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Research: on King Lear

The Period of Elizabethan-Jacobean Transition and its Women*

*DISCLAIMER:

The nature of this research, being of a time period without gender inclusive language and practice, generalizes the gender of women as trans-exclusionary and without acknowledgement of non-gender-conforming populations. This presentation will be using the term "women" broadly, in accordance with the sources cited.

THE LEGACY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH I

WHO RUN THE WORLD?

BACKGROUND:

The Tudor Dynasty

  • Henry VIII tried really hard to have a son, Edward VI, boy king who died young
  • Edward VI (20 Feb 1547 - 6 July 1553)
  • Lady Jane Grey* (10 - 19 July, 1553)
  • Mary I (1 Oct 1553 - 17 Nov 1558)
  • Elizabeth I (17 Nov 1558 – 24 March 1603)

YAS QUEEN

GOOD QUEEN BESS

  • restored English Protestantism
  • defeated the Spanish Armada
  • reign coincided with English Rennaissance
  • notably single

"I have already joined myself in marriage to a husband, namely the kingdom of England. Better beggar woman and single than Queen and married." (Elizabeth to Parliament) https://www.elizabethi.org/contents/quotes/

"The long reign of Elizabeth I, 1558-1603, was England's Golden Age. Merry England, in love with life. It expressed itself in music and literature, in sarchitecture and in adventurous seafaring." Encyclopaedia Britannica

"...she lived and wee have lived under her fortie and odde yeres so wonderfully blest, that all Nations have wondered at their owne afflictions and our prosperitie, and she dyed as she lived with us, still careful of our peace; finishing even the greatest wonder of all, our deserts considered by appointing the Kingdome to so just and lawfull a Ruler to succeede her: whom all true English knew for their undoubted Lord, immediately after her death."

Chettle, Henry. Englandes Mourning Garment Vvorne Here by Plaine Shepheardes; in Memorie of Their Sacred Mistresse, Elizabeth, Queene of Vertue While Shee Liued, and Theame of Sorrow, Being Dead. To Which Is Added the True Manner of Her Emperiall Funerall. After Which Foloweth the Shepheards Spring-Song, for Entertainement of King Iames Our Most Potent Soueraigne. Dedicated to All That Loued the Deceased Queene, and Honour the Liuing King. Printed at London: By V[alentine] S[immes] for Thomas Millington, and are to be sold at his shop vnder saint Peters Church in Cornhil, 1603. Print. https://essex.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44UOES_INST/ngp9lg/alma991008493054107346

Mary and Elizabeth are considered the first Queens Regnant of England. Attitudes toward Elizabeth I tend to be more favorable than those toward Mary I, or "Bloody Mary."

"With Mary and Elizabeth, the councilors and advisers involved with organizing their coronations had to confront and navigate not only new religious laws and the issue of supremacy but also, for the first time, gender."

Tudor Queenship : The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, edited by A. Hunt, and A. Whitelock, Palgrave Macmillan US, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/universityofessex-ebooks/detail.action?docID=652585.

Created from universityofessex-ebooks on 2023-02-28 12:02:44.

END OF THE TUDORS: JAMES VI and I

Union of the Crowns (James' Desire for Unification)

The Jacobean Union Controversy and King Lear

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"That the Jacobean debate over British union bears some relation to King Lear is beyond question, and Shakespeare's play has often been regarded as some sort of contribution- albeit a wary and pessimistic one- to the unionist campaign....King Lear, then, can be read as anti-unionist drama, subversively celebrating the division of Britain into England, Scotland and Wales as a natural, inevitable, and irreversible historical process....What is most significant and surprising in Lear, in other words, is not what it has to say about Britain, but what it stubbornly fails to say. Rather than exploiting the cherished tropes of British nationalism, for either loyal or subversive purposes, the play methodically empties them out and discards them."

Burgess, G, R Wymer, and J Lawrence. The Accession of James I: Historical and Cultural Consequences. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2006. Web. https://essex.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44UOES_INST/1h1udbn/cdi_askewsholts_vlebooks_9780230501584

Schwyzer, P. (2006). The Jacobean Union Controversy and King Lear . In: Burgess, G., Wymer, R., Lawrence, J. (eds) The Accession of James I. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi-org.uniessexlib.idm.oclc.org/10.1057/9780230501584_3

"Do we not remember that this Kingdom was divided into seven little Kingdoms besides Wales; and is it not now the stronger by their Union; and hath not the Union of Wales to England, added a greater strength thereto; which although it was a greater Principality, was nothing comparable in Greatness, and in Power; to the Ancient and Famous Kingdom of Scotland: But what should we stick upon any natural appearance, when it is manifest, that God of his Almighty Providence, hath preordained it so to be: Hath not God first united these Kingdoms, both in Language, Religion, and similitude of Manners?" James I. The Speech of King James the I. to Both Houses of Parliament Upon His Accession to, and the Happy Union of Both the Crowns of England and Scotland, Regally Pronounced, and Expressed by Him to Them, Die Jovis 22th. Martii 1603. London: printed for Richard Baldwin in the Old-Baily, 1689. Print.

https://essex.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44UOES_INST/ngp9lg/alma991008492930707346

Transcription: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A46455.0001.001/1:3.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext

LINK TO SOURCES: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LVqmEKMV0_IRcwW02U6XAnrujtYJSkXY1xSEADpAbhQ/edit?usp=sharing

It can be argued that, as one of Shakespeare's later plays, that King Lear adopts ambiguity in its morals and its narrative in order to communicate the complexity and ambiguity of progressing into the modernizing present with no real ties to what has happened in the past.

The legacy of England's first (whether considered "successful" or not) female rulers of authority left ambiguity in terms of what social structures and norms were to be continued into the future. This can be compared to the contrasting figures of Lear (the legacy of the old world) and his daughters (the present and future).

Ciarlene COleman, 2023

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