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Olivia as an imaguncula of Queen Elizabeth, the most conspicuous being Feste’s nickname for his mistress, ‘Madonna’. The word is Italian, and means ‘lady’ or ‘my lady’. But to the ears of Elizabethans (and us) it recalls the Madonna, Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus and Virgin Queen of Heaven. As noted, Elizabeth was styled ‘the Virgin Queen’. Though Shakespeare could have
moments, the body of Elizabeth I and the theatricalisation of her power intersect with the body of the modern film star. In order to do so, we focus on four actresses: Flora Robson in Fire Over England (William Howard, 1937) and The Sea Hawk (Michael Curtiz, 1940), Bette Davis in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (Michael Curtiz, 1939) and The Virgin Queen (Henry Koster, 1955), Jean Simmons
casting of Crisp in Orlando could be read as appropriate. Elizabeth I did not marry or have children, and was known as ‘the Virgin Queen’. Christopher Haigh, in his biography of Elizabeth I, reveals that a Scottish emissary said to the Queen, ‘[Y] our Majesty thinks that if you were married you would be but queen of England, and now you are both king and queen!’ 8 Crisp, despite the erotic exploits
. Shakespeare’s play features a young woman nicknamed ‘Madonna’ – a name associated with the Virgin Queen of Heaven – who is courted by a duke named Orsino. And Elizabeth did style herself the ‘Virgin Queen’. But had Virginio Orsini really travelled to London with flirtation in mind? Virginio was married, and a play implying a liaison with Elizabeth would have given offence to both
quasi-religiously adored virgin Queen Bess’. 21 Elizabeth is memorialised on screen as a queen who placed the needs of her nation above her sexual and reproductive desires, sac-rificing ‘the “natural” destiny of a woman, marriage and children, trading personal happiness for public power’. 22 Her self-negation is linked to a glorious reign ‘of imperial and creative supremacy’ 23 in films such as Fire
machinations of little-known parliamentarians. 8 But the family values espoused in the Victorian canon are a world away from the themes explored in films portraying her greatest screen rival, Elizabeth I. Unencumbered by the reserved image of an English gentlewoman, the Virgin Queen enters the cinema as the diva of royal representation – magnificent, passionate, singular. Fittingly, her most notable early film
. Visually, the mise-en-scène is almost identical to Delaroche. Details are true, too, to recorded history: we know, for instance, that ermine was long an emblem of chastity and thus considered appropriate to the depiction of the Virgin Queen. We know that Elizabeth was painted with an ermine on her arm in 1585 (the ‘Ermine’ portrait, attributed to William Segar). We also know that during her final hours
declaration, the crowning of the Queen of the South, the singing of the song and various ceremonial parades around the town, as well as a ball. 21 Smith suggests that the centrality of the coronation of a ‘virgin’ queen in these festivals testifies to the sense of security attained when people ‘reaffirm the rightness of the moral rules by which they live or feel they ought to live’ in a society ‘held together
suggested the possibility that Thomas Nashe’s madam, associated with Venus, may have glanced at Queen Elizabeth and her famous jealousy of courtier-favorites who fell for (and married) ladies-in-waiting. In this section and the “coda” that follows, I continue to explore the satirical potential for mocking the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth, by associating her—more or less circuitously—with Venus. I will look at two poems, Spenser’s Muiopotmos; or, The Fate of the Butterflie, which, though part of the recalled Complaints volume, has never been perceived as the target of the
goddesse plaine, And I her shepherds swayne, Albee forswonck and forswatt I am. 70 90 cryen: plural ending in -en fully, absolutely although 57-9 Scarlot, Ermines, Cremosin] attributes of royalty and/or high birth. Cremosin] crimson. 60-63 E.K. points out how the crown is set with flowers rather than ‘perles and precious stones’. 65 Phœbe] Diana: the usual comparison for the virgin queen. 68 Redde rose ... White] emblems of the Houses of Lancaster and York respectively in the Wars of the Roses. The Tudor dynasty, founded by Elizabeth’s grandfather Henry VII, claimed