Unparadised women: Royal mistresses in early modern English literature.
Date
1994
Authors
Cornell, Christine Anne.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Dalhousie University
Abstract
Description
A beautiful victim, a high-priced prostitute, a lover, a powerful courtier, a destitute penitent--the royal mistress in early modern English poetry and drama is represented as all of these and more. This dissertation focuses on two mistresses who appear repeatedly in the literature of the period: Rosamond Clifford and "Jane" Shore. The aim of this project is to demonstrate that the representations of mistresses become a forum for cultural debate. The interaction of sexuality, gender, and power in these stories provides us with an opportunity to observe a range of recuperative and subversive responses to patriarchy and its discontents. Chapter One establishes the historical context through an examination of the careers of Anne Boleyn and Aemilia Lanyer, two very different mistresses. Chapter Two introduces Rosamond Clifford and explores Samuel Daniel's problematic creation of an "unparadised" middle ground for the mistress. Chapter Three examines representations by William Warner, Michael Drayton, Thomas Deloney, and Thomas May, each of whom offers a different perspective on the mistress as victim or lover. Chapter Four introduces "Jane" Shore (actually Elizabeth) and considers the representations of Sir Thomas More and Thomas Churchyard who both present the mistress as a powerful and responsible courtier. Chapter Five discusses the attempts to depoliticise Shore by Anthony Chute and Thomas Heywood which are balanced by the more optimistic views of individual agency in The True Tragedy and in Drayton's verse epistles. The conclusion emphasises the importance of employing a relational approach when attempting an examination of ideological stances as they are represented in texts, and offers a recapitulation of the positions taken in representative texts discussed in the course of the dissertation. Finally, the strategies and findings of the project are applied to two paintings of "Jane" Shore.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1994.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1994.
Keywords
Literature, English.