
Furnisher (1895): 212-13.
—. "Elizabethan Interiors," The Decorator and Furnisher (1895): 167-70.
Sidney, Sir Philip. The Old Arcadia. New York: The Oxford University Press, 1999.
Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Gutenberg, 2009. e-document.
Victor, Skretkowicz. "Symbolic Architecture in Sidney's New Arcadia." The Review of English
Studies (1982): 175-180.
Wells, Henry W. "English Gothic and Elizabethan Poetry," The Sewanee Review (1923): 269-77.
Woodhouse, Elisabeth. "Spirit of the Elizabethan Garden." Garden History (1999): 10-31.
Nicole Luymes
Building an English Identity
Protestant Propaganda in The Faerie Queene
The end of the 16th century marked the formation of a new and stronger British national
identity, in part due to the long struggle over religion in England. After the Pope ignored King
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Henry VIII’s request to annul his marriage in 1529, the king began to break away from the
Catholic Church (Simon 81). Although his short-lived son Edward supported Protestant reform,
his daughter Mary tried to restore Catholicism. Her harsh methods, however, drove the majority
of England to associate Protestantism with freedom (Simon 83). While Protestantism was also
associated with British nationalism – Catholics submitted to the foreign authority of Rome, and
England’s greatest enemies, Spain and France, were Catholic countries. During the reign of
Elizabeth I, the memory of Mary’s persecution of Protestants caused British citizens, such as
Edmund Spenser, to develop a stronger aversion to Catholicism. After witnessing the many
deaths of Protestant martyrs, most of Elizabeth’s subjects did not wish England to return to
Catholicism or even develop sympathies for Catholics. In the years immediately following the
invasion by the Spanish Armada – which brought anti-Catholic sentiments to a head – in order
to strengthen Protestant beliefs and promote the development of ideal English Protestants,
Spenser wrote the epic poem The Faerie Queene. In particular, Books 1 and 5 of Spenser’s The
Faerie Queene create and support a particular British identity through their portrayals of the
foreign Catholic powers as “Other” and of the ideal British citizen as Protestant.
Once Henry VIII was excommunicated,the Church of England was free from Roman
religious control and began to shift towards a more nationalistic identity (Black et al. xlii).
Elizabeth Tudor, who rose to the throne in 1558, was sensitive to the desire of her people for
unity and peace. She was encouraged by her people to be a Protestant monarch, and by the
1570s, England was essentially a Protestant country despite the existence of a Catholic minority
(Black et al. 88). In 1588, Philip II attempted to invade England with his Spanish Armada,
viewing it as a crusade to bring the “prodigal” England back into submission to the Catholic
Church (Simon 119). His attempt failed in part due to winds which separated his fleet. As a
result, English nationalism flourished. The British spread the belief that God was on their side,
claiming: “God breathed and [the Spanish] were scattered” (Simon 119). Less than a decade
after this famous event, Spenser published The Faerie Queene.
Through his allegorical poem, Spenser hoped to inspire the Britain to transform itself
into an ideal Protestant nation. In The Faerie Queene, Spenser speaks of the Golden Age of Faery
land, symbolizing England, as a perfect utopian setting where justice, truth and all other virtues
reign supreme (5. Proem. 3). However, Spenser laments that at the present time in Faery
land/England, virtue has become vice, and vice, virtue. Through The Faerie Queene, Spenser
encourages his readers to become more virtuous, thereby creating the Golden Age once again.
His six books focus upon six knights, each personifying a different virtue: holiness, temperance,
chastity, friendship, justice and courtesy. The villains of his story, on the other hand, exhibit the
vices English readers must avoid. In many cases, these villains can also be seen to be Catholic;
therefore, Spenser demonstrates that being Catholic is neither commendable nor patriotic.
Catholics and Protestants are constantly compared to one another or set in opposition in The
Faerie Queene. Like any “Others,” the Catholic antagonists exist in order to demonstrate more
clearly the “perfections” of the Protestant characters. In Spenser’s words, “white seemes fairer,
macht with blacke attone” (3. 9. 2. 4). Through his vilification of Catholics, Spenser encourages
his readers to distance themselves even further from the Catholic “Other.”
In particular, the protagonists in Books 1 and 5 are unmistakeably Protestant and also
English, while Queen Elizabeth is represented by the Faerie Queen Glorianna as well as Queen
Mercilla in the fifth book. The first knight, Redcrosse, is also revealed to be St. George, the
patron saint of England, and Redcrosse’s shield is modeled after St. George’s legendary “silver
shield” with its “cross of blood” (Hamilton 1.1.1.2n). His tale is an allegory of “the making of a
Protestant saint” (Kellogg 588). The “Briton Prince” Arthur, who intervenes to assist the heroes
of each book, is named after the most famous king in ancient English legend. Artegall means
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“like Arthur,” like the word “Christian” means “little Christ” or “follower of Christ.” Britomart’s
very name has the phrase “Brit” in its first syllable. Una, whose name is a “cult name” for Queen
Elizabeth, is accompanied by a lamb and a donkey, aligning her with Christ, but also by a lion,
aligning her with English royal power (Hamilton 5.3.5.1n).
The Protestant beliefs regarding salvation through grace and the importance of having
access to the Bible in the vernacular language, beliefs accepted by the Church of England, are
celebrated in Books 1 and 5 of The Faerie Queene. Redcrosse gives a book to Arthur after
pledging his friendship. The book is described as a “worke of wondrous grace, and able soules
to saue” that describes his “Saueours testament” (1.9.19.7 and 9). This act mirrors the historical
episode when Queen Elizabeth was given an English Bible during her coronation procession
(Warkentin 86). Also, at the end of the first book of The Faerie Queene, Redcrosse fights a
dragon, mirroring the mythical fight between St. George and a dragon. However, Redcrosse
does not easily defeat the dragon, nor does he slay the beast by his own strength alone. First the
knight, faint and weary, falls backwards into “[t]he well of life” (1.11.29.9. italics in original). The
well has the power of rebirth; it cleanses his “guilt of sinfull crimes” (30.2). The next morning
Redcrosse rises from the well, refreshed and strengthened. Then, in order to avoid the
scorching flames belched forth by the dragon, the knight finds shelter by the “tree of life” (46.9).
The dragon fears to approach Redcrosse while he resides by the tree, and Redcrosse once again
finds “salvation” as he is “healed of his hurts and woundes wide” (52.2). He is then able to rise
up again the next morning, and finally slay the dragon. Redcrosse could not destroy his
opponent by his own might; like all Protestants he relies on the gift of salvation given to him by
the grace of God. Through his rebirth the knight of Holinesse is finally able to triumph over his
mighty foe.
Protestants are portrayed in Spenser’s work as the victims of blood-thirsty Catholics. As
in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, published a few decades before The Faerie Queene, Protestants in this
poem are martyrs suffering under the heel of cruel Catholics. In the castle of Orgoglio, Arthur
realizes the floor is covered with “bloud of guiltlesse babes, and innocents trew,/Which there
were slaine, as sheepe out of the fold” (1.8.35.6-7). Nearby there also stands an “Altare, caru’d
with cunning imagery,/On which true Christians bloud was often spilt,/And holy Martyres often
doen to dye” (36.2-4). Spenser uses the words “true Christians” and “Martyres” to promote the
belief that Protestants are “guiltlesse babes” and “sheep” murdered by Catholic tyrants.
Similarly, in Book 5, Arthur witnesses another altar “framed/of costly Iuory, full rich beseene
...Offring to [the Idol] in sinfull sacrifice/The flesh of men... And powring forth their bloud in
brutishe wize” (10.28.3 and 6-8). At her trial, also in Book V, Duessa – who symbolizes the
Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots- is charged with “[a]bhorred Murder, who with bloudie knyfe/Yet
dropped fresh in hand did her detect” (5.9.48.2-3). By portraying Protestants as martyrs,
Spenser and other Protestants were able to align themselves with the early martyrs of the
Christian church; therefore, they could identify themselves as belonging to the “ancient and
hence true Christianity” (Black et al. 88). Similarly, Protestants could cast Catholics into the
same group as the early superstitious pagans who put the early Christian martyrs to death.
Spenser also supports through his work the popular notion that Catholics mistook
symbols for what they symbolized. Critics of Catholicism believed that images seduced
Christians into believing only in what is tangible, rather than what is unseen (Diehl 55). The
misuse of emblems- worshipping the symbol rather than what it symbolized- was a common
accusation made against Catholics. Like confusing a picture of grapes with grapes themselves,
Catholics were said to make the same mistake regarding issues such as communion (Diehl 60).
Spenser portrays many of his antagonists as idoltarers, who either sacrifice to “graven images”
or mistake images for reality. Redcrosse does have the symbol of a cross upon his chest and
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shield; however, he does not worship the image nor mistake it for Christ himself. Instead, he
carries the image in “deare remembrance of his dying Lord” (1.1.2.2). In contrast, when a
tangible image is created of the beautiful Florimell, it is mistaken consistently for the real
Florimell. When Artegall sees the image, however, he argues that it is only “some fayre Franion
[loose woman], fit for such a fere [spouse]” (5.3.22.7). Once he places them side-by-side- “[l]ike
the true saint beside the image set”- then the false snowy Florimell melts, demonstrating the
fleeting nature of false “idols” (24.2).
Both ignorance and despair are argued by Spenser to evolve from Catholicism. While in
the castle of Orgoglio, Arthur meets Ignaro or “Ignorance.” Ignaro can no longer see, and he
carries with him a set of keys that “he could not them vse, but kept them still in store”
(1.8.30.9). In Catholic countries, the Bible was only written in Latin; therefore, it was only
understood by Church leaders or scholars. The Church would then interpret the Scriptures to
the common people, without allowing them to read for themselves. Ignorance and superstition
was seen by Protestants to be sponsored by this “keeping of unusable keys.” Like several
characters in The Faerie Queene, Catholics recited Latin prayers such as the Ave Maria, yet many
would not understand what the words meant (Hamilton 1.3.13.8n). Despair is another problem
arising from Catholicism. Catholics focused upon penance, judgment of sins, and the fear of Hell.
Salvation was linked to good works rather than grace. Without a belief in God’s love and mercy,
despair could easily seep into those adhering to Catholic doctrine. The character Despair tries to
convince Redcrosse to commit suicide, for he claims “death was due to him, that had prouokt
Gods ire” (1.9.50.9). Redcrosse is reminded of all his past sins; he is driven to despair once he
thinks upon the “fire and brimstone” that lies ahead for him (1.9.49.9). His pious companion
Una prevents his attempt at suicide, urging him to remember that “[w]here iustice growes,
there grows eke greater grace” (53.6). Finding a middle ground between pride and despair,
Protestants believed in justification by faith through grace; they believed salvation was given by
God as a gift for those who had the faith to accept it.
Catholics are also portrayed in The Faerie Queene as deceitful hypocrites who care more
for appearances than reality. Archimago, the devious sorcerer, is first described as an old man
who “seemed [sober], and very sagely sad,” and who “often knockt his brest, as one that did
repent” (1.1.29.5 and 9). Spenser emphasises the performative features of Archimago; the
magician appears to be humble, yet he is only putting on a show for his audience. Archimago
also has a smooth tongue, “as smooth as glas;/He told of Saintes and Popes, and euermore/He
strowd an Aue-Mary after and before” (1.35.7-9). He acts the part of a pious hermit, yet once his
guests have fallen asleep, Archimago reveals himself to be a sorcerer seeking to deceive all of
The Faerie Queene’s protagonists. Duessa, whose name means “double” or “two-faced,” also
appears as a fair lady, but underneath her disguise is actually “a loathly, wrinckled hag, ill
fauoured, old” with clawed feet and a fox’s tail (1.8.46.8). The monster underneath the altar in
Book 5 also possesses the face of a woman, “[t]o hide the horror, which did lurke behind,/The
better to beguile, whom she so fond did finde” (11.23.8-9). According to Spenser, true British
Protestants desire truth, while Catholics relish deception.
While the protagonists are depicted as true Englishmen and women, the antagonists of
The Faerie Queene are often depicted as demonic monsters and foreigners. The Souldan in Book
5 clearly represents King Philip of Spain, England’s great enemy and “Other” (Hamilton
8.28.1n). He rides a “charret hye/With yron wheeles... which he had fed/With flesh of men” and
is consumed with “onely slaughter and auengement” (8.28.4-6 and 30. 5). His battle with the
Briton Prince symbolizes the English victory over the Spanish Armada: Arthur also wins the
battle through grace, which mimics the winds which dispersed the Armada (Hamilton 8.37.69n). Giant Geryoneo is not only of a monstrous size with three bodies, but also hails from Spain,
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and forces the “yoke of inquisition” upon others (5.10.27.2). However, many antagonists within
Books 1 and 5 are also visually similar to Biblical villains of Revelations, connecting Catholics
with the foes of Christ Himself. When Duessa becomes the mistress of Orgolio, she dons gold
and purple robes, sits on a beast with seven heads, and holds a golden cup; all these symbols
link her with the Whore of Babylon from Revelations 17 (1.8.14). Protestants at this time also
linked the Great Prostitute with the Church of Rome: “drunk with the blood of God’s holy
people” (King 624; Rev. 17: 6). The features of the beast lurking under the altar in Book 5 also
echo the features of the monsters in Revelations: it is composed of a dragon’s tail, a dog’s body,
a lion’s claws and an eagle’s wings (11.24). Because of propaganda like The Faerie Queene,
British Protestants felt justified in their “triumphant slaying” of fellow Christians, for Catholics
were not humans but “monsters.”
Although Protestantism was encouraged in England during the publication of The Faerie
Queene, Spenser realized that Protestants could be swayed to renounce their current faith for
wealth, security or power. Therefore Spenser used his poem to argue the belief that true
Britons, those who desire to enter a new Golden Age, must remain true to the Protestant faith.
In Book V’s re-enactment of the conversion of the Protestant heir to the French throne, Burbon
discards his shield, which symbolizes his Protestant identity, in order to avoid being the target
for his enemies (5.11.56). He claims that he would have picked up his shield once again when it
was safe to do so; but Burbon believes that one’s faith should depend on convenience. Sir
Artegall, the knight of justice, disagrees with this apostasy. He cries, “[f]ie on such forgerie.../
Vnder one hood to shadow face twaine./Knights ought be true” (5.11.56.6-8). Similarly Artegall
scolds Eirena for allowing herself to be seduced away from her promised love by the gifts and
words of Grandtorto (5.11.50). Like Spenser, the knight considers love and fame to be greater
than life and gold, but considers faith to be the greatest of them all (5.11.63).
Spenser’s poem The Faerie Queene is both entertaining narrative and blatant
propaganda. Its books are strongly allegorical and riddled with symbolic representations of
religious controversy. Spenser had a clear view of what virtues an ideal British Protestant
would celebrate, and he uses entertaining stories in order to, in his own words, “fashion a
gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline” (Spenser 15). Although he
realized that some would want him to simply give a plain argument regarding his beliefs,
Spenser believed that the use of allegory would be “delighfull and pleasing” and also more
useful, for he states: “much more profitable and gratious is doctrine by ensample, then by rule”
(16). The protagonists of The Faerie Queene do make mistakes, like many figures of the Bible,
but they continue to strive for perfection through grace and redemption. By giving examples of
both ideal British characters, and non-British “Others,” Spenser showed his countrymen both
how to act and how not to act. As a result, his famous allegories influenced and entertained both
readers of his time and hundreds of years later. In addition, The Faerie Queene today provides
impressive insight into the supported British national identity during the Elizabethan Age.
Works Consulted
Anderson, Judith. “Artegall,” The Spenser Encyclopedia. Ed. A.C. Hamilton, et al. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1990. 62-64. Taken March 6, 2012 from
http://site.ebrary.com.cat1.lib.trentu.ca.
Black, Joseph et al. “The Reformation in England,” The Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth
Century. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2008. xl-xlv. Print.
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―. “Religion and Devotional Life,” The Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century.
Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2008. 87-106. Print.
Diehl, Huston. “Graven images: Protestant Emblem Books in England,” Renaissance Quarterly
39(1). 49-66. U of Chicago Press, 1986. Taken February 12 from
http://www.jstor.org.cat1.lib.trentu.ca:8080.
Foxe, John. Fox’s Book of Martyrs. Ed. William Byron Forbush. USA: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
Inc, 1963.
Hamilton, A. C., ed. Book I of The Faerie Queene. By Edmund Spenser. New York: Longman, 1977.
525-620. Print.
―, ed. Book V of The Faerie Queene. By Edmund Spenser. New York: Longman, 1977. 123-62.
Print.
Kellogg, Robert. “Red Cross Knight,” The Spenser Encyclopedia. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1990. 587-8. Taken March 6, 2012 from http://site.ebrary.com.cat1.lib.trentu.ca.
King, John. “Sacraments,” The Spenser Encyclopedia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.
623-4. Taken March 6, 2012 from http://site.ebrary.com.cat1.lib.trentu.ca.
Spenser, Edmund. “A Letter of the Authors.” In The Faerie Queene. Ed. Thomas Roche Jr. London:
Penguin, 1987. 15-18. Print.
Spenser, Edmund. Book I of The Faerie Queene. Ed. Thomas Roche Jr. London: Penguin. 1987.
39-202. Print.
―. Book III of The Faerie Queene. Ed. Thomas Roche Jr. London: Penguin, 1987. 383-562. Print.
―. Book V of The Faerie Queene. Ed. Thomas Roche Jr. London: Penguin, 1987. 723-874. Print.
Warkentin, Germaine, ed. The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage & Related Documents. Toronto: CRRS
Publications, 2004. Print.
Sarah Curd
The Ideal of Chivalry in Henry V and the Third Book of The Faerie Queene
A Comparison of Henry V and Britomart
William Shakespeare’s Henry V and Edmund Spenser’s Britomart both present an
idealized image of chivalric heroism. In Elizabethan England, Henry V was recognized as an
ideal ruler, the greatest warrior king that England had ever known. He was also widely praised
as the “flower of knighthood,” a term that seems to epitomize the chivalric ideal (Wells 5).
However, Shakespeare interweaves subtle criticisms into his portrayal of the Christian king. He
skillfully calls Henry’s most chivalric qualities into question, such as the justice of his motives
and his irrepressible resolve. Thus the qualities that make him an ideal ruler ultimately
complicate his moral character. Henry’s role in Falstaff’s “broken-hearted death” further
demonstrates his forgoing of humanity for the sake of power (Wells 4). Britomart in Book 3 of
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The Faerie Queene, on the other hand, is undoubtedly pure. She embodies the “fairest vertue” of
chastity (3.1.2), which is a “classic knightly virtue” (Keen 3). Her motives are also pure because
she is motivated by her destined quest to find her true love, Arthegall. Much like Henry,
Britomart has an irrepressible resolve, but she does not abandon morality or personal ties for
the sake of achieving her desired ends.
Shakespeare immediately spurs the reader’s suspicions about Henry V’s motives in the
play’s opening act. Henry looks to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has ulterior motives of his
own, to satisfy his right to a potentially bloody war against the French. The Archbishop knows
that Henry wants to go to war, so he is able to easily persuade him that the war is justified with
a hefty and complicated explanation of the Salic law. However, Henry’s purposes coincide with
the clergymen’s, so he knows that they are going to tell him exactly what he wants to hear. The
Archbishop assures Henry that his claim to the French throne is as “clear as […] the summer’s
sun” (1.2.91), but the speech is “peppered with exotic genealogies” that are practically
impossible to follow (Rabkin 290). Coherency does not even seem to matter to Henry, which is
why his willingness to accept the Archbishop’s manipulation is so questionable. This alone
strongly suggests that Henry’s right to claim the French throne is quite dubious, but he is also
quick to support the corrupt clergymen because their evidence helps to justify his own political
agenda and keep his conscience clean. Henry’s motives must be purely selfless and just in order
to truly fulfill the chivalric ideal. Therefore, his underlying political agenda complicates his
idealized image as a hero. This ultimately prompts the reader to question if Henry V’s plan of
action is truly necessary and virtuous or “wicked and gratuitous” (Rabkin 296).
He similarly uses his powerful and skilled rhetoric to absolve his conscience of any
blame for the fate of his men. At first, he puts the blame on the Archbishop’s conscience by
saying that it was his “reverence” that awoke “the sleeping sword of war” (1.2.23-5). However,
Henry was already thinking about going to war long before the clergymen approached him with
their logically absurd explanation of the Salic law. In the same scene, he then accuses the
Dauphin of inciting an inevitably destructive and bloody war by saying that it will serve as his
“wasteful vengeance” for the Dauphin’s “jest” (1.2.295). However, it is undoubtedly clear that
Henry had already decided to go to war before he met with the French ambassadors. As
Norman Rabkin has observed, the Dauphin’s insulting gift of tennis balls and Henry’s reaction
were “strategically placed” by Shakespeare because it was “not in the play’s sources” (Rabkin
290). This suggests that this episode was explicitly added to the play to highlight the king’s
hypocrisy.
Henry’s rhetoric is especially impressive in the speech he delivers at the gates of
Harfleur. He impels his men to make England proud by taking Harfleur, yet he “blames the
rapine he solicits” on the innocent townspeople (Rabkin 292). He insists that it is their own
fault for subjecting themselves to destruction and rape. However, if Henry possesses the power
to compel his men, then he certainly possesses the power to stop them. His highly disturbing
threats about “foul hands” violating “shrill-shrieking daughters” force the reader to question his
decency (3.3.34-35). Later,in Act 4 when Henry is mingling with his troops the night before the
great battle at Agincourt, soldier Michael Williams’s concerns mirror the reader’s own concerns
regarding Henry’s questionable motives. Williams is concerned about a war fought for
pragmatic gain, instead of a worthy cause. The implication that the cause is “not good” does
seem to affect the king, who is in disguise, but he evades the issue and denies all responsibility
(4.1.138). Williams also challenges Henry’s righteous claims by arguing that the king occupies
the position with the greatest moral responsibility. The epilogue of the play suggests that
Williams was right to be concerned because “all that Henry V won will be lost in a generation”
(Rabkin 285). Chivalry as a “purely personal goal” serves no worthy purpose, it merely
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“degenerates into vain glory”, and vain glory appears to be the only thing that Henry’s war
achieves (McCoy). For instance, Pistol’s end is indicative of a dismal “post-war world” where
soldiers return home to find no jobs, and so they hopelessly resort to an impoverished life of
crime (Rabkin 292). This exemplifies Henry’s failure as an ideal ruler because it is the “duty of a
ruler to make his subjects good” (Rabkin 293). Therefore, Henry and his wasteful war may have
caused more damage to his own country than his enemy’s in the end.
By contrats, Spenser’s “championesse” Britomart is dedicated solely to finding her true
love (3.11.27), Arthegall, whom she saw in Merlin’s magic “looking glasse” (3.2.18). She fell
deeply in love with him the very instant she laid her eyes upon him, and Merlin, who has the
ability to see into the future, says that it is her destiny to wed Arthegall, which makes her all the
more eager to find him knowing that their love serves a greater purpose. They are destined to
produce a royal lineage that will rescue Britain from “obscuritee” and reclaim the crown
(3.3.44). Therefore, her love for Arthegall is a virtuous love that inspires her utmost heroic
potential. In this, she is unlike Henry V, whose love for the French princess Katherine is suspect.
Although it plays like a romantic comedy, his awkward attempt at wooing her suggests that his
heart is not truly in it. It seems that he does not desire her love; he desires her claim to the
coveted French throne. Not only are Britomart’s motives pure, but she is also the embodiment
of a pure ideal. She demonstrates the Christian ideal of chastity which had been cultivated
through chivalry through the purity of her love for Arthegall. Christian chastity directs all
aspects of her life. For instance, her knighthood is ultimately a function of her chastity. Chastity
was a worthy ideal that was emphasized by most chivalric orders, so knights were often
encouraged to “hold back lust in their loins” (Keen, 4). Britomart combines the virtues of a
warrior and maiden to exemplify a chivalric and heroic ideal of chastity, whereas Florimell –
another exemplar of the virtue of Chastity in Book 3 of the Faerie Queene – is merely a maiden
whose chastity is constantly threatened and acted upon.
Henry V’s irrepressible resolve proves to be a valuable tool in his pursuit to claim the
French throne. Once his mind is fixed on something, he will use any and all resources to ensure
that his ends are met. This strongly highlights his dubious moral character. There are several
instances throughout the play in which Henry is willing to condone unspeakable violence to get
what he wants. These instances also demonstrate that Henry’s actions in the play do not reflect
the chivalric values that he is supposed to embody. For instance, his anger towards the Dauphin
reveals his “lack of Christian self-control”, which is an essential trait of a Christian king (Rabkin
291). Jesus Christ is often “compared to a knight in medieval poetry” to help encourage men to
take up Christian self-control (Keen 4). However, Henry fails to keep his composure and
threatens to ruin the lives of “a thousand widows” and “mothers” just to get his revenge on the
Dauphin (1.2.296-297). He also has absolutely no Christian self-control as he “bullies the
citizens of Harfleur” into submission (Rabkin 291). If his rheotic is to be believed, he is willing
to desolate an entire town and its people to get what he wants. He even resorts to disturbing
threats about “naked infants spitted upon pikes” to get closer to the French crown. Rabkin
argues that these “threats of rapacious violence” reveal his ruthlessness when things do not go
his way (Rabkin 291). Soldier Michael Williams’s concerns also show the suffering that Henry is
capable of inflicting to achieve his desired ends. Henry is willing to have his men sacrifice their
lives for him, leaving their wives and children with the “debts they owe” (4.1.144). However,
Henry claims that he is only ruthless when he needs to be, which is why he orders his men to
“cut the throats” of their French prisoners for their countrymen’s slaughter of English boys
(4.7.64). However, there is a discrepancy in this claim because the order to kill all of the French
prisoners has happened once before, and he has ordered “every soldier to kill his prisoners”
before he had reason to (4.7.38).
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Britomart’s irrepressible resolve also proves to be a valuable tool in her quest to find
Arthegall. Her strength and determination ultimately result from her Christian chastity. Her
warlike chastity ensures her success because it gives her the strength to oppose those who
attempt to dishonor her love for Arthegall, such as Malecasta at “Castle Ioyeous” who attempts
to seduce her, thinking she is a male knight (3.1.31). She is also fearless; and there is no “euill
thing” that can hinder her “stedfast courage and stout hardiment” (3.1.19). This is especially
apparent when she throws her shield in front of her and walks right through the “flaming fire”
that surrounds the “entraunce” of Busirane’s castle in order to rescue another, less selfsufficient exemp[lar of chastity, the lady Amoret (3.11.21). Her magical spear signifies her
unconquerable strength and chastity because it is a weapon that makes her literally invincible.
She never needs anyone to rescue her or assist her in her search for Arthegall. Unlike Henry V,
Britomart’s actions are truly Christ-like. Her patience in seeking her true love, no matter what
obstacles she encounters, demonstrates her Christian self-control. Her patience and self-control
gives her the ability to think calmly and rationally in difficult situations.
Henry V’s public rejection of his old friend Sir John Falstaff is one of the events that
mark his transition into England’s ideal ruler, and it also marks the beginning of Falstaff’s
gradual demise. Corporal Nym implies that this rejection plays an important part in causing his
death when he says that “the King hath run bad humors on the knight” (2.1.118). Sir John
Falstaff was Henry’s mentor and most trusted companion in his early years when he was a
foolish youth, but Henry abandoned him in favor of the crown. His rejection absolutely
demoralizes Falstaff and diminishes any shred of vitality that he has left (Rabkin 283). Bardolph
is another one of Henry’s old friends whom he abandons for the sake of power. Henry plays a
key role in Bardolph’s death because he coldly sentences Bardolph to death himself. Although
Bardolph has looted a church,” it is not chivalric to sacrifice loyalty, which is a “knightly virtue,”
even for the sake of upholding the law (Keen 3). A true chivalric knight is “bound by a solemn
vow to perpetual loyalty and friendship” (Keen 5). His lonely isolation of power not only leaves
him with no loyal companions, it leaves him with no humanity. Henry’s old trickster behaviour
seems to return briefly when he plays a trick on Fluellen that only ends up angering Williams.
His attempts at reliving his old trickster ways shows none of his “old charm, it just does hurt”
(Rabkin 292).
Britomart’s stout determination to find Arthegall does not stop her from helping people
along the way. She never abandons anyone who is in need, such as the Red Crosse knight and
Scudamour. In canto 1, when we first meet her, she rescues Red Crosse from the six knights
who viciously batter him in an effort to change his “liefe, and loue another Dame” (3.1.24).
Gardante, Parlante, Iocante, Basciante, Bacchante, and Noctante all attempt to dishonor Red
Crosse by aggressively forcing him to renounce his love for Una. In the final episode of Book 3,
Britomart helps Scudamour by vowing to save his love, Amoret, from Busirane who is holding
her captive in the “dolefull darkenesse” of his castle (3.11.11). She merely sees the castle as
“wastefull emptinesse” (3.11.53). Within it, Busirane is ironically accompanied by a masque in
which Cupid rides in triumph, and attempts to eradicate Amoret’s capacity to love by ripping
her “trembling hart” right out of her chest (3.11.21). Britomart’s irrepressible resolve also
appears in her quest to save Amoret. For instance, she does not simply give up after she misses
the procession, she remains steadfast and spends an entire night waiting for the procession to
re-emerge. Britomart’s valiant efforts to help Red Crosse and Scudamour are undoubtedly
selfless.
In conclusion, Henry V’s idealism is not as indisputable as Britomart’s. However, Henry
does have redeeming qualities in spite of his dubious motives and ruthless resolve. The
majority of English soldiers look to him for guidance and inspiration, and he does manage to
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keep their morale high in spite of the unpleasant realities of war. His desire for power is
ultimately what complicates his idealism. Power blurs the line between hero and villain because
the power he possesses and must maintain in his position as King means casting Falstaff and all
humanity aside. Therefore, Shakespeare’s Henry V better suits the requirements for a “model
Machiavellian” rather than an ideal king (Rabkin 291).
Works Consulted
Shakespeare, William. Henry V. Edited by Barbara A. Mowat. Washington: Simon and Schuster,
2004.
Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene: Book 3. Ed. Thomas P. Roche, Jr. England: Penguin, 1987.
Keen, Maurice. Chivalry. Princeton, NJ: Yale University Press, 2005.
McCoy, Richard. “Chivalry,” The Spenser Encyclopedia. A.C. Hamilton, general editor. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1997.
Rabkin, Norman. “Rabbits, Ducks, and Henry V,” Shakespeare Quarterly 28 (1977).
Wells, Robin Headlam. Shakespeare on Masculinity. England: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Vanessa Richarz
Elizabeth I of England, The Heart and Stomach of a King
Elizabeth Tudor was born in 1533 and lived for sixty-nine years, the last forty-five of
which were spent ruling England and Ireland as Queen. A talented deft politician, religious
leader and author, her life’s story is a fascinating tale that has enthralled the English speaking
world for over four centuries.
The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage is a pamphlet describing Elizabeth I’s procession through
London on the day before her coronation at Westminster Abby on January 14, 1558. This
pamphlet describes a series of five allegorical pageants commissioned by the City Fathers of
London which represented what skills and virtues Elizabeth I was expected to embody as
Queen. The pageants were in the form of triumphal arches and were entitled Lancaster and
York, Worthy Governance, The Eight Beatitudes, Two Commonweals and Deborah taking counsel.
The virtues and character traits presented in these pageants as by William Shakespeare and
Edmund Spenser containing references or allusions made to her.
The pageant of Lancaster and York, performed at Gracechurch Street and depicted the
union of the Houses of Lancaster and York, two great warring houses who were joined together
to form the Tudor dynasty at the end of the War of the Roses. The performance of genealogical
pageants was typical of this era as great importance was placed on lineage because bloodlines
were the basis for royal authority. As a Tudor, Elizabeth was expected to continue to maintain
the peace and dynastic stability that the union of the two houses had brought. Unfortunately,
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because Elizabeth I never married and had children, the Tudor line ended with her. At the time
of her coronoation, there was a strong propaganda element attached to showing Elizabeth as a
linear descendant of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York as well as Henry VIII, since relatives such
as Mary Queen of Scots had claims to the throne and so it was important for Elizabeth to assert
her primacy.
The pageant performed on Cornhill was The Seat of Worthy Governance. In this pageant
a symbolic “Seat of Governance,” or throne of the Church of England, was constructed so that it
appeared to float in midair without support, although it was in fact, held up by stagehands .
Arranged around the throne, were four tables each representing a virtue of kingship: pure
religion, love of subjects, wisdom and justice. Each table stood over allegorical representations
of their contrary vices as noted in the pamphlet: “Each virtue was treading upon their contrary
vices under their feet as such: ‘Pure religion did tread upon superstition and ignorance. Love of
subjects did tread upon rebellion and insolence. Wisdom did tread upon adulation and bribery’”
(Warkentin 82).
After the pageant was explained to her, Elizabeth addressed the assembled masses and.
as the author of the pamphlet records, “most graciously promised her good endeavor for the
maintenance of the said virtues and suppression of vices”(Warkentin 83). Her religious role as
head of the Church of England played an important part in her reign and so the invocation of
‘Pure Religion’ as a foundation of monarchy particularly important. Before Elizabeth came to
the throne, the religious situation was in England was constantly changin. As Carole Levin
comments in The Heart and Stomach of a King, “For fifty years preceding, the state had kept
changing the official religion back and forth between Catholicism and different forms of
Protestantism” (Levin 119). First her father, Henry VIII separated from the Catholic Church and
founded what is now referred to as the Anglican Church or Church of England. Her brother
Edward VI was a strict Protestant, but when Mary I came to power she brought back the
Catholic Church, and this period of restoration was marked by the death of many Protestants
because of religious persecutions by Catholics. Mary even had her own sister Elizabeth
imprisoned in the Tower of London.
As this second pageant makes clear, the people wanted assurances that their new
queent would return the country to Protestant religion. In 1559, shortly after her Coronation,
Elizabeth gave a speech in reply to an address from five Catholic bishops in which she described
how the English people were wandering away from the true faith having been lead astray by
Roman Pastors” (Elizabeth I, 1559). In her speech Elizabeth I remonstrates the bishops,
claiming that it was their kind (Catholic priests) who started the hatred between Protestants
and Catholics, turning the people of her land against each other and frightening them (Elizabeth
I, 1559). Another speech Elizabeth gave in 1585 demonstrates her knowledge of Christian
theology, and in the belief that faith in Jesus to be the basic tenet by which a good life should be
lived and that faith should inform all aspects of one’s life (Elizabeth I, 1585). She indicates that
the Bible is a book that in “which we find that which by reason all ought to believe” (Elizabeth I,
1585).
The Eight Beatitudes, the third pageant, was performed on Soper’s Lane. Three gates
were erected, sheltering eight children each holding a sign inscribed with a blessing from the
Gospel of Matthew. The blessings were picked specifically for their conciliatory tone. As a
Protestant Queen in a country with a large catholic population, it was important for the stability
of her rule that an accommodation be found between the two faiths so as to avoid the bitter
internal strife which plagued neighboring countries such as France or indeed England itself
during Mary’s reign (Warkentin 119). From the historical evidence, it can be said that Elizabeth
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did not victimize Catholics in as harsh a manner as her sister had Protestants. In a prayer she
gave at Bristol on August 15, 1574, her words are delicately chosen so as to resonate with both
protestant and Catholics:
And to my subjects, O Lord God, grant, I beseech Thee, faithful and obedient
hearts, willingly to submit themselves to the obedience of Thy word and
commandments, that we altogether being thankful unto Thee for Thy benefits
received, may laud and magnify Thy Holy Name world without end. Grant this, O
merciful Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate.
(Elizabeth I, 1574)
The most elaborate pageant, the fourth, which was staged on Little Conduit and entitled
Two Commonweals. The pageant consisted of two hills, one to the north side of the stage was
barren and stony, and the other hill to the south, green and beautiful. A tree accompanied each
hill: the northern tree withered and dead representing a decayed Commonweal, while the
southern tree was fair and fresh symbolizing a flourishing Commonweal. The stage also
contained signs explaining the reasons for the state of the two commonweals. At the center of
the two hills was a hollow cave, from which emerged an actor portraying Time, leading his
daughter Truth who carried with her a “Book of Truth,” a copy of the English Bible (Warkentin
87). At the end of the speech in which the pageant’s message was explained, the Queen was
presented with the Book of Truth, which she kissed and laid upon her breast. The pageant was
to symbolize that, by following the Book of Truth (the English Bible), England would become
the flourishing Commonwealth, but if people turned from the Protestant faith that they would
have the decaying commonwealth.
The advice was taken. While one can doubt divine intervention, there can be no doubt
that England flourished under Elizabeth’s reign. In a speech before her last Parliament on
November 30th 1601 also known as the Golden Speech, Elizabeth mentions how her country had
been triumphant during her reign and that she and her land had both overcome great obstacles
to reach this glory:
Yet what dangers, what practices, and what perils I have passed, some, if not all
of you know: but none of these things do move me, or ever made me fear, but it
is God that hath delivered me…. God hath made me His Instrument to maintain
His Truth and Glory, and to defend this Kingdome from dishonor, damage,
tyranny, and oppression.
(Elizabeth I, 1601)
The final pageant, Deborah Taking Counsel, was enacted on Fleet Street on a stage with
four towers, a throne and an artificial palm tree. As there were few examples of powerful female
rulers in European history before Elizabeth, it was appropriate for the city to choose the biblical
heroine Deborah to represent their queen. Deborah was both a spiritual leader and a “judge”
who embodied all the qualities of a great ruler, and she was dressed in parliamentary robes
with a scepter and an open crown, demonstrating the various roles she held. Elizabeth called
on this example throughout her reign. For example, i her “golden speech” in 1601, she makes
reference to how she has acted like a biblical judge for her subjects:
And in my governing this Land, I have ever set the last judgment day before
mine eyes, and so to rule, as I shall be Judged and answer before a higher Judge,
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to whose Judgment Seat I do appeal in that never thought was cherished in my
heart that tended not to my People’s good.
(Elizabeth I, 1601).
Like Deborah, Elizabeth was also a brave ruler, ready to die with her people. Speaking to her
troops assembling for battle at Tilbury, Elizabeth said:
... but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving
people. Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have
placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of
my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not
for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the
battle, to live and die amongst you all.
(Elizabeth I, Tilbury)
The literature of a period can be a window into the politics and social issues of the time,
as authors tend to write, even if shadowed in metaphor and allusion, about their own time and
place. This is especially true during eras with censorship, like the Elizabethan era. Authors
would present versions of Elizabeth and other popular figures as literary characters. The
literary and popular culture of the time, however, was accustomed to male monarchs playing
the leading part in affairs of state, religion and the like and so changes in the language had to be
made to accommodate the reality of a female monarch. Examples of this are given by Elizabeth
herself who would speak about herself in masculine terms, she would for example, often
describe herself as a “prince” (Levin 132).
Women in Elizabeth’s time were viewed by society at large as physically and mentally
weaker than men and prone to temptation, and as possessions more than people. This view
was rooted in the strong Christian culture of the Elizabethan England that took the bible’s
portrayal of Eve as leading man into sin to heart. Thus as Queen, Elizabeth fashioned herself as
a King. The literary works of the period often employed similar techniques to those used by
Elizabeth herself, and as Carole Levin argues, “This expansion of gender roles was reflected in
some of Shakespeare’s plays in terms of cross-dressing heroines and women characters using
what might be perceived as “male” language” (Levin 4).
Shakespeare’s Henry V is set two hundred years before Elizabeth’s coronation, and at
first glance would seem to have little to do with the events of her reign. However, Shakespeare
often would disguise references to current events in historical settings. The play was written in
1599 near the end of Elizabeth I’s reign, and the public would have therefore picked up on the
parallels between Henry as portrayed by Shakespeare and Elizabeth. Henry V is portrayed as
the ideal Christian King and a strong military leader. Elizabeth similarly was viewed as a pious
figure and during her reign England won many important victories. In 1588, ten years prior to
the play’s premiere, England had won the most famous Naval victory in history against the
superior forces of the Spanish Armada. Securing England from foreign domination was an event
that bears a striking parallel to the battle of Agincourt portrayed in Shakespeare’s play. In the
play Henry is engaged in battle at Agincourt and is victorious: “This note doth tell me ten
thousand French/ That in the field lie slain” (Shakespeare, 4.8 78-79). Almost ten years prior in
1588 the Spanish Armada had set sail for their invasion of England. Like Henry V at Agincourt,
Elizabeth and England were successful in defeating the Armada because they were wiser: “The
failure of the Armada was mainly due to its own interior weakness, and as a military operation
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the English victory was less glorious than some other less renowned achievements of the
British fleet” (Encyclopedia Britannica).
Another connection to Elizabeth is the reference to the laws of that time. As Henry V’s
claim to the throne in France based on denial of the authority of the French Salic law, states that
“No woman shall succeed in Salic land” (1.2. 39). Elizabeth I’s succession to the throne had been
a bumpy road. After her father’s death she was still bastardized by The Succession Act of 1536,
but it did not matter because Parliament’s later Succession act of 1544 (Elton 98) stated that
should Prince Edward die without issue then Lady Mary or her male issue would succeed. The
Act furthered provided that if Mary were to die childless Lady Elizabeth would inherit the
crown (Elton 161).
How Shakespeare presents symbolic characters with traits or virtues of Elizabeth I
speaks loudly as to how he viewed her as a Queen and woman. It should be remembered though
that all contemporary portrayals of Elizabeth or allusions to her intended for public
consumption were subject to strict censorship, which would have suppressed any contrary
view.
Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, is another example of literary representation of
Elizabeth I’s reign in characters such as Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, Britomart the female
knight, Belphebe the militant virgin, and Lucifera the maiden queen (1.4.8). What is common
among the characters that represent Elizabeth I is that they all embody the virtue of virginity
and are consistent with Elizabeth portraying herself publicly as a Virgin Queen who, as
Warkentin observes, “embraced the ideal of chastity and presented herself as a Virgin Queen
who was also the mother of her people” (Warkentin 3).
As the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn Elizabeth I was of course, familiar with
the politics and English court, but because the throne was inherited through a system of male
primogeniture, female heirs were not typically groomed to rule. Indeed, in Elizabeth’s particular
situation with her mother having been executed and having both an older sister and younger
brother, it was considered unlikely that she would ever take the throne. Like her half-sister
Mary I, Elizabeth was not married at the time of her coronation, but unlike Mary, she remained
unmarried, despite strong pressure from advisers who desired that she produce a legitimate
heir. As Warkentin comments, this led to a “[s]ense of instability over not only the rule of a
woman but over the rule of an elderly, childless woman who refused to name a successor, a
woman without a direct heir, ruling at a time of great change and potential crisis” (Warkentin
119).
Despite all the disadvantages of her past and gender, Elizabeth I was able overcome
prejudice and adversity both within her court and establish a close bond with her loyal subjects.
She refused to give into the stereotyped role of a weak, emotional and indecisive woman, and
changed this stereotype for the better. As a Queen she embodied all the virtues and wisdom of
a strong King, while remaining very much a woman. But because of her successful and historical
reign Elizabeth I became a model of the ideal monarch for both men and women alike, making it
possible for future generations of women to be taken seriously as rulers of nations.
Works Cited
Cole, Mary Hill. The Portable Queen: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Ceremony. Amherst:
Massachusetts UP, 1999. Print.
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Elizabeth I of England. “Queen Elizabeth's Response to the Parliament's Request She Marry” (10
February, 1559). The Word of a Prince: A Life of Elizabeth I from Contemporary
Documents. Maria Perry, ed. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1999. 99-100. Web.
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/responseparl1559.htm. Apr 9 2012.
Elizabeth I of England. “Queen Elizabeth I On Religion ” (1559). Dawson Massy. Dark Deeds of
the Papacy Contrasted with the Bright Lights of the Gospel. London: Seeleys, 1851. 87-88.
Web. http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/elizspeechreligion.htm. Apr 9 2012.
Elizabeth I of England. “Queen Elizabeth's Prayer at Bristol” (August 15, 1574). Prayers of the
Ages. Caroline S. Whitmarsh, ed. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1868. 322. Web.
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/elizaprayer.htm. Apr 9 2012.
Elizabeth I of England. “Queen Elizabeth I On Religion” (1585). William Robertson. The History
of America, Book X. The Works of William Robertson. Vol VI. Dugald Stewart, ed. London:
G. Barclay, 1851. 250. Web. http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/elizspeechreligion2.htm
Apr 9 2012.
Elizabeth I of England. “Speech to the Troops at Tilbury.” The Norton Anthology of English
Literature. 6th ed. Vol 1. M. H. Abrams, Ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993.
999. Web. http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/tilbury.htm. Apr 9 2012.
Elizabeth I of England. “Elizabeth I's Speech to her Last Parliament (The Golden Speech)”
(1601). Renascence Editions. Web. http://www.luminarium.org/renascenceeditions/eliz1.html. Apr 9 2012.
Elton, G.R. Tudor Dynastic Problems 1460-1571. London: George Allen and Unwin. 1973. Print.
Levin, Carole. The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power.
Philadelphia: Pennsylvania UP, 1994. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Henry V. Ed. Gary Taylor. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
“The Spanish Armada, 1588,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed. Vol II. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1910. 560. Web.
http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/armada.htm. Apr 9 2012.
Spenser, Edmund. The Faeire Queene. Ed. Thomas Roche Jr. London: Penguin, 1987. Print.
Warkentin, Germaine, ed. The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage and Related Documents. Toronto: CRRS
Publications, 2004.
83
Vashti Kuipery Culham
Metamorphosis:
Poetic Transformations of Epic, Myth, and Perceptions of Love
That Spenser took a great deal of inspiration from the great literary minds of antiquity is
unquestionable because of his open acknowledgement of classical influences in his letter to
Raleigh, as well as the obvious presence of influence in works like The Faerie Queene. Spenser’s
letter to Raleigh only mentions Homer and Virgil, but another classical poet, Ovid, seems to have
also had a significant effect on Spenser’s writing, whether Spenser intended it or not. Significant
correlations between Book III of The Faerie Queene and Ovid’s Metamorphoses include the
poets’ use of both the epic tradition and mythical exempla to develop the central theme of love,
which entails elements of lust and chastity.
Book III of The Faerie Queene deals specifically with the themes of love and especially
chastity, both of which are also prominent topics in Ovid’s literary corpus. While such themes
are to be expected in elegiac and didactic poetry with titles like the Amores, Ars Amatoria and
Remedia Amoris, they seem less apt to play a central role in epics like Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Through carefully chosen and modified mythical exempla, both Ovid and Spenser recognize the
many forms love can take, including frustrated love, unnatural love, violent love, and
reciprocated love, and take male and female perspectives into account. The major difference is
in the message behind their myriads of case studies. While Spenser is clearly trying to idealize
the kind of love that conforms to particular rules of chastity, the fates of Ovidian lovers suggest
that there is no perfect love, and that love is a force that has potential to be wonderful or
terrible, but is most often terrible. What is similar about the two poets is not what they express
about love, but the way in which they explore its many facets and angles by providing examples
of all its different manifestations.
An example of violent love, one that Ovid chooses to repeat frequently in the
Metamorphoses, involves a maiden fleeing from a lustful male pursuer and typically ends with
the girl’s escape through transformation. Examples of this sequence include the affairs of Apollo
and Daphne, Jove and Io, and Alpheus and Arethusa, in which the girls are transformed into a
laurel tree, a heifer, and water, respectively (Ovid 14-23, 117-8). Similarly, the image of the
virgin fleeing to preserve her chastity is repeated several times in Book III of The Faerie Queene.
Unlike the women in the Metamorphoses who undergo a physical transformation at the end of
the episode, Spenser submits the same character, Florimell, to repeated pursuit by various men
who are struck by her beauty.
Oddly enough, this very difference between the two poets’ use of this trope actually
supports one of their points of similarity: both Spenser and Ovid carefully select and recreate
mythical exempla to accord with their literary themes and purposes. This is an important
commonality between these poets, as both of them compose epics that employ the cohesive
strength of ongoing themes to reinforce the weaker points in the narrative plot. For Ovid, this
meant a daring recreation of the epic genre that was so completely dominated by such
venerable figures as Homer and Virgil that he could not hope to follow precisely in their
footsteps. Thus, Ovid needed to use epic style to write “a novel kind of epic poem” which
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revolved around the familiar themes of love and emotion, rather than the militaristic,
nationalistic, political matters addressed by Homer and Virgil (Griffin 61).
The first sentence of the Metamorphoses, “of bodies changed to other forms I tell” (Ovid
1), suggests that Ovid intends to write about something different and to incorporate the titular
theme of metamorphosis. The epic genre itself is being transformed by his poetry (Griffin 61).
By the time Spenser composed The Faerie Queene, the evolution of epic from its ancient roots
had progressed significantly and Spenser’s numerous predecessors – including Ovid – had
broadened the genre. Although The Faerie Queene does not imitate any one of them exclusively,
its use of overarching themes to link otherwise disjointed episodes within the book reflects a
strong Ovidian influence. Furthermore, in much the same way that Ovid brings elements like
emotion and humour to epic, Spenser “gave his own interpretation and colouring” to almost
everything he appropriated from literary influences (Bush 90).
The central theme of Book III is strictly limited to the virtue of chastity, and does not
consider love in the broad, emotional sense that it takes on in the Metamorphoses. However,
these are essentially two facets of the same complex idea and as such are approached by Ovid
and Spenser through strikingly similar methods, despite their different cultural associations. As
has been mentioned, both poets portray the chaste damsel in distress fleeing a lustful man or
god, and there are numerous instances in the Metamorphoses wherein the gods simply rape the
object of their desire without giving her a chance to run. Spenser and Ovid also deal with the
reverse situation, depicting a lustful female, although women never seem to actually commit
rape. In the first episode in Book III of The Faerie Queene for instance, Malecasta believes
Britomart to be a man and burns with lust for her, exhibiting a powerful female desire that
mimics that of Venus for Adonis. The tapestries in Malecasta’s home, Castle Ioyeous, depict “The
love of Venus and her Paramoure/The faire Adonis” (Spenser III.i.34), making the connection
between the two stories explicit.
Malecasta’s tapestries are later echoed by those in Busirane’s castle, which illustrate
various tales of the gods’ amorous affairs, particularly Jove’s (III. xi. 29-46). Finally, the
depiction of the victims of Cupid –
Kings Queenes, Lords Ladies, Knights & Damzels gent
Were heap’d together with the vulgar sort…
Without respect of person or of port,
To shew Dan Cupids power and great effort…
And a long bloudy riuer through them rayld,
So liuely and so like, that liuing sence it fayld.
(III. xi. 46) –
indicate a similar sentiment to that which Ovid expresses repeatedly in the Metamorphoses:
love can happen to anyone and does not usually end well. Certainly, the type of love that is
depicted in these tapestries is not a chaste love, but untamed lust. While Ovid accepts the gods’
lust as a matter of course, Spenser recasts these myths in the light of a Christian distinction
between faithful love and lust.
Interestingly, Ovid’s portrayal of such situations does not clearly indicate that lust or
even an attempted or achieved rape, is necessarily wrong, but seems to include these simply as
examples of the potentially negative effects of love. Ovid’s myths rarely evince concern with the
morality of love in its various forms, but accept these as part of human nature and human
experience. In general, love is inevitable, and in the Metamorphoses it tends to end badly for at
least one party. The fact that the gods of antiquity frequently participate in affairs that seem
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unjust or even cruel to humans reiterates the very different cultural perceptions that inform the
poetry of Ovid and Spenser, as the classical gods are more apt to enact the extremities of
passion than any of the virtues expounded by Spenser and his Christian society. The gods of
antiquity are not held up as ideals to be emulated, but powerful forces to be placated and
appeased in spite of their apparent injustice towards each other and humans.
Although Spenser does allude to some of the classical gods in his epic, their role in plot
development is significantly reduced and the truly powerful figures are those who represent
virtues rather than natural forces. Yet, despite so great a change, many of the scenarios in The
Faerie Queene are strikingly similar to episodes in the Metamorphoses. For example, the scene
wherein Britomart’s nurse, Glauce, determines “By knowen signes and passions” (III. ii. 33) that
Britomart is in love and promises to help her “To compasse [her] desire, and find that loued
knight” (III. ii. 46) is reminiscent of the myth of Myrrha (Ovid 234-41). In both stories, after
observing similar symptoms, the young woman’s nurse diagnoses her lovesickness and
promises to help her, but the significant difference between these two women is that
Britomart’s love is socially acceptable while Myrrha is hopelessly in love with her own father.
Just as the tapestries in Castle Joyeous overtly compare Malecasta’s lust to Venus’, so Glauce
makes the connection between her situation with Britomart and that of Myrrha and her nurse
by directly contrasting Britomart’s acceptable love with Myrrha’s incestuous love. In the same
breath, Glauce recalls another young woman of myth, Byblis, who fell in love with her own twin
brother (Ovid 213-20). However, Glauce evokes the tragic tales of Myrrha and Byblis, who
“lou’d their natiue flesh against all kind,/and to their purpose vsed wicked art” (III. ii. 41), as
foils for Britomart, whose love for Artegall is well within the bounds of acceptability. This
comparison functions to promote Spenser’s evolving ideal of chaste love by simultaneously
approving the heroic Britomart’s love and renewing the condemnation of incestuous love as
“shamefull lusts… which depart/From course of nature and of modestie” (III. ii. 41). For Spenser
and his audience there is no excuse for incest, and while Ovid’s accounts of Byblis and Myrrha
do not defend it, they do evoke a degree of sympathy, especially as their deities do not set an
example that mortals can follow. As Byblis points out, “the gods above/Are laws unto
themselves” (Ovid 214) and are therefore permitted to commit incest, among other human
crimes. Of all the love affairs recounted in the Metamorphoses, these stories are among the
longest and most emotional, as well as providing a rare instance of Ovid depicting a particular
kind of love as immoral.
The other example of unacceptable sexuality in the Metamorphoses is in the story of
Iphis, a girl disguised as a boy and betrothed to Ianthe, another girl. Iphis herself considers this
situation unnatural and “monstrous” (Ovid 222), and Spenser renews this censure of female
homosexuality in a very similar manner. Both Iphis and Britomart are forced to masquerade as
men, and in this guise they are beloved by Ianthe and Malecasta, respectively. Even as
Malecasta’s lust is compared to Venus’ love for Adonis, her unwittingly homosexual attraction
to Britomart clearly reflects the myth of Iphis and Ianthe as recounted in the Metamorphoses.
Although the stories end differently, with Iphis exemplifying the theme of metamorphosis by
transforming into a man and Britomart leaving Castle Ioyeous, both episodes make it clear that,
like incestuous love, homosexual love between two women simply cannot be.
The character of Belphoebe enters The Faerie Queene in Canto V, where she is described
as a “faire virgin…/To whom in perfect loue, and spotlesse fame/Of chastity, none liuing may
compaire” (III. v. 54). Spenser reveals that she was adopted at birth by the goddess Diana, “To
be vpbrought in perfect Maydenhed” (III. vi. 28). However, her version of chastity is one that,
while honourable, cannot admit love as Britomart’s does. It has been argued that the distinction
between what Belphoebe and Britomart represent would be clearer if Britomart held the title of
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true love, leaving Belphoebe as the perfect representation of chastity (Lemmi 138). Regardless
of such labels, this does appear to be the intention behind their characterization, with their
essential difference being that, although both women are chaste, only Britomart combines her
active chastity with sexual love in the right proportions and context. The character of
Belphoebe, although static, is still idealized to an extent for political purposes (Heale 85) as
indicated in the final lines of the proem: “But either Gloriana let her chuse,/Or in Belphoebe
fashioned to bee:/In th’one her rule, in th’other her rare chastitee” (III. 5). The lines allude to
Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen who is embodied by both the Faerie Queene herself and the
virginally chaste Belphoebe.
Belphoebe’s biological mother is an interesting example of chastity, though not of love.
Her divine conception by sunbeams and subsequent fear of “shame and foule disgrace,/Albe her
guiltlesse conscience her cleard” is reminiscent of Christ’s Immaculate Conception, but also
recalls the depiciton of divine births in classical mythology, in particular the conception of
Perseus, whose mother Jove impregnated in the form of a golden shower (Ovid 95). In contrast
to her mother and sister, Belphoebe’s twin sister, Amoret, was raised by Venus “To be
th’ensample of true loue alone” (III. vi. 52). Venus rears her in the Garden of Adonis, a fruitful
paradise that is the epitome of love and procreation without byproducts like lust and envy.
Among other wonders to be found here are many of the transformed lovers whose histories
Ovid recounts: Hyacinth, Narcissus, and even Adonis’ flowers all bloom here and recall their
various tales of metamorphosis, all of which conclude a love affair of some sort.
One of the most well-known of these transformations is that of Narcissus, who falls in
love with his own reflection and pines for himself until he dies and turns into a flower (Ovid 616). The idea of falling in love with a mere reflection surfaces in The Faerie Queene, Book III, but
in a very different context. Britomart’s first glimpse of Artegall is in a mirror, and the sight of
this reflection was enough to make her fall helplessly in love. In her case, however, the
reflection is not of herself and she is able to actively seek the object of her love. Such female
agency does not work for Echo, whose attempts to realize her love to Narcissus are spurned
until “weeping vigils waste her frame away” (Ovid 63). Ovid does not suggest that Narcissus’
self-love is immoral,like the loves of Myrrha, Byblis, and Iphis, but rather paints a tragically
ironic picture of Narcissus’ rejection of Echo and the punishment he suffers for doing so. Such
tales of unrequited love are pitiable, yet happiness in love is all too rare in the Metamorphoses.
However, there are a few instances of couples in the Metamorphoses whose chaste devotion
rivals that of Britomart. For example, Orpheus embarks on a quest to the underworld to save his
beloved Eurydice, and his emotionally-charged plea is nearly enough to save her. He ultimately
loses her, but remains faithful in spite of the many women who “burned with passion” for him
(Ovid 227). Whereas Britomart’s faithfulness is rewarded eventually, Orpheus is actually
dismembered by a band of women whom he has rejected. The happiest part of this love story is
the reunion of Orpheus and Eurydice in the underworld (Ovid 250-1).
One of the most famous and re-told stories of a love affair with disastrous
consequences is that of Paris and Helen of Troy, and while it is largely excluded from the
Metamorphoses, Ovid records it elsewhere and it is reincarnated in The Faerie Queene, Book III.
Paridell and Hellenore play the roles of Paris and Helen, while Menalaus is recast as Malbecco, a
miserly and distrustful old man. Following in the footsteps of their mythical counterparts,
Paridell and Hellenore deceive her husband, but Spenser rewrites the rest of the myth, which
becomes a criticism of Hellenore’s loose virtue and Malbecco’s greed for money. Unlike Ovid’s
lovers who are often unfairly punished by gods, Malbecco and Hellenore end up in situations
that seem appropriate to their actions: Helenore finds sexual satisfaction with a community of
satyrs and Paridell just wanders off to his next adventure. In keeping with the trend of
87
transformation in the Metamorphoses, however, Malbecco is eventually transformed into the
embodiment of “Gealosie” (III. x. 60).
These examples trace some of similarities between the ways in which Ovid and Spenser
approach the theme of love in these works, without suggesting that they had similar views of
the concepts of love, lust, and chastity. The cultures to which each of them belonged forbid such
a similarity, yet the fact that both of these poets rework some of the same myths to express
opposite perspectives says a great deal about the adaptive qualities of classical myth, as well as
the receptiveness of audiences to hear the same stories constantly evolving.
Works Consulted
Bush, Douglas. Mythology and the Renaissance Tradition in English Poetry. New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 1932. Print.
Griffin, Alan H. F. “Ovid's 'Metamorphoses',” Greece & Rome 24, 1 (1977): 57-70.
Heale, Elizabeth. The Faerie Queene: A Reader’s Guide. 2nd Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1987. Print.
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. A.D. Melville. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Print.
Lemmi, Charles W. “Britomart: The Embodiment of True Love,” Studies in Philology 31.2 (1934):
133-9
Seznec, Jean. “Myth in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,” Dictionary of the History of Ideas:
Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas. Ed. Philip P. Weiner. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1974. Web.
Spenser, Edmund. “The Third Booke of the Faerie Qveene,” The Faerie Queene. Ed. Thomas P.
Roche, Jr. London: Penguin, 1978. Print.
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From 1558 to 1603, Elizabethan England found itself in the paradoxical position
of being ruled by a female prince. As a result, while there are few women writers
in the period (and even fewer of note), Elizabethan literature demonstrates an
unusual preoccupation with gender and relationships between the sexes, and
simultaneously, with emotional and political power. Literary kinds which
conventionally reflect the male-dominated sphere of "ethic and politic
consideration" (as Sir Philip Sidney calls it in his Defence of Poesy) expanded to
incorporate lyric and pastoral, genres which focussed on private and emotional
concerns. As writers searched for alternatives to the martial metaphors by
which the political role of the king had been described or addressed with which
they could address a reigning queen, it became increasingly difficult to draw a
distinct line between the languages of romantic and political courtship.
The essays in this collection explore issues of “sex and politics” from a range of
critical perspectives.
Cover illustration:
The Armada Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, c.1588. George Gower.
Back cover illustration :
The Coronation Portrait, c. 1600. Copy of 1559 lost original. Artist Unknown.